Is it just me, or can the whole process of blogging seem like a bit of a rollercoaster ride? Think about it: when you were just starting the process, you got yourself all strapped in and buckled up and you were pretty sure you knew what you were in for. You rode the highs of publishing your first few blog posts and gained some momentum by sharing your blogs on various social media channels, but you may not have been prepared for the ride’s inevitable low points.
The low points of the rollercoaster ride of blogging are different for everybody. Maybe you lost your best blog author to a different company or your business experienced an influx of new projects and tasks and blogging fell to the wayside. Maybe you’ve gotten hit with a touch of writers’ block and feel you’ve already written about all of your relevant topics. Maybe you simply got frustrated when your blogs weren’t getting as many views, comments or shares as you were hoping for.
No matter which low (or lows) you’ve experienced, it’s easy to lose patience and feel discouraged. As a result, you may have decreased the frequency of posting, or taken a hiatus from posting altogether (whether you planned to or not).
If you’ve fallen into a blogging black hole – or if you fear you may be close to one – we’ve got some step-by-step tips to help you find your way back to successful blogging.
This may seem like an awfully obvious first step, but it’s the best place for you to start after taking some time off from blogging. Sure, it will be a little daunting at first, but getting back into the groove is something that you’ll just need to get out of the way. Set some time aside on your calendar to sit down and write, even if what you write isn’t directly related to your industry or business. Get yourself comfortable with writing again and get that first “blog” out of the way.
Once you’ve become a little more comfortable with writing again, start working on a topic that’s more aligned with your business. If you’re not sure of where to start, write about the changes that your industry saw since you last posted, or any new products or services that your company came out with during that time and how you can continue offering benefits to your target customers. If you don’t have any industry news or business updates to post on and you’re feeling stuck on a topic, take a look at our list of tips for blogging when there’s nothing to blog about.
Or, if you don’t already have a blog team in place, start assembling a group of people who will contribute to your company’s blog. Hold a meeting with your blog team to energize and rejuvenate them. Remind them of the processes and best practices for blogging. Start holding regular blog meetings so that the group can brainstorm together, sharing ideas and topics to keep your blog full of great content.
Remind your team of the goals and objectives for your blog. Celebrate the victories you’ve had together in the past and re-establish the goals you’ll be working toward to get your team excited about jumping back into the world of blogging.
Once you’ve re-familiarized yourself with your goals, benchmarks and the strategy that you’ll use to drive your blogging efforts, take some time to get to know the metrics and analytics that you’ll be using to monitor your blog. Perhaps you originally got discouraged because your number of blog views wasn’t as high as you were expecting. Maybe you even started thinking thoughts along the lines of “What’s the point of putting the time and effort into blogging for such minimal views?”
This time around, make sure you’re monitoring the right metrics. Will you focus more on views or on conversion rates? Sure, your blog posts may have averaged a small number of views, but how did your conversion rates shake out? It’s easy to get hung up on the number of blog views, but try to focus more on your conversion rate this time around. Keep in mind, though, that not every blog can be your top performer, but it’s still important to continue posting regularly – not only to get more information out for your readers, but for the SEO benefits as well.
It’s easy to feel discouraged and to shy away from blogging if you’ve experienced some of these low points, but as Babe Ruth once said, you should never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. I encourage you to get up, brush yourself off and get right back into the world of blogging. Need some extra help along the way? Check out our free tip sheet below to help keep your blog stocked with great content!
Topics: Content Marketing
