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17
Jun
Finding Balance – Saving Time

How to find balance in bloggingWhen we start blogging, we usually add blogging to our already busy schedule. As our platter of life fills up, we begin to feel overwhelmed.

Finding balance is ideal, but where do we start?

Today’s Lesson

Listed below are a few blogging tips to help save time and find balance.

  1. Write mission, vision and value statements.

    2. A clear blogging focus will help to keep us on track.

  2. Evaluate how much time is spent on social networking sites.

    3. Social networking is a great activity if we want to get, and keep our name out there and catch up with our online friends. However,  it’s often unproductive time. Reducing the amount of time we spend on social networking sites may be beneficial.

  3. Ask, “what can I automate?”

    4. With WordPress there are many plugins we can use to save time. Take, for example, the WordPress database backup plugin. We set the schedule. It does the rest, automatically.

  4. Reduce the amount of time spent checking statistics.

    5. I used to be a stataholic and would check my statistics WAY too often. I finally realized it was a waste of time. Now when I look at my stats, it’s to see what search strings visitors used to find my blogs and where the traffic is coming from i.e. social networking sites, search engines, direct.

  5. Access what blogging activities are helping to get our blog found.

    6. If visiting other blogs and commenting is helping, concentrate on that. What about social networking? Is it beneficial? What about  SEO (search engine optimization) work?   (This information can be found in your stats.)

  6. Quit guessing. Time yourself.

    7. Use a timer to check exactly how much time you are spending on blogging activities. I timed myself on Twitter and although I guessed I had only spent fifteen minutes socializing, it was closer to an hour. Yikes!!!

  7. Trying to make money with a blog? Start simple (or wait).

    8. When I started blogging, I wasted many hours placing and changing affiliate ads on my blogs. Little did I know spending that much time trying to make money on a blog which got very little traffic was worthless.

  8. Give ideas time to work.

    9. Impatience can be our enemy. Let’s say we decide to try something new on our blog. After a week it’s not getting the results we expected, so we drop that idea and go to “plan b” or “plan c”. In blogosphere (as in life) new ideas take time. Practice patience.

  9. Ask for help

    10. Like many of you, I don’t like to ask for help. However, it’s tough to do it all and do it good. Asking others for their suggestions or hiring a professional to handle specific aspects of our blog (such as coding or design) will allow us to spend time on that which we enjoy.

  10. Have fun.

    11. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in our blogs we forget to enjoy the blogging journey. Make time to get away from the blog. Introduce yourself to other bloggers. Jump on a social networking site. Exchange ideas. Share a joke. Have a laugh. :lol:

Your blog will wait.

Control your blog. Don’t let your blog control you (and your life).

Today’s Assignment:

How do you find time to do it all?

Do you have any time-saving tips or ideas of how to gain balance?

Or do you have a question either I or someone else can answer for you?

Care to share?

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Photo Credit: SeeMidTN.com (aka Brent)

Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Networking, New To Blogging, Plugins and Widgets, Posting, SEO, Stats, WordPress  67 Comments
22
Nov
I Shoulda…

Do you remember when you first started blogging? Wordpress publish button image

Although I don’t think about it often, I still do.

I was scared to hit “publish” the first few times, and I worried because I kept switching my theme.

I didn’t know any of the blogging terms either.

Being self taught, I spent most of my non-writing time searching for help, but even when I found help, I usually didn’t understand what to do with it.

I was pretty naive.

Today’s Lesson

When I think back to when I first started blogging, I didn’t have too many expectations except for thinking I could make lots of some money by having a blog.

  • I wasted a lot of time signing up for affiliate networks and tweaking my Google AdSense ads.


  • I didn’t know that without thousands of visitors a day, making a decent income from a blog was out of the question. When I figured it out (that I needed traffic to make money), I wasted time trying to get more traffic, too. Instead, I should have been learning more about SEO (search engine optimization) and spending less time looking for an “easy way”.


  • I wanted comments. Little did I know I should have kicked the “If I build it, they will come” attitude and should have spent time visiting and commenting on other blogs.


