The time has come to set up a regular schedule for my blog posts

I’ve been aware for a long time that having a schedule in place for my blog posting would increase the likelihood of more frequency, and would quite likely have a positive impact on the quality of the posts overall.

I acknowledge I’ve resisted the idea. Part of my not completely sub-conscious rationalization has been that having a schedule might inhibit my creativity or my capacity to write more inspirationally. My conscious mind knew that was rubbish.

The decision

But today I decided it was time for a change, time for a proper schedule.

An online search showed there was no shortage of blog posts available on the topic. Some I found thought-provoking or helpful, or both. Some covered the bigger picture, including research for your posts, commenting on other blogs and so on. My focus was on getting clues for the more immediate process of drafting and publishing the actual posts.

The wisdom of others

The first post on this topic to catch my eye was Blogging Schedule by my friend Robyn Tippins. This was written just over four years ago and includes some includes some practicalities about blogging when people have daily responsibilities for young children.

Then from 2007 there was good advice from the blogging maestro Darren Rowse (Problogger) in Plan Your Next Week’s Posting Schedule

In May last year Jacob Stoops provided a detailed explanation for those interested in using Google Calendar for their schedule.

One post I found quite fascinating was from late last year by Alex, at 16 years of age indisputably in the “digital native” camp, who nevertheless finds paper works best to help him keep on track with his schedule. His post How to create a blogging schedule you will stick with is eminently practical:

So since apps aren’t “in your face enough,” I write down my daily tasks on a piece of paper and stick it onto my cork board by my desk. Now, my schedule is always in the corner of my eye when I work and I will know that I have things to do that day.

Organizing my schedule

So from all the advice I’d read, how will I schedule my posts?

As a start, I’m applying these five guidelines:

at least one post on each day Monday through Friday – weekend posts optional

a structure with a theme for each day of the week

aim for short posts (so as not to get stuck writing long ones – which a lot of people won’t read anyway!)

list each day’s topic in my paper diary and check off each day when done

track progress and monitor for any improvement in traffic, review at the end of the month

I have a topic list will share that in a separate post.

My own thirty day challenge

In just a few days over a month from now it will be six years since I launched the first version of this Thinking Home Business blog, on Typepad, so I’m taking a deep breath and committing myself to a one month blogging challenge. A thirty day challenge, although not a commitment to blog on each of the thirty days – rather to produce a blog for every week day over that period.

Do you use a schedule for your blog posting? Or perhaps you tried it and it didn’t work? Care to share what has worked (or not) for you?

Mack Collier’s Sunday night #blogchat discussion on Twitter wins fans

One of the neat things that has happened on the social networking platform Twitter is the emergence of “hashtag chats”, where the use of a # hashtag in a tweet lines that tweet up in a discoverable stream of tweets using the same hashtag.

Anyone can make a hashtag. Not all of them attract attention.

One that has is #blogchat, set up by blogger Mack Collier – @MackCollier – on Sunday nights 8-9PM Central Time, for discussion about blogging.

That works out as late Monday morning for me and although I had other plans for what I was going to do today I found the discussion on #blogchat so engaging that some of those plans experienced some slippage.

From some of the tweets, today as on other days, I saw that I am not alone in thinking #blogchat well worth the time spent in following the discussion. There is also the fact that I got to connect with a number of bloggers I might not otherwise have discovered.

Blogging raises questions

A paradox I have learned from years of blogging and talking about blogging is that while blogging is basically a simple process it seems also to have an inexhaustible capacity to generate questions.

It is simple because with the right advice and guidance it doesn’t take much to set up a blog and get started blogging.

But once you get serious about blogging, there are marvellous possibilities for variation and relative complexity, especially when you start to delve into such aspects as the mysteries of search engine optimization (SEO).

Not to mention the scope for quite basic questions to arise, such as the hardy perennial of which blogging platform to use.

So where does the work from home professional go with questions about blogging?

From what I’ve seen to date, the Twitter #blogchat stream would be a good place to start. The tweets reflect quite a wide spectrum of knowledge and experience of blogging, from people just starting out to quite seasoned practitioners.

As one might expect, there is no shortage of opinions delivered with supreme confidence as the *only* answer to some questions and if you tried to follow all the advice given on #blogchat you would go totally barmy. But there is plenty of useful information being shared.

So, as long as you maintain some objectivity and think about what you want to achieve rather than what someone else thinks you should do, you should be able to get some valuable information and some good tips – “tricks of the trade” so to speak – as I do each week on #blogchat.

Would love to know how you go if you try it.