What are the Healthy Habits of a Successful Blogger?
When done professionally, blogging is not a simple job. It takes commitment, responsibility, ambition and an innovative spirit to maintain your influence in the blogosphere and not many bloggers manage to stay in the game for long. Apart from posting high quality content, a blogger needs to practice some healthy habits to stay keep impressing readers.
Planning your blog posts
In your first blogging days, you were probably posting whenever you found the time or when you had a brilliant idea. However, once you set up a solid reader base, you need to be more organized and start planning posts and their schedule. This is important for two reasons:
- You’re making sure that readers receive the content they expect and that there aren’t huge gaps between posts;
- You’re less likely to experience writer’s block and you always know what to focus on next.
Taking notes
Blogging is in essence a digital experience, but that doesn’t mean you should throw away your personal notebook. Instead, you should take more notes than ever. If you have a creative blog post idea on the train or while waiting in line somewhere, you can simply write it down and you’ll know for sure that you won’t forget about it. If organization isn’t your strong point, try using a bullet journal, because it makes taking notes more appealing.
Keeping up with design trends
In the beginning, when you were just starting to learn how to start blogging, you probably learned quite a bit about blog templates and picked one that was popular at the time. However, that is not the template you should be using for the rest of your blogging days. At least once a year, you should assess the performance of your current template and ask yourself: does it serve you? Does it need some extra features to enhance its functionality or, on the contrary, should you replace it with something more minimal? If you haven’t changed your blog theme since the early 2010s, then a change of look is in order. Today’s most popular blogs are stripped down of all unnecessary graphics and focus on simplicity. Backgrounds are mostly white, so that images can pop, and categorization is extremely important.
Accepting constructive feedback
Feedback is a sensitive topic for most bloggers, because it’s hard to deal with the huge amount of mean comments and hate speech they get on their posts and on social media channels. However, if you want to improve and impress your readers, you have to filter all the mean, unfounded comments and analyze constructive criticism. A lot of people really mean well when they suggest you something related to the content or the way the blog looks, and you shouldn’t feel offended.
Being unique
There are billions of blogs on the Web and the only way to stand out is to make your unique voice be heard. Don’t try to be a copycat of another famous blogger, because people can tell when you are being fake and writing for the blog will start to get more of a burden every time. No matter the type of content you post, let it represent who you are and you’ll see that people will appreciate it when you stay true to yourself.
Knowing when to take a break
Blogging requires not only energy, but also creativity. From time to time, it’s essential to take a break, relax and recharge your batteries. Forcing yourself to keep posting even if you are tired and out of ideas will only lead to stress and low quality content. Readers understand a short absence, but they aren’t that understanding of a succession of poorly written posts. So, don’t be afraid to take some time away from your computer, because you will feel refreshed and inspired when you come back!
Engaging with readers
Blogging may seem like a solitary job, but it’s not. You are writing for someone, your voice is heard and has a certain influence. Don’t built a fence between you and your readers. Instead, try to be friendly and approachable. Ask for their opinions, answers their questions and reply to comments when you can. It will create a bond and increase loyalty.
Nurturing creativity
Last, but not least, a healthy habit that every successful blogger should have is nurturing creativity. Surround yourself by people that inspire you, follow blogs that offer something to learn, go to events related to your niche and learn to ignore negative influences.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
