Blogging – the delightfully simple idea of sharing written content on the web, but perhaps less simple when it comes down to it.

I have, of course, written on blogging before: Do we really need… a blog on our church website?

This time, we’ll assume that you’ve decided to go ahead with this communication method, and address some of the potential pitfalls you might come across, and hopefully I can offer you some helpful blogging advice!

It’s not difficult to set up a blog these days, and you might even find it easy to get going with your first couple of posts. In my experience, this is where the novelty starts to wear off, and slowly, enthusiasm begins to wane.

For this reason, this post could also be called:

‘How to keep blogging’

So. First things first, when you’re getting started with your blog, it’s very easy to stall yourself before you’ve even set off. Here’s a simple tip – don’t be consumed by your blog’s design.

Time to launch?

Design is, of course, very important – as is ensuring your content is legible, easy to read and just ‘nice’ to look at. For these reasons and more, we can spend forever obsessing over our blog layout and style. Nevertheless, Content is king – as obvious as this should be, we so often forget this!

This is never more important than right at the beginning.

Whilst I suggest not delaying the launch of your blog due to your ‘inner perfectionist’ fussing over the design details, I would also urge you not to rush in to publishing your first post.

Take a breath and count to ten

We are, I think, naturally inclined towards a sense of achievement: pressing ‘publish’ on our initial content is a good feeling, and rightly so! However, as soon as it’s out there, something in our brain says, ‘job done’, and we switch off – our motivation to do anything else (temporarily) disappears.

Line up a queue of  content, ready to be published in the first couple of weeks of your blog’s life #strategy

Can I suggest, from experience, that a brilliant strategy would be to line up a queue of finished (or nearly finished) content, ready to be published in the first couple of weeks of your blog’s life. This will enable you to develop a healthy writing and publishing schedule right from the off. It worked for me, and I highly recommend it!

Inspiration

Closely linked to this initial content list, then, is inspiration.

It’s all well and good that I suggest you come up with four or five posts off the bat, but how can I seriously expect you to come up with topics to write on ‘just like that’.

Aaaaand pause.

If you think it’s difficult to come up with ideas now, do you really think it’s going to be any easier six months, or a year down the line?

It’s always going to be a challenge to come up with a continuous stream of content, no matter how prolific you are, and not to be too negative – but it’s only going to get harder.

Sorry, I made a promise to myself that I’d be honest with you.

That’s enough negativity, how to get around it, then?

Firstly, make sure your blog is focused in an area where you have a real passion. If this is the case, you should, hopefully, be able to spend a productive ten minutes in thinking up a nice little list of potential blog titles. They don’t all have to be ‘winners’, but if even a few of them are, you’re on the way to a sustainable content strategy.

Secondly, if the blog is based around one of your passions or interests, always have it in the back of your mind; therefore, when you see something that inspires you (or even, dare I say it, annoys/frustrates you), make a note of it! Keep a list of potential posts stored away somewhere that you won’t lose it, and that can be added to quickly, as soon as an idea hits you.

Personal example – when I launched the church communications blog, I had a note in Evernote full of blog titles, many of which have made it in to full posts here on the blog. Some of them were literally just that, a title, some of them had a few lines that I wanted to quickly get ‘on paper’ so I could remember the initial thoughts behind the idea.

Thirdly – inspire yourself! As a result of the content marketing boom, there is a plethora of great content out there – written by people whose aim is to help you to come up with lots of brilliant content!

• The ultimate list of content ideas from PR Daily (infographic)
• 47 ideas or how to come up with them from Makeawebsitehub
• 100 killer ideas from Forbes – just avoid the cheese, please!
• An in-depth guide from Nina Conrad on ‘Why your blog needs a plan‘
• Update: Here’s another one, a great list from Problogger

Pacing

Another top tip: don’t dive straight on to WordPress (other blogging platforms are available).

The act of clicking ‘new post’ and writing a few lines, only to run out of steam, before giving up and clicking ‘Save draft’ is not only debilitating, but it’s a surefire way to kill the seed of the idea behind that post.

Trust me, that draft post will never see the light of day.

Instead, keep an organised list of ideas for posts, and add to it as often as possible. Each idea can have bullet points or even rough text – this is your canvas and your drawing board.

Once you’ve reached a certain level of preparation on an individual idea, it may now be time to paste that content in to a new post. It’ll still take time to finish writing, to edit, to add images and to schedule, but creating a post that is 70% done is a lot more likely to lead to a finished post, rather than a list of unfinished drafts.

This list of ideas will also help you to have a roadmap for the coming weeks, months and, hopefully, years. You won’t have to burn out all your ideas in the first week, dissatisfied with your progress, because *everything* is a work in progress!

Motivation

When planning and writing your blog content, keep it topical, but make sure you’re writing on something you’re passionate about. This will not only help you to stay focused on your particular area, but it will help you to stay motivated.

Choosing and sticking to a fairly narrow topic also helps to silence your inner critic; rather than trying to become the best blogger on the web, instead you’re trying to be the best blog in your niche. The aim here is not to be the #1 most visited site on the internet, but instead to make your site the most reputable in your category. Your aim is to make your blog the go to place for those who are interested in your topic – this will mean your target audience as a whole is much smaller, but limiting this should lead to a more-engaged following.

Writing for an engaged audience is one of the biggest motivating factors in writing, and persevering with, a blog.

With this in mind, encourage messages and comments from your audience, and treasure the feedback when it comes. You won’t always get responses – and there may be times when you long even for negative feedback just to know that someone out there’s reading your content. Writing blog posts can often be an isolating experience, but hearing that you’re making a difference to your readers is a nice push to keep going!

If nothing else, the act of writing and publishing a blog can be very therapeutic, releasing thoughts from your head and on to ‘digital paper’, out in to the ether. You could say that anything on top of this is a bonus!

Practical steps

So, as a summary, I’d suggest the following:

• Find a clean, easily legible design that you like, and then stick to it. Your content is more important.
• Start an ongoing list of titles and notes for future topics. Use tools such as Evernote and Trello to keep your ideas in one place, whilst avoiding creating actual drafts too early in the process.
• Always have your blog in the back of your mind, thinking of how you can apply things you see to your readers.
• Use content created by others to aid you in coming up with content ideas within your topic.

So that’s it, for now anyway! Start well, stay focused and keep yourself motivated!

Got any other tips? Share them below in the comments section!