Building a blog takes a lot of work, and when you’re blogging for business it requires even more effort. In addition to blogging, you also need to make sure your blogging is aligned with your business model and you have to come up with a solid content marketing plan.
The trouble is many things are in flux. Your blogging and content marketing will change as you learn more about your audience. And blogging requires a high level of investment that is not always easy for to sustain. Because quite simply: life happens.
This is why the blogging journey is often bumpy.
Break From Blogging
For the first time in two and a half years I was forced to take a break from blogging here on this blog. It was not planned. But more than one thing got in the way in different areas of my life.
- It all started with my trip to Toronto last June
- Then I unexpectedly decided to travel so much that I’ve barely been home the rest of the year
- And health became a priority as I adopted a diet with over 80% raw food. But this meant less energy while I learned about nutrition all over again
- During this time I’m happy to say that my work with Social Media Examiner increased.
As my day-to-day activities changed drastically I was forced to put aside blogging here on my personal blog.
Better Content Marketing Strategy
But there is some good news about being forced to stop blogging. My content marketing strategy needed an overhaul in order to integrate the changes in social media over the past year, and to adjust to my business objectives which also changed this last year. This break gave me the opportunity to refine my own marketing strategy.
Now that I’m ready to get back into the blogging seat once again my new business blogging plan is better than before.
But a plan is not enough to ensure blogging success. When you’ve never blogged before or haven’t been blogging for a while, the first few months are critical. So I also needed an action plan to ensure blogging success.
Better Business Blogging
This is why I’ve got a few activities planned to make sure my transition back into regular business blogging goes smoothly.
I’ve already established a business blogging plan within a content marketing strategy that’s aligned with my business. That’s all on paper. What I need now is a few activities to make sure I blog consistently over the next few months. And why not improve my blogging skills at the same time?
Here are three blogging courses I’ve signed up for.
Blogging Success Summit: (Affiliate link) This is an online webinar that takes place in February with 23 excellent presenters. Just like the previous Success Summits it takes place over a period of several weeks and they’re recorded so there’s no excuse: I’ll listen to all of them!
But the thing I like most about all of the Success Summits is the private LinkedIn group. It’s great to meet up and chat with fellow business bloggers. And the presenters usually participate there too.
Although it’s only just opened people are taking advantage of the early bird rate and signing up. That’s great news because this means the Blogging Success Summit LinkedIn Group is already open. So discussions in the private LinkedIn Group have already started. This is just the kind of interaction I need right now.
Join me on the Blogging Success Summit to learn about current business blogging best practices and hook up with a community of business bloggers.
Web Content Café: This is a lovely little hang out run by the web copywriter Nick Usborne. It’s a paid membership site where Nick gives you a short daily content ideas to keep the creative juices flowing and your web content fresh.
What can I say? I like it. It’s just the right “everything” for me: right length, right writing style and lots of small actionable ideas. Just what I need to improve my blogging in small, easy steps.
Join me at the Web Content Café to find ideas and daily inspiration to improve your bloging.
Spectacular Post Bootcamp: This is a new program put on by Stanford Smith over at Pushing Social. Although I only recently discovered Stan I was hooked immediately. He works with big clients during his day job and helps the small business bloggers on Pushing Social in his spare time. Somehow his expertise comes through with just the right tone for business bloggers.
The Spectacular Post Bootcamp is a video a month and it’ll get me to review blogging basics in a way that I find motivating. I like Stan’s approach.
Join me at the Spectacular Post Bootcamp to review blogging basics.
Tools For Good Blogging
That’s what I’ve planned to help me get through the first few months of blogging. If you’d like a more in-depth review on one of these please let me know.
I’ll be attending SOBcon in Spring and hope to find a good blogging partner to share the rest of the year’s journey as part of the next phase.
What do you do to improve your blogging? What has helped your blogging most? I’d love to hear your story, so please leave a comment below.
