The above blogging 101 infographics from mylifescoop show the basic steps needed to kick-start your blogging journey!

Although many people started off with all these enthusiasms about blogging and aim to blog every other day, this passion usually fizzled out after a while when they realise how challenging it is to blog consistently.

Problems with maintaining a blog

Starting a blog is a lot easier than updating the blog constantly (see infographic), but many acknowledge that it’s easier said than done. By and large, we hear people encountering problems that just seem to impede their writing progress: time commitment issue, writer’s block, and no engagement on the blogs, etc. But all of these can be dealt with using some very simple tips.

Write ‘Bits and Pieces’ on the Go

“I don’t have the time to sit down and write a blog post every week.” Sounds familiar?

Time and again, people have deprioritised their blog post to the last of the to-do list which usually ends up with them pushing it to the next day, and the next, and the next… until eventually, they think that they simply aren’t cut out for this and abandon the idea completely.

The problem is because individuals tend to think blogging as a task that must be accomplished in one sitting at the desk. But that is not really the case. We can break down a blog post to small little tasks that can be easily accomplished on the go.

Such as:

• Title
• Headings
• Contents for individual headings

By doing this, it allows you to tackle a blog post in baby steps using small pockets of time throughout your daily activities like queuing for food, waiting for transport, feeling bored at a presentation or snoozing off at someone’s monologue.

Hopefully, this will help you in successfully crossing the hardest hurdle — penning down the first draft. At the end of the day, you will probably still have to sit down at the desk to finish editing and putting your whole article together; which by then is going to be a breeze.

 No more writer’s block

Blogging requires consistency. In the social media age, consumers are often sourcing for information before making a purchase decision.

By blogging frequently, you can identify yourself as a source of knowledge that consumers keep on the top of their minds when they wish to research on your industry or products. Blogging consistently also gives your prospect a reason to revisit your blog at regular interval to check for new posts.

However, companies often run into the issue of not knowing what to blog. Affected by this, they often only post after a long hiatus or trying to catch up with current trends of questions. These type of reactive posting are often not quick enough to answer consumers’ questions and also causes them to lose interest in the blog.

But Marcus Sheridan “The Sales Lion” and co-owner of River Pools and Spas have just the right solution to this problem. He had started his blog using questions that his customers have asked him over the years and gain tremendous success from it.

Not only is this extremely relevant to his customers, it also establishes him as an industry expert that consumers trust. Furthermore by answering questions that are commonly asked, Marcus Sheridan also naturally builds up his website’s SEO.

So stop waiting. Go and pick the brains of your sales team and find out what are the questions that are often asked and start answering them!

Organise your blog to encourage engagement

The attention span of consumers has reduced drastically over the years as they are getting used to instant gratification. A research by Statistic Brain shows that the average attention span in 2013 is only 8 seconds, as compared to the goldfish which has 9 seconds.

Can you imagine looking for a book in a library with no help whatsoever? This is what it feels like to readers who are scouring your blog to find a post that is relevant to them if your blog is disorganised.

So what do you think a reader (with 8 seconds of attention span) will do when they chance upon a blog where they can’t find the relevant articles that they want? Of course, they will go back to the search engines and start searching for other relevant pages!

You can however easily prevent this by making use of 2 very simple techniques.

• Blogging platforms often come with the function of “Categories” and “Tags”.
• Ensure that you use them for every post so that your posts are neatly organised.

Link to your previous articles from recent posts. This enables your readers to read more about relevant contents and allows you to establish yourself as someone with the industry know-how.

Overall content creation is particularly important for companies now as consumers are more proactive in pulling information instead of simply waiting for information to be pushed to them.

Hopefully, this will help to get you started and going on your blogging journey.

Happy Blogging!