What I've Learned After 6 Months of Consistent Blogging

Hey all

Not sure how much this will interest people but I have to admit that I have fallen in love with blogging and really enjoy the writing process and watching my blog grow organically I’m definitely not an expert in this but I’ve learned and changed some things along the way and I thought I’d share what’s working for me

1. There is no such thing as a Perfect Blog Post Formula

When I started I had a lot of ideas about what a perfect blog post should be I thought it meant I needed to simplify my writing to be more accessible for my audience I thought blog posts were supposed to be between 1,500-2,000 words be short skimmable and digestible This was the formula I followed for the first few months I often felt I was holding back because I didn’t want my posts to be too long or too complex

This changed when I wrote about a topic I really had a lot to share about It greatly exceeded the length I had decided was appropriate and while I tried to trim it down I didn’t want it to lose its authenticity I decided to publish it anyway and I haven’t seen any negative consequences to writing something longer I’ve also continued to write longer posts I don’t limit my writing anymore and I feel like I’ve found my true voice as a writer The length is whatever I want and I’m confident publishing it as long as I am confident in the quality

2. Consistency is Great but There’s Really No Rush

I’ve stayed on a pretty consistent one-post per-week on Sunday schedule I am really impressed by people who can turn out more than one blog post per week but I am not one of those people I am also human There have been weeks where I’ve been 2 hours to 2 days late publishing The world did not stop turning and it’s really okay to take your time if you need to

3. Quality over Quantity Always

I am pretty careful in my writing process I often outline and rework paragraphs to make them engaging and interesting to read I also always have someone else read it for me before it goes live I also recommend reading your writing out loud If it sounds weird or awkward to read it’s probably awkward for your audience to read too

4. SEO is Worth Learning

I took a few courses on SEO before and while blogging My Dad criticized me heavily for focusing too much on SEO In my experience these SEO courses were worth my time as a beginner and I now have a few blog posts that are ranking on page 1 of Google I also feel a lot more confident as I plan for new content I do use some social media but my Google Analytics show me that nearly all my traffic is coming from Organic Search which is awesome

5. Use AI Wisely

I will admit that I play around with AI a lot I have attempted and failed several times to train AI to write like me It has never quite gotten it right so I’ve given up and used it in other ways During the early months I was using AI a lot for fleshing out outlines for blog posts That was pretty helpful but the main thing I have AI do is act as my target audience

I pretty much created a reader avatar where I imagined a fictional character that sounded like my target reader and customer I created a whole persona for this character and taught that character to ChatGPT

Whenever I finish writing a new post I ask AI to roleplay as that reader avatar for me My prompt will be something as follows

"Imagine you’ve just landed on this blog post after typing ____ into Google Please read through this post and share your thoughts and reactions to this post I would particularly like to know

  • How long did it take you to read this post Were you engaged throughout or did you find yourself distracted or tempted to click away
  • Was there anything significant that stood out to you Explain
  • Did you feel compelled to take action while reading by sharing commenting purchasing a product or joining the email list Why or why not
  • Was this post valuable for you Why or why not Was there anything missing that you wish the author mentioned
  • Would you continue reading future posts from this blog Why or why not"

It’s not always this exact prompt and while it sounds crazy and delusional I find that this is a really helpful way to use AI because it helps me get into my reader’s head ChatGPT has given me some awesome suggestions for improving my content through this strategy and I recommend trying it

Anyway I hope this helps someone and I just wanted to say this forum has been so incredibly helpful for keeping me motivated and on track I love writing now and I’m thankful I started

Good work on six months

I’ve been able to manage 145 consecutive weekly posts after blogging off and on for many years I don’t know that it’s helped my traffic much because most of my posts are weekly summaries of life I do include thoughts about my books stuff I’ve read or stuff about my voice topics

The only thing I use AI for and I disclose this on the blog is titles and meta descriptions and some social media posts

I’ve long had a set of Voice topics that I tend to focus on but I don’t often write about those these days I’ve also got plans for some other fun stuff and I do check out the Weekly Wednesday Blog Challenge every so often

@Liam
Thank you so much I’m crazy I planned out all 52 blog posts for this year before I even started writing I also have a list of future ideas ready to go for whenever I want to plan next year I just keep a running list and add new ideas whenever I think of them

@LillyGrace
I basically jot things down throughout the week a paragraph here or there Then I finalize Saturday afternoon or evening and publish then I promote Sunday AM on all my socials

This year I’m trying to do more planning of posts I’m doing a series of music posts plus a few of the WWBC posts There’s also the Writers Coffee Club and WordWeavers prompts They’re designed as hashtagged social media prompts like for Xitter or Mastodon or Bluesky but I’ll look for one I like and riff on it for a blog post

I am doing the same just one block per week Maybe two if I have more time but I think that consistency is most important in blogging It also gives you time to upgrade your skills and content

This is actually amazing and super helpful I pushed myself so hard to do 2 posts a week that I ended up dropping off for 2 months entirely Your approach sounds much more sustainable Can I ask how big has your audience grown with this 1 post per month schedule How many sessions per month

This was a great read super helpful and motivating thanks for sharing Any chance you could share your blog url I’m intrigued and would like to read it haha

This is a smart idea will surely try it out and get some idea on my readers as well thanks for sharing Keep growing