One of the biggest reasons people tend to think blogging is more work than it actually is, is because they think you have to “knock it out of the park” with every post.
That puts a lot of pressure on you to do all sorts of things with each post which are unnecessary and definitely makes for less regular posting after awhile.
For example: I am writing this post to you, my reader. I am writing it to tip you off on an important idea that will help you. I don’t need to rank for some specific keyword on this post. The purpose is to provide something of value for the readers I already have. And, for new readers who find this post because they came here from another post I did put some SEO into to get them here.
Regular readers get a bit of help and new readers see how I take care of my regular readers and bookmark me for later (hopefully).
The key is to chill out about blogging in general. Most of the time you just need to write. Damn the search engines and all that SEO! You are only ever going to rank high for a small percentage of your post and pages even if you DO work your butt off on each and every one to hit the right keywords and get links.
So take care of your readers. Do not let a great idea for a post go to waste simply because you think it’s going to take you all day to get the thing perfect for the engines. Write it. If it starts to rank on page 3 or 4 in Google, come back and re-optimize it to get it to the top 10.
Posts You Want To Spend More Time On
Linkbait: research, super quality writing and layout of the post
Affiliate: When you review a product and want to rank right up with or above the product owner for keywords. I always try to land a top 10 position with “[product name] review” when I want to get a ton of traffic from people looking for product reviews of certain internet marketing products.
Posts You Need to Just Write and Get Done!
This should be the majority of your posting. Make a good title. Throw a keyword in the first paragraph. But WRITE!
Utility Posts: Also known as Speedlinking. Where you link to a bunch of other bloggers or resources to get posting done for the day and let your peers do the hard work that day. While you look like a hero for pointing out good stuff to your readers.
Notes to your readers: Like this one. Although it’s turned into a longer post, you can just use your blog like Twitter and post very short, helpful ideas, links, videos, or other snippets. Just make your readers aware that you care. New people who discover your blog from the posts you DO rank in the engines for will see that you are attentive and not always trying to just get more readers without caring about supporting your regular readers.
You’re Going to Love Blogging More…
…if you chill out about trying to rank for everything you write!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Jack you make a lot of sense in this post. We dont have time to agonize over every post we write everyday. That would make us constipated and in need of an enema.
Thats why I followed your advice and purchased your software the Utility Poster
and my favorite, although I don’t use it as much as i could, Video Poster.
Both are awesome tools and make for quick and easy posting.
Thanks for the great tools and keeping us up to date
Gary McElwain
Gary McElwains last blog post..LSI, RTD, PPC, The ABC’s of Ranking No.1 on the Google Tree
try to rank for everything & blogging would be boring!
after all, most of us hav taken blogging as fun in the first place
aniroy1986s last blog post..Easy Way to Recover Your Lost Wordpress Password
Excellent Excellent post Jack. This makes perfect sense. I know at times I have struggled to write a post believing I had to always try to rank for a particular set of keywords. Then one day it hit me out of the blue that I just can’t do that on a regular basis. I would never get anything done doing it that way.
So when I began to just write what I wanted without worrying about any SEO techniques, the words just flowed. I was able to pump out a post in a matter of minutes. Jack you have confirmed my feelings on this and boy is it a relief! Thanks O Great One!
Sonjas last blog post..Link Building-Old Doesn’t Mean Obsolete
@Sonja – Can you talk to my wife about starting to refer to me as “O Great One?” She doesn’t seem to be picking that up and using it like others do.
These are some really good points! I have been posting in this manner as well – I don’t always have time to go through a song and dance for every post on every blog – which would wind up with some unnatural (as well as sporadic) posting patterns. Plus, if you don’t spend too much time on every single post, that leaves you more time to plan and put a lot of work into the most important ones as you mentioned above.