In a recent post on our Sumer Facebook page, we asked you “What do you think is the biggest challenge to blogging?” Some of the responses we received included . . .
- Being consistent.
- Getting comments.
- Keeping content fresh.
- Keeping content relevant.
- Having automated content distribution available (i.e. posting on the blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).
- Keeping up with reading and commenting on other blogs in my niche.
Are you struggling with similar blog issues? If so, no need to fret. I’m going to breakdown each of these blogging pains and provide remedies to each.
See below for tips on how to eliminate these blogging challenges from your life:
Problem—being consistent: Many small business owners find it difficult to be consistent with publishing their posts and sticking to a set schedule. This often happens because small business owners have to wear numerous hats in their business and some days they need to focus their attention on one specific area of their business. Unfortunately, this leads them to neglect their other areas of business, including their marketing efforts. Well, your blog readers don’t care that you have other things to do. If you’re not publishing posts on a consistent basis, you’re going to lose readership, and you’re going to lose it fast.
Remedy: To ensure that your posts publish on a consistent basis, you must first set yourself an editorial calendar that you will abide by. Set the days and times that you will publish your posts and be sure that each week is the same. For example, if you choose to publish posts three days a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 8:00 a.m., then stick to that schedule. People like consistency and don’t take well to unexpected changes. Therefore, always keep your schedule the same so that people can expect your posts to publish on specific days.
To ensure that all of your posts publish on their scheduled days, I suggest batching your writing. When you can sit down and write three to four posts in one sitting, you can be certain that you’re already prepared for the week. And should something come up during the middle of the week, your blog is already taken care of, with posts ready to publish. And, you can also schedule your posts to publish on certain days, so after you batch your writing you can add each of your posts to the backend and schedule them for the week. You won’t have to access the backend of your blog for a whole other week because all of your posts are ready to go!
Problem—getting comments: Facilitating engagement and interaction among your blog readers can be a difficult task. Even though you might work hard to write your blog posts, this doesn’t mean that readers will comment.
Remedy: The key to engaging your audience and encouraging them to leave comments on your blog is to provide them with great value that speaks directly to their needs and interests. When your blog posts are in line with your audience’s needs and desires, they’ll be more likely to leave a comment and interject themselves in the conversation. You also want to be sure to ask questions at the end of your blog posts and use calls to action that facilitate conversation and comments among your readers. When you ask questions, you may stimulate something inside of your readers that inspires them to leave a comment and join the conversation.
To figure out what your target audience is looking to read about, do some market research. You can perform market research through searches on Google to find out what are some hot topics in your industry and worldwide. You can also perform searches on Facebook and Twitter to see what your audience is talking about. After you’ve performed these searches and listened to the conversation among your audience, you can then cater your next blog posts around these topics and conversations. Publishing posts that discuss trending topics among your audience will make it more likely for you to receive comments on these posts.
Love this blog and want to receive instant updates to your RSS reader? Click here to subscribe to our RSS feed.
