Hello and welcome to my (definitely not weekly) update! The last time I posted on progress with my blog was mid June. Since then my day job took over and I haven’t really been able to put out new content. I have been finding ways to spend what bit of time I had profitably though. This post covers what I have learned. At the bottom of the post I will share my progress for July 18 and going forward I plan to share monthly. Please note – this is an update on the process of running and developing my blog rather than on the crochet side. For crochet updates and patterns – please check out the craft projects area of my blog! 🙂
How to keep up blog progress when you have NO time! 10 ideas below.
It takes a long time to craft a blog post. At least, it takes ME a long time to craft a blog post. Maybe some of you have them tripping off your fingers and all the technical tweaks and twiddles just glide through in your world….. mine is more of a struggle. Write, read back, edit, read back, scrap and start again, write, read back repeat…. then once I have a post I am more or less happy with…. time spent fighting with the idiosyncrasies of the technical side to post and promote the work. I could go on – but basically I need a good few hours of clear time to be able to put up a post. Usually this is a weekend task but there are times when my weekends are just too full. I have the odd fifteen minutes here and there but no solid block of time. The list below covers what I have found to be the best uses of these short bursts of time. These are also the things I do when I am out of inspiration for a new blog post.
Brainstorm ideas for future posts. You can do this whenever, wherever – as long as it is safe to let your mind wander. Always carry a notebook!
Take photographs. Keep an eye out for useful shots. It doesn’t matter if they are not perfect – you can always crop them and focus on just a small element of a larger shot. They could give you ideas for a future, more professional shot.
Keep up on social media. Do you promote your blog on all social media sites? Does one work better for you than others? If you are travelling or have a short break in your day. Make sure you are set up to use social media on your phone and put in any time you have building your network and engaging with your potential audience.
Keep on top of email and comments. It doesn’t take long to respond to individual emails or comments. However, if you let them build up it can feel like a big task. It should be fun/exciting when you get contact from your followers. Feedback is also a potential generator of ideas for posts so again – keep your notebook handy!
Read other blogs in your niche area and consider what appeals to you. What works well and why? What can you learn and apply to your own blog?
Contact other bloggers in your niche area or related subjects and give them support. I don’t know about you but I am soooo thrilled when someone contacts me with supportive or constructive comments. I don’t do enough of that but plan to do more! It only takes a minute or two to leave a comment.
Reschedule Pins on Pinterest that you do not feel have had as much success as they could have had or reschedule Pins that were very successful first time round. I use Tailwind for this. I think you can use it for Instagram too but I am only a beginner on Instagram and haven’t yet linked my account to Tailwind. When you reschedule old Pins make sure the links back to your blog are working! Please note – these links are affiliates link so if you do click through to the Tailwind site it could generate a small income for me at no additional cost to you. However, Please note, I am recommending Tailwind because I really rate it!
Develop more content in your niche – for me this means designing crochet items or producing crochet. Working on existing projects is something I can do when I am too tired to think so it works well when I am busy.
Re-read your own blog (critically). Blogs build over time and it is easy to forget what you have posted previously. If you re-read it can help generate new ideas or you might find that there are posts that need a small edit to be brought up to date. Make sure all the old links are working. I often find I am reading old articles on other people’s blogs and they are normally still relevant but sometimes the links are no longer working.
Sketch out a draft post. If you don’t have time to write a post but you do have an idea albeit very high level, get it down on paper or capture it on your device. This could be in a note app or in the wordpress editor as a draft post. It is much easier to flesh out an idea that is already written down. At least – that is my experience!
Those are my 10 ideas. I hope you find them helpful and that you find the time you need to work on your blog soon.
Finally – here is my status report. Showing progress in July
- Pinterest followers – 702
- AdSense income to date – £1.82 (up £1.70 this month)
- Amazon affiliate income – 0
- Shareasale income – 0
- Subscribers – 3 (myself, my son and MY FIRST actual subscriber – woo hoo!)
- Etsy listings – 10
- Etsy sales – 0
- Page views – 590 (up 170 this month)
Still a long way to go 🙂 Happy blogging!
Annie.