Keep Your Blog Fresh

Blogging is a very powerful social media marketing tool.

It can help drive targeted traffic to your website as well as elevate you to expert status within your chosen field.

But if your blogging is to be effective, you have to keep it fresh.

The best way to achieve that, is to post regularly. In an ideal world that would mean daily posts, but for many (including me) that simply isn’t possible. But, it is vital that you decide how regularly you are going to up date and stick to it.

Your readers are creatures of habit and will get to expect the same frequency of posts from you. For example, I blog three times a week on Freelance Copywriters Blog. Therefore my regular readers know that on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday a new blog will appear. (I also blog twice a week on my main website – Briar Copywriting.)

This constant stream of fresh content is vital to:

• Keep you readers interested
• To keep the search engines interested

Keeping up momentum can be difficult – so here are 3 tips you can use to help you keep your blog fresh.

Specify a time

Once you’ve decided how often you’re going to blog, you need to make sure you set aside some time every week to ensure you produce the content.

The best way is to be very strict and allocate a couple of hours a day dedicated to research and blog writing. If daily writing isn’t possible for you, set a specific day or part of a day when you just blog. It won’t take long to get into the routine.

For me, my week days are pretty full-on keeping up with the copywriting work for my clients. Therefore I allocate a few hours on Sunday afternoon – normally when my son is at fencing club. So while he’s playing with swords (OK, foils) I’m sat in the leisure centre’s cafe with my laptop, writing.

Of course there will be times when life conspires against you and you can’t post. If this does happen it pays to get into the habit of posting up a short message telling your readership when the next post will appear. If you keep them informed, they are more likely to stay loyal.

Use publishing tools

As I mentioned above, I write my posts for the week on a Sunday. Therefore I use the publishing tools available to me on my blog to schedule my posts.

Therefore I can spend a few hours writing, upload them to my blog and set the date and time I want them published. Then I am free to crack on with my workload through the week knowing my pre-written posts will be published when I specified.

Guest bloggers

Using guest bloggers is another way to ensure regular content appears on your blog.

They can also add variety to your blog by introducing a new voice and perspective. Of course, you’ll want to ensure the subject matter is relevant to your readership.

The best way to see whether guest posts go down well with your readers is to check your analytics after each post. If it didn’t go down well, it may be best not to use that guest blogger again. After all they should enhance your blog not damage it.

Regular blogging will pay dividends, but it is hard work and time consuming. But by building your blogging time into your weekly schedule you’ll ensure fresh content is always available for your readers.