A recent Hubspot survey showed that most business bloggers write no more than one blog entry a week. In 2010 2-3% write multiple blog entries per day, 8% write one per day, 29% write 2-3 per week. 38% write once a week, 17% monthly and 6% less than once a month. For those who write 2-3 blog entries per week, Hubspot says 69% have acquired a customer from their blogging activities. At one blog entry per day 90% of bloggers have acquired customers, and with multiple blog entries per day 100% have gotten customers.
How do we blog with discipline to increase the frequency of our blog entries without sacrificing quality? I have my own ideas, and I’ve also surveyed some of my favorite blogs about blogging.
1. Keep a file for your blog ideas. When you get an idea, you can write it down and throw it in the file. Then all your ideas are in the same place. When it’s time to write, open the file and choose the topic that inspires you most.
2. I now maintain a spreadsheet of blog ideas on my laptop. I also enter blog ideas into the notes file on my iPhone. The spreadsheet allows me to categorize blog ideas by category and to strategically I.D. blog tags to use on the entries. In this way, I can be aware of which categories need more writing and which have the most blog entries.
3. Tie blogging to something you do regularly and create a system. I jog five miles three times a week, so I’ve tied blogging to jogging. Before I go out to run, I look at my blog spreadsheet or my blog folder and choose a topic to think about on the run. I’m slow (about a 12 minute mile), so an hour later I usually have some content that I’ve pondered and sometimes even a good headline. The danger is forgetting what I think on in mile two by the time I end at mile five!
4. Copyblogger recommends writing blog entries in advance when you are inspired, so that you will be prepared for those days where your blog-writing muse isn’t with you. Copyblogger also recommends scheduling blogs for the future, if your blogging platform allows this.
5. Hubspot suggests that you take information from your Press Releases and create blog entries. Also ask vendors and alliance partners to submit information.
6. A lot of blogs do a good job when the authors mix in video and interviews with people to create more content. This definitely mixes things up for those following a blog written by one person.
How do you blog with discipline? How frequently do you blog? Please comment below.
Photos by AF-Photography on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0
