10 awesome ways to becoming the best blogger

Between working a full day, exercising, spending time with family and friends, cooking, commuting, admin, walking the dog, washing up, cleaning and sleeping, it is incredible to me how you can then add on managing your own blog…but you can! Blogging is hard work, you won’t be able to post a few times and then have thousands of followers and advertising deals; it will require a lot of time, effort and nurturing. However, there are a few tips that can save you time and stress to manage your blog effectively around your 9 – 5. Here are a few:

1. Schedule social content

Whether you use Hootsuite, Buffer or one of the other social media schedulers out there, taking 30 minutes a week to schedule Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn posts can be a huge time saver. Blogs require a lot of nurturing and keeping your social presence updated regularly will help with blog traffic too, leaving you more time to actually write your blogs.

2. Schedule your blog posts

Not just your social content should be scheduled, I would recommend scheduling your blogs in advance too. Most blog hosting sites give you the ability to do this and it is a handy tool. Life throws things up, a delayed train or impromptu party night and you don’t want to stress yourself out by knowing if you don’t post your blog tonight it will throw your editorial schedule out of whack. Save yourself the hassle, write a week in advance and schedule it.

3. Use your commute

Most of us have a commute upwards of one hour a day – use this wasted time! Rather than playing games on your phone or just listening to the radio, use this time to brainstorm ideas or even gather inspiration around you. If you are driving dictate to your phone’s voice recorder (hands-free of course) or just switch the radio off and think about which themes you want to start or continue blogging about.

4. Take advantage of your ‘creative hour’

Everyone has their most creative time of the day or week; I become alive at night and from about 8 pm I write my best blogs. When you get into this creative groove don’t stop when you’ve written your posts for the week, why not write a couple of next weeks’ too? It will save you time next week and as your creative juices are flowing your blog will definitely be better than when you sit down to write it not feeling it.

5. Refresh old posts

This is very important for all bloggers, life is busy and you won’t always have a chance to write completely new content. It’s now said no idea is original, this is the same for your blogs – other people will have written about it and you will research them for your blog. Why not research yourself and repurpose an old blog? Revamp it for the current time, maybe with a new view or with more life experience – link back to your old blog too, so your readers can see the journey you have been on.

6. Find editorial inspo in your daily life

You can find inspiration in your everyday life. Are you a career blogger? I am sure you have been in a meeting this week – what did you think could be improved? Travel blogger? If you are travelling for work, add on an extra day and explore that place. Lifestyle blogger? Adverts and people walking in the street can all be great inspiration for your next blogging theme. Make sure to record them in an app like Evernote to keep those ideas safe.

7. Make an editorial calendar

Having an editorial calendar is very important to manage your blog around a busy life; try HubSpots free calendar to see how easy it is! Being able to write down themes, blog titles and then visually see it can give you strategically valuable information. Do you have too many blogs on one topic? A large part of the week where nothing is scheduled? You will have to be hard on yourself. In your job you would hit the deadlines your boss sets you, well it’s the same for your blog. You have set yourself a deadline, so hit it. If you don’t then your editorial calendar will slip and your posting frequency will decline and your blog will suffer.

8. Blog from your phone

If you have chosen one of the popular blogging hosting sites then the likelihood is there is an app to compliment it. The ease of answering questions on the go, writing down ideas and also editing your blogs (if you see a typo) is fantastic way to stay on top of your blog. Check out the WordPress app.

9. Guest blogger?

You may want your blog to stay exclusively yours, however, if the pressure of keeping your blog relevant and posting prolifically gets to you then you should think about opening your blog out to guest bloggers. You would set the title and only recruit those writers who you have sampled their writing, however, it can turn into a fruitful relationship from both sides. An aspiring blogger gets their name out there and you get more content and more time for you.

10. Use your spare time wisely

Your 9 – 5 (or 8 – 7 for most of us now) is your main priority unfortunately, that is the one that provides the laptop for you to write your blogs on. Until your blog overtakes your job, you must treat it with respect. I would caution against actual writing at work and utilise your ‘wasted time’; we all have wasted time in our week. My biggest wasted time: the travelling time to my family, four hours every month; so while my partner drives I kick-back, route wifi through my phone and blog away on my laptop.

Do you have any other tips? Let me know by commenting below.