If you are going to be a blogger, no matter the topic is, you must be consistent. Daily updates are absolutely the best way to attract and keep readers, and keep them interested, as well. However, sometimes it can be difficult to motivate yourself to blog every day or even several times a week. This is particularly true if you do not blog as a profession, but rather do it on the side of a full time job as a hobby or passion (or to make a little Google Adsense money :)). Life is busy, but keeping yourself motivated each day to blog is the best way to stay consistent. Here are 10 tips you can use to help you stay on track.
1. Set restrictions. If you love that second cup of coffee every morning, don’t let yourself have it until your blogging is done. Forcing yourself to do your blogging before you can have something you want both motivates you to do it, and also gives you a sense of satisfaction because you get to enjoy something after you’re done. Set up some penalties if you don’t do it, like you don’t get your coffee or you have to workout 20 extra minutes.
2. Keep a schedule. If you blog at the same time every day, it will become a habit in no time.
3. Plan ahead. Planning in advance can help you stay on schedule. Outline the topics you want to cover each day and then go through the outline list over the week and you’ll have half of the work done. If you do this and your blog posts are create ahead of your schedule, you can schedule to blog posts in your content management system (WordPress, Blogspot, etc) and you won’t have to actually go into the site and post each day. That could save time.
4. Set aside a research day. If you have to do any research for your blogs, pick one day on which to do it. That way, you have all the information you need going into the next week. Weekends are great for this. You can also find a freelancer on sites like elance.com to help you with your research to save time.
5. Write topically. Instead of randomly blogging about anything and everything (unless that’s the design of your blog), write topically instead. If you pull from a set of predetermined topics for each blog posting, your readers are better informed, they have a clear sense of what you’re talking about, and it helps to keep you as a writer on course, too. You want your overall blog to be cohesive and on topic so that it’s easy to optimize it for search and your audience knows what your focus is.
6. Write in series. If you have a large topic to cover, break it up into a series. This works for you in two ways. One, you get to write a series of blogs instead of one blog, so you don’t have to come up with so much material for the week. Secondly, your readers will want to come back daily to see the next segment.
7. Reward yourself financially. If you put a quarter or a dollar in a jar every time you blog and at the end of the week you get to spend it on something you want, like a coffee or a new item, then you will stay motivated to write.
8. Be like Nike. Just do it. Sometimes just getting it out of the way is the best motivation of all, because then you know you won’t have to deal with it for the rest of the day. Blogging takes work.
9. Engage your readership. Maybe you shouldn’t come right out and say you’re having a hard time staying motivated, but if you have surveys, poll, contests, etc. then you will be forced to check back in to see how things are going and award prizes and so forth. Encourage readers to comment and let you know what they think. Engage them on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. Their feedback can give you ideas on what to write next.
10. Set an alarm. If you set an alarm on your phone or on your computer to alert you to blog for the day, you’ll be more likely to remember and, thus, stay on track.
Hopefully the above tips have helped you come up with a plan of motivating yourself to add to your fitness, health or weight loss blog daily. By making things simpler for yourself, planning ahead, rewarding yourself, and engaging your readership, you can be well on your way to motivating daily without thinking about it. Be consistent and make it a habit and you will see great improvement in your blogging results.