Staying motivated with your blogging venture can be tough. Even if you’ve found a niche you love, it can be difficult to keep creating great content week in, week out. Read on for five simple tips you can put in place to stay motivated and keep growing your blog.
1. Team up
Blogging can sometimes feel like a lonely endeavor, but it doesn’t have to be. Reach out to a friend or another blogger and ask about creating a post together. This could be anything from an interview or a guest post, to creative collaboration on a video, to name a few examples.
Even if you usually prefer working solo, it can be fun to team up with someone else now and again. Plus, you’ll feel more accountable and want to do a great job if you know someone else is depending on you to do well!
Don’t be shy if you’re just starting out, either. Just reach out to someone else on your level. For example, two rookie bloggers could certainly collaborate on a post together.
2. Mix things up
If your blog is mainly text-based for example, why not try a different format to keep things fresh? Try recording a one-shot podcast episode, or even a video. Alternatively, if you usually write long-form posts, try a short listicle article.
Mixing things up can also help keep your readers engaged. Even if you focus on long-form posts most of the time, having a mix of videos, audio recordings, and shorter articles can help attract different readers. Plus, you’re less likely to get bored writing the posts.
3. Revisit your long-term goals
If you’re a few months or even years into your blogging venture, sometimes it’s all too easy to lose sight of the main goal. Whether you’re writing for fun or blogging is your business, it’s important to keep your long-term goals in mind.
For example, if you’re working on building up a blog to sell on, or gain enough ad revenue to make it your full-time job, remind yourself of that goal. You could make this a visual exercise, taking a few minutes to imagine how good it will feel when you achieve it. Alternatively, write a private journal entry where you describe to yourself what your long-term goal is. This can be one of the best motivation boosters there is.
4. Write posts ahead of time
As a writer or media creator in general, sometimes you’ll get bursts of motivation, and other times you won’t feel like doing anything at all. Take advantage of those golden moments of inspiration to create posts ahead of time. As long as the post isn’t extremely time sensitive (e.g. reporting on an event that’s literally just happened), this can work out well.
For example, if you have a free Sunday afternoon and feel motivated, you could write all of the coming week’s posts and schedule them for release ahead of time. That way, you won’t have to scramble to keep up when you’re busier in the week.
5. Make yourself accountable
It’s true that staying motivated is more about willpower and discipline than anything else. Sometimes, you won’t really be in the mood but you know you’ve got to keep pushing content to build followers.
A great tip is to force accountability on yourself. You can do this by promising your followers in your blog’s subheading or about me page that you release new posts every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, as an example.
Knowing that your followers will be expecting content on these days makes it far more difficult for you to come up with excuses. Combine this with the previous tip to schedule posts regularly, and as long as you’re keeping on top of things and writing enough posts every week, you’ll come out on top.
In summary, blogging is hard work, and it takes time to be successful. Motivation and consistently creating new content is arguably even more important than SEO and other forms of marketing. So, follow these five tips and stay motivated to work on your blogging venture for years to come.
