7 Tips for Dealing with Blog Burnout
Written by Karen Bryan
I’ve been an online publisher for ten years and a blogger for six years. Sometimes blog burnout hits and you just can’t get down to working through that long to-do list. Although being a blogger with the ability to work from anywhere is often portrayed as a soft option compared to having a regular day job, there is a constant need/pressure to keep writing and promoting new material. Ideally, you want to publish a minimum of two articles (posts in blogger lingo) a week on your blog and get as much exposure/traffic as possible for these articles. While that might not sound like much, that’s every single week of the year, plus you may have more than nore blog (I have two).
So how to you minimise blog burnout? Here are my seven tips:
- Always have at least two weeks worth of articles in reserve. You could be ill, have a family emergency or hit writer’s block.
- Anytime that you think of a topic write it down; not so easy when you’re lying in bed.
- In my opinion, it’s better to have fewer decent articles, than just writing anything to keep up with your schedule.
- Take seach engine optimisation (SEO) into account when selecting topics for articles. Write about things for potential readers, especially subjects with low competition. Then you’re likely to get more traffic.
- Try to have a life outside blogging. Easier said than done, as you can get so drawn into it; there’s always so much to do, e.g. promote your material on social media, do SEO, sell ads.
- Spend less time on social media and more time producing content for your own blog. Tweeting, doing Facebook updates and pinning photos on Pinterest can soak up a lot of your time and energy that could be better spent writing great articles that will bring traffic and then readers may promote you.
- It’s not the end of the world if you don’t publish anything for a week or two. If it means that you come back refreshed, it could even be a positive thing, as long as it’s an infrequent occurrence.
What are your strategies for dealing wiht blog burnout?
The other day my friend gave me an excellent tip: use dictating software to write your articles. It’s a lot easier to say things than writing them (for me at least). Usually by the time I write down half of my idea, the rest gets lost in distractions. Dragon Naturally Speaking is one such software that was recommended to me. I’m not doing this just yet but think I’m going to give it a try – should help a lot with blogger burnout (having to type something vs. talking about it).
That’s a great idea about the voice recognition software. I tried Dragon about 5/6 years ago and it needed a bit of training up first, but I believe the straight-out-of-the-box accuracy has since much improved. I think I’ll give it another go, it could go a long way towards beating that writing barrier. Thanks.
Veronica & Drew – What about podcasts? I don’t seem to get around to recording as often as I intend to.
Great tips Karen! My strategy was to quit my job lol. That thing just got in the way of everything! :p Focus is a big thing for me. Some people can multi-task really well but I’m not one of them. I require complete focus to achieve anything. I think the toughest part of blogging is to find time to manage your sites, have it not affect your work and still have a live. Like you said, easier said than done!
I haven’t gone down that road yet, but now I am armed. Thanks!
I like the idea of using voice recognition software, too. It’s a nice way to break up the writing. Podcasts are also a good way to diversify content.
I only wish have discovered this article earlier as I only found out about using keywords which have low competition a few weeks ago!
I am still going to struggle with having 2 weeks worth of posts ready in case of emergencies as I tend to post once a week and do a post that is most relevant to that time. At least I now know to push forward with this and come up with some posts which aren’t so time relevant.
Thank you.
Gemma – Forward scheduling can be a problem as things can quickly change in personal finance e.g. interest rates on savings accounts or special offers for products.
SEO is important, as writing about topic for which there is a demand but not too much competition gives you a head start.