It can be overwhelming and stressful to be blogging solo, but when you consider the ways to get around that, your productivity will improve.
When you are a 1-person team, you can often lose touch with the outside world. You can get stuck in your own head, and your content may suffer as a result.
Don’t let that happen by implementing these 5 strategies and using their corresponding tools.
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1) Seek Others’ Input
The truth is: You can’t do blogging entirely alone. You need to ask others for their advice and input.
- You can ask people to help you create topics for future content.
- You can create a draft and have people critique it for a fresh perspective.
- You can do an evaluation survey to see what others think you need to work on.
When bloggers spend all their time in their own head, they can often lose touch with what their readers really want to see. Having people participate in your blog development is key because it gives you that missing element.
Tools to guide you:
- Twitter polls for idea generation
- Ask your followers what topics they want to see most.
- Email surveys for evaluations
- Ask your subscribers what they think you’re doing right vs. what you need to improve upon
- Use Survey Monkey or Google Forms
- Ask your subscribers what they think you’re doing right vs. what you need to improve upon
- Friends / family / coworkers
- Ask them to read and critique your drafts.
- Let them give you their ideas that you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
- Ask them to read and critique your drafts.
- Focus groups
- Get more information about your buyer personas and what they want to see from you.
2) Reserve Time for Research
Blogging is a never-ending commitment as you are writing content every day / week. You need to have the resources at your disposal to regularly find topics and content ideas.
Researching content topics and ideas is essential when you’re blogging solo because there won’t be anyone else on your team to feed it to you.
But what can you do to research?
Tools to help you:
- Twitter lists for idea generation
- Create at least 1 list, including the users that share the most relevant, useful content for you to reference.
- Make your list public so that users are notified of their participation.
- Create at least 1 list, including the users that share the most relevant, useful content for you to reference.
- Blog subscriptions for content to cite
- Subscribe to various industry blogs to find content you can reference within your own posts for a more authoritative article.
- You can also use these subscriptions to generate topic ideas for your own blog.
- Subscribe to various industry blogs to find content you can reference within your own posts for a more authoritative article.
- Competition for gaining an edge
- Don’t fall behind but rather gain an advantage over your competition by seeing what they’re doing and going one step further.
3) Commit to a Set Schedule
Without a set schedule for all your blogging activities, you will lose track, and you will become overwhelmed at times.
You can prevent all that by having everything written out and organized in a calendar. Make sure you choose a method that fits your needs, not necessarily the most recommended or trending approaches.
Tools to consider:
- CoSchedule for an all-in-one online program
- It has a cost, but the features make it worth the investment if you can afford it.
- Google Calendar
- A free alternative to CoSchedule that lets you organize your day by events and tasks
- Excel
- You can use an Excel sheet to maintain your topic records and activity history.
- You can also plan your future content.
- You can use an Excel sheet to maintain your topic records and activity history.
- Paper planner
- Sometimes, an old-fashioned paper planner can work best, even if you use it as a secondary system to your online program.
- Planners are portable and easy to reference on-the-go.
- Sometimes, an old-fashioned paper planner can work best, even if you use it as a secondary system to your online program.
5 Strategies and Tools for Blogging Solo
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4) Continue to Educate Yourself
“There is no end to education. It’s not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti
As Jiddu said, there is no end to education. So, you need to continuously educate yourself on marketing trends and advice.
Just like with other fields, marketing is constantly changing. Trends change. The techniques that worked one day might not work the next. There will constantly be new tools and approaches to try and take advantage of with your own marketing.
Find a way to stay informed. It could mean classes or simply reading articles, books and ebooks.
Tools to lead you:
- HubSpot Academy
- They have an Inbound Certification course that is highly credible and great to have if you’re looking for new opportunities or want to be more influential.
- Google Analytics Academy
- Google helps you better understand how to use their analytics tool, which is essential for measuring your blogging results.
- Read independently
- Find the books, ebooks and blogs to read daily for trending blogging tips.
- WordStream’s course list
- You can always check out this list of courses for more ideas.
5) Know When to Step Away
It may seem easiest and most productive to just spend the day every day getting your thoughts in writing. You might often spend hours typing away about all your new ideas and content, but are you forgetting to take breaks? Don’t.
In order to be most productive, you don’t just spend hours on the computer. Taking breaks give your mind time to refresh, which will actually help your productivity even more.
It may seem like interrupting your workflow would harm your productivity, but in fact, it helps considerably. These are the benefits to consider:
- Rest your mind and body for physical health
- Rest your mind to give yourself time to refresh
- Take time to think about other ideas and brainstorm new approaches
- Take time to spend with family and friends to socialize and get away from your own mind
- Improve the quality of your content with fresh ideas and perspectives
Tools to help you:
- Pomodoro technique
- Set up a timer that reminds you to take breaks.
- Follow it even when you think you’re “on a roll.”
- Set up a timer that reminds you to take breaks.
- “Unplug”
- Go offline and leave the technology behind.
- Spend time outside and / or with family and friends (socialize).
- Go offline and leave the technology behind.
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Now that you know these 5 strategies, what will you do next? Will you commit to these recommendations or let yourself continue down the harder path?
Don’t force yourself to take the uphill road. These strategies will help you walk an easier path for more success and fewer consequences.
Recap:
- Seek others’ input
- Reserve time for research
- Commit to a set schedule
- Continue to educate yourself
- Know when to step away
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Let’s discuss further! What strategies do you use when you’re blogging alone? What do you do to maintain a strong, productive blogging process? Leave a comment with your thoughts!
Want to know more about blogging solo? Interested in continuing this conversation? Contact me directly!
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