Did you ever find a blog that you really enjoy reading, and after you read it for a while the articles just stop coming? There are so many blogs like this. So, when this happens, what do you do? If you are like me, after a blog has gone dry for a while, you eventually just eliminate it from your feed reader. If it was a blog that I really liked, I might go back there in a few months to see if it has anything new on it, but if it is still the same old articles, I probably won’t go back again after that.
So, if you are a blogger, or have any kind of website, this should teach you an important lesson. What is that lesson? Always keep providing fresh content on your site! If you don’t, people won’t keep coming to your site. You know, as I’ve discussed in recent articles, getting people to come to your site is not easy, and it takes time too. If you squander these readers by basically forcing them to leave, then you must keep on trying to gain readers every time that you re-activate the site. It would be much easier to keep your readers coming back to your site and adding new readers over time, and there is only one thing that you have to do in order to accomplish that – keep writing!
Don’t take me wrong, you don’t have to write multiple articles every single day! But, what you need to do is to adopt a schedule, and stick to it as much as you can. Your readers will come to understand your schedule, and they will know which days to check your site (and what time) for a new article. On most of my sites, I try to write a new article every weekday. I usually don’t post on weekends, because I find that the weekend posts don’t get as many visitors. Now, does this mean that I have to take the time write an article each day, 5 days per week? No, not at all! And, believe me, I don’t do that! So, if I don’t sit down and write an article every day, how do I post an article every day? Well, that is easy, I use the “Post Timestamp” feature on WordPress! Sunday is my writing day. On Sundays, I will write all of my articles for all of my sites. Before I publish them, though, I choose what time they will go “live” using the “Post Timestamp” in WordPress. I can choose what day and what time the articles show up for the public this way.
So, for me, writing on Sundays works. Maybe for you, it is Saturdays, Wednesdays after lunch, or whatever. Just choose a time. If you have nothing to do, go write! Find the way and the schedule that works for you, and stick with it!
One thing I hear from a lot of people is that they can’t think of anything to write about. Firstly, I find that the more you write, the more topics you think of. Another important thing that I do is that I keep a pad of paper and a pen handy. If I am sitting there watching TV, or if I am doing something else, and I think of something I want to write about, I write it down! Maybe I am watching the news on TV, and a story comes on that is on the topic of one of my sites, I write that down, and on Sunday when I am ready to write I look at my list and choose the subjects that I still want to write about. I find that by doing this, I usually have a lot MORE topics to write about than I need or want. Also, as I am writing an article, I often find that a new idea or a tangent of the article I am writing comes to mind. Quick – write that one on the list! Also, with my list, if I have 8 or 9 topics and only intend to write 5 articles for the week, I will evaluate the unused topics to see if I want to carry them to the next week. Sometimes I feel after further consideration that the topic I wrote down is not good after all, but if it is just a topic that is still good but I didn’t write about, it will still be good next week too when I am looking for topics!
The moral of this story is, though… don’t stop writing! Don’t let your website dry up! You worked hard to build up the visitors that you have, don’t squander them!
two thoughts on the ‘I don’t know what to write’ dilemma:
If you are just starting out, perhaps you have picked a poor subject. Much mor eimportant that keyword process, search rankings, etc., ids that you pick a subject you have some passion about. If you are brand new, it might be better to change.
If you are already established? Google News Alerts:
http://www.google.com/alerts
sign up for an alert or two on your blog subjects and you’ll get email after email reporting what is going on in the world on that subject … if nothing else you cna always make three or four of these alerts into a ‘links for today’ post … Google never runs dry.
Hi Dave Starr – Great suggestions! Writing on a regular schedule is important in order to make your blog survive! Whatever a person needs to do in order to come up with topics is a plus!
yes those Google Alerts are pretty good, Bob. A fellow was sort of arguing with me about their value once … he said somehting like ok for popular subjects but not if you write about water coolers in Mississippi. Well just for fun I plugged in ‘water coolers state of Mississippi’ and in a couple days there were more than 27 articles somewhere that mentioned those words … if you can’t make a blog post out of 27 different news items … I’d suggest barber college *smile*
Hi Dave – absolutely! I use my Google alerts all the time to come up with topics to write about.
Hi to Bob and Dave.
I just followed your advice and registered for google alerts. I entered ‘battle of the bands’ as these are popular in the Philippines at the moment, I also wrote a blog post with the same title the other day.
Anyway, My first google alert was MY blog posting on someone elses website. I was a little annoyed at this, but also flattered at the same time. They copied the whole posting, but I had included a link to my website which was still there. Is this common?
Regards
Phil
Hi Phil – The person who is doing that is called a “scraper.” He is scraping the content from your site and putting it on his own. It is unethical to do that, but also very hard to stop him. Did you know that he doesn’t even have to do anything himself? It’s all done by software, which scrapes the content from your RSS fee. You can e-mail him and tell him to stop, but it probably won’t do much good. Unfortunately, yes…. it is very common.
Bob your typing speed must be at least 150 words per minute considering all these articles you are writing everyday for your various blogs?..LOL
Hi Eric – Well, I believe that I can type around 100 words per minute. I haven’t tested myself in years, though.
Typing speed? I don’t know how fast Bob’s is, but mine is something on the order of 30 words per minute or so, with quite a few errors. _If_ I could type, I’d be dangerous *smile*. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t find typing speed has much to do with my output … once I have an article figured out typing is actually the easy part.
I read recently that the voice recognition software built in to Microsoft Vista is much improved, I read a guy’s blog where his last three posts in a row were dictated to the computer, with minimal corrections. I’m _not_ going to Vista but I may look closer into voice recognition software.
Regarding scrapers and other unauthorized ‘borrowers’ of RSS feeds. First, consider putting affiliate links or something else that will make you money in your feed. Most of these guys don’t check and you will then get a lot of extra distribution/clicks as compensation.
Second … you feeds _are_ marked, are they not? The law says what you write is yours but many people will claim ‘they thought it was public domain’ if it isn’t marked. This little plug-in is free and works great:
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/wordpress-plugin-to-automatically-add-copyright-message-to-your-rss-atom-feeds/
Hi Dave – Thanks for the tips – especially about the copyright thing!