Just Say ‘No’: 6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Have a Blog
I have taught our blogging workshops long enough to recognize a certain person. You may recognize her, too. In fact, it may be you. After one of my classes, a student who had been very quiet throughout the session came up to me. She wore a deep frown.
But then she broke into a grin.
“Thank you,” she said.
” For what?” I asked.
“For giving me permission not to blog,” she said.
And she isn’t the last one to say that to me.
Too many blogs
Every social media expert on the planet has one or two or three blogs. All our friends and colleagues are doing the blogging thing.
It’s easy to see why someone might think their business will go down the toilet without one. In our workshops, we walk people through the benefits and the commitment required to be a successful blogger.
6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Blog
1. Your customers don’t go online. This is a big one. Obvious example: Say you are a service station owner. Do your customers go online to learn about your products and services? And if they do, will their habits in buying gas change as a result of reading your posts?
2. It would take you four hours to write a post. Depending on what you charge clients for your services, the marketing benefits you get from blogging could be eaten up by spending a half a day noodling with one post.
3. You don’t have anything to say. Maybe this is true and maybe it isn’t. But related to reason #2, if you are constantly stressed out because you don’t have a topic, if you have to reach deep every time you come up with a subject, this might be too time-consuming and draining an experience for you.
4. You have something to say, but you aren’t a writer. This may be good or bad, depending on what you think “writing” looks like. But if you get tongue-tied every time you sit down to write, or you have an inner critic, say, your 5th grade teacher, who just won’t let up on you, maybe you should rethink things. (Or maybe you should hire someone to blog for you.)
5. You and your computer don’t have much together time. I hear this frequently. “I’m away from the office a lot.” Part of blogging is posting. But another key part is responding to your readers. If you don’t recognize them with a comment, they might not come back.
6. You have to be careful about what you say. Maybe you are an attorney or a psychologist. If you blog under your business identity, weigh carefully whether you risk someone construing your personal post as professional advice.
Backup Buddy Plugin – A Dream Come True
If you have read my blog, attended my workshops, or even casaully discussed WordPress with me, you know my feelings about backing up your files. Yes, most servers and hosts do it routinely, and yours might be one of them. But I don’t like to rely on them.
I always recommend using WP DB Backup plugin for your database which it basically all of your content — pages and posts. But what about your other WordPress files. And all the media you have uploaded? Yes, you can back those up usually using an FTP client, but maybe you don’t have the know how or the time.
I know what you are thinking.
This sounds like an ad.
Well, in a way maybe it is. But PlugInBuddy.com from iThemes, has come up with Backup Buddy. It’s great. And it backs up everything.
A side note. I was concerned the otther day when a client that I was doing consulting told me another “so called” WordPress expert told her to just use the export tool, and that will backup everything. Not! What are these people anyway, giving away wrong info!
Yes, I am an affiliate for this, a few bucks in my pocket. And yes, it’s not a free plugin. But damn, it’s great. And well worth the money!
Your Old Blog Posts Aren’t Dead. They’re Just Sleeping.
Post by Judy Dunn
We’ve been tricked. All of us.
That freshly baked, piping hot, sweet-smelling, pie called Original Content grabbed us by the collar. Assaulted our nostrils. Made us salivate.
This pie was made just for me. It’s fresh and juicy. No one else has had a bite. I want the first piece.
We bloggers know this pie well. We should, because we baked it.
As we create the content pie that becomes a new blog post, someone is standing over our shoulder. Maybe it’s that Internet marketer who sends us their weekly newsletter. Or that hot-shot author whose book, “Create Original Content or Die,” is on the bestseller list. And they are whispering:
“Say something new! ”
“Write with your own voice!”
“Be original. Be Cree-A-tive.”
Why Bringing Back an Old Blog Post Can Be a Good Thing
Attention spans are murderously short on the Web. Plus, you are always collecting new readers.
So you have your memory-challenged regular readers. And you have a brand new audience that has never read your old posts. That means that with just a little tweaking (or a lot, if it makes sense), you can get more google juice.
Of course, if you just start republishing old posts randomly, without choosing carefully, you’ll just be rehashing stale, boring ideas. But done right, you’ll get a surge in traffic and, very possibly, some new subscribers.
5 Steps to Waking Up an Old Post
- Revisit your older posts often. Your goal here is to find which posts were the most popular. If you see a certain post being viewed again and again, this is prime content to bring back. Sometimes it will be a post that had a lot of reader comments and sometimes not. Pay particular attention if the referring site (where the reader came from) is Google. If people are searching for help with a certain problem and they keep finding your blog post, you have a winner and you should consider republishing it.
- Look at your title, sub-heads and formatting with a fresh eye. Reworking the title just a little bit could make your post even more popular in a Google search. An added benefit: Google will look at it with fresh eyes, too. Google Analytics even tells you what terms people were using in their search when they found your post. Adding intriguing sub-heads also helps—to break up the text and draw the eye to the important parts of your post. And check your spacing. Do paragraph breaks often to help readers skim and scan. Sