Well, I just noticed today’s date! It’s been nearly four days since I updated my blog… There’s a gap. I had a look at my traffic for the last few days, and it’s dropped off quite a bit! Somehow, failing to post has impacted the traffic… I’ve been quite busy on one of my other pet projects, a language journal.
So this post will outline some effective strategies for daily postings: I’ll promise to try some of them, though I can’t guarantee success.
1. the backlist.
It’s a great idea to keep a list of back posts that you can publish. This works quite well, if the content isn’t dated; or is of more universal value than a daily post might be. News headlines wouldn’t be included in this, nor the latest gadget story. But a general story on principles or a feature story that is less time critical should be fine.
2. short posts.
There are a number of strategies for creating content that can be used in situations where you are time pressed.
Others include: a 50-word post, a video clip, a quotation, some photographs, a question for discussion, etc..
To this, I’d like to add one of Matt Coutts’ ideas: you simple look at your browser bar tabs (not necessarily possible in IE6.0) and create a short post out of the remaining tabs that haven’t been closed. It’s a kind of what I’ve been doing today post. Should work nicely, esp. for things like interesting links and stories that you wouldn’t otherwise blog about!
3. use what’s around you
You could just write about the useful reading matter and links you find everywhere, and create short posts out of that! I’d suggest 50 words for each link. In fact, I’ll be doing that myself. I do surf almost everyday but I forget to write any stubs for myself with links that could turn into short articles.
4. guest bloggers
Though CashQuests.com’s blogger author doesn’t recommend ‘guest’ bloggers, it could help when things are so busy… John Chow uses a lot of guest bloggers.
5. scheduling posts
You can always schedule posts in WordPress for days in advance. Though getting the server time zone right and you’re own upload time agreeing seems to be an art I haven’t mastered (I use ‘BlogDesk’), it should work well enough.
6. plan ahead…
Well, it’s obvious enough to me… but I still don’t do it.
How do you bloggers deal with crunch times when you have to be in six places at once, or get so busy that your blog gets forgotten?