  • Although I worried about changing my theme so often, I should have realized without a steady stream of visitors, it really didn’t matter.


  • I love numbers, so for me checking my statistics became a daily obsession. Instead of wasting time watching the numbers rise and fall, I should have spent time either writing and publishing or learning techniques which would take me closer to my goals.


  • Social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook can be fun, but they can also be addicting. Before signing up, I should have asked myself if the benefits of participating in social networking will outweigh the investment of my time.


Truth be told, I wasted a lot of time on blogging activities I should have postponed until later or maybe not even got involved in, but that’s in the past.

What about you?

Today’s Assignment

Looking back, if you had to do it all over again, where would you have spent more time?

Where would you have spent less time?

Care to share?

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Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Comments, Hints, Increase Traffic, Making Money, SEO, Social Networking  Tags: , , , , , , ,  59 Comments
12
Nov
Dont Believe Everything You Read

It’s that time again. Time to revisit the topic of blogging myths.

Buried in the archives you’ll find a previous post on blogging myths. Today we’ll expand on them and add a few more.

Today’s Lesson

  1. We can blog for free.

    2. It’s true. In some instances we can blog without spending any money, however, bloggers often forget to put a price on their time.

    If blogging is taking us away from an opportunity that can increase our income, or is jeopardizing our career or real life relationships, than the cost to blog just went up.

  2. Spend time visiting blogs in your niche.

    3. I think it’s important to see what other bloggers in our niche are doing, however to ONLY visit blogs in our niche can be detrimental in the event we’re attempting to sell a product or service. Trying to sell a product or service to someone who does exactly what we do is like trying to sell snowballs to an Eskimo.

    Branch out and introduce yourself to your potential audience, not just your competition.

  3. The blog with the most comments is the most popular.

    4. Most bloggers love to see large comment counts on their blog, however the success of a blog is not measured by the number of comments it receives. Success is often measured by the number of visitors, subscribers, page views, Alexa rating, Google page rank, incoming links, money earned, etc. A successful blog can have all of these yet have very few comments.

  4. You can make lots of money blogging.

    5. Truth be told, without a readership of thousands each day, our chance of making an income (from AdSense or affiliate links) large enough to quit our day job is slim.

    That said, a blog can be a fantastic stepping stone from which to launch a business.

  5. Online thieves and spammers are not interested in small or new blogs.

    6. It doesn’t matter if your blog has ten posts or ten thousand, if an online thief or spammer wants to steal from or spam your blog, they will.  They do because they can. No one is exempt.

  6. Freedom of speech allows a blogger to say whatever they want on their blog.

    7. Many bloggers believe because it’s their personal blog, they can publish whatever they want. If a blog post or comment contains false information about another person or a business, you could be sued. For more information on this topic, I recommend becoming familiar with the Electronic Frontier Foundation website, plus blogging responsibly.

  7. You must update your blog daily.

    8. It’s your blog. If you don’t feel like publishing a new post, don’t. According to the Technorati State of the Blogosphere 2010 report, the average amount of times a blogger updates their blog is 2-3 times per week. That said, some have reported they publish up to 14 posts per day. Whew!

    Find a blogging rhythm and publishing schedule that works for you.

  8. The best way to have a successful blog is to copy what the A-list bloggers are doing.

    9. Although we can learn from those who came before us, being authentic will get us further in the long run and will make it easier for us to remain genuine. Dare to be different.

  9. No one reads our “About Me” page.

    10. Truth be told, our “about me” page is often the first thing a visitor looks for and reads. This is especially true when fellow bloggers land on our site. Not only does the “about me” page tell a reader who we are, but it can set the tone for our entire blog.

    Take time to construct your “about me” page so it’s a true reflection of you and what a reader can expect if they subscribe to your blog.

Today’s Assignment

When you started blogging, what blogging myth(s) lead you down the wrong path?

Can you think of other blogging myths new bloggers should be aware of?

Care to share?

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Category: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons, Comments, SEO, Writing Tips  Tags: , , , , ,  49 Comments
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