The following piece was submitted by Sacha Fuentes from Music Gadgets as part of the habits of highly effective blogging group project.
When Darren invited us to write about habits of effective bloggers I wondered if I really had any habit when writing in my blogs. I tend to be a bit anarchic in most aspects of my life, jumping from task to task without being able to concentrate for a long time in a single thing. But writing in five different blogs, this can be a useful thing, as each time I switch to another one I feel full of energy for that task.
Anyway, let’s go to the list:
Write about something I’m really passionate. I don’t think I could do so many posts a day if I didn’t love what I’m talking about. If you don’t feel passionate about it, in a short time you lose interest in your blog, run out of ideas or topics and, probably, abandon it. If you are really interested in the main theme of your blog, many interesting posts can come easily.
Dedicate time to the blogs. It’s important not to to write posts in a hurry or when short of time. The quality of the writing decreases, your thoughts don’t come so fluently and your readers notice it. I prefer not to write about some topic if I don’t have enough time, and leave it for later or even forget posting about it. Sometimes it’s better no post than a bad post, although don’t do this every day, of course.
Know what is the objective in each blog where I write and try to reach it. I try to check the situation regularly but without obessing about it, usually one or two times a day. Do I want to write a minimum of posts each month? Check everyday if I’m coming along nicely and, if I don’t, try to speed up a little. Want to increase my numbers of readers? Try it, but following the stats along to check how I’m doing. I Like to be in control of these objectives, know if I’m doing the correct thing to reach them and change it in case I’m not doing everything allright.
Write whenever I feel like it. For others, it is important to concentrate a lot on what they are writing, even disconnecting from the net and going to a cafe. I don’t usually do this and neither have a fixed time to write, I can be creative at almost any time, so I can afford to sit down in front of my computer and begin writing almost inmediatly. Anyway, it’s important that if you don’t feel like writing in one given moment don’t do it. Your readers will notice it if you don’t put enough energy in your writing.
Try to learn new things everyday. It’s very important for a blogger to have great knowledge about the topic he writes, but also about other topics, which may go from marketing to collecting stamps. Read a lot, not only blogs (which you should do extensivily) but also newspapers, books, magazines, comics,… You never know where inspiration and ideas may come from.
Don’t forget my social life. Many times, I prefer writing some posts when I arrive home, although it might get late, than doing it in that moment if I have the possibility of getting along with some friends to have a beer, especially if I have been writing quite a lot during the day. These moments of relaxation give me enough energy to recover the “lost time” (for me, it’s not lost, anyway).
Have fun doing it. The same day I think this is not fun and is becoming another boring job I’ll quit. I write blogs because I like it and because of the money, but I have been doing it for some time without getting any money and would continue doing it without getting a cent, but only if it was fun. Life’s too short to spend it doing things you don’t like.
I’m the first to recognise that most of this habits won’t be useful for the majority of the bloggers, but they are for me. Of course, from time to time I skip some of them, but never as an habit ;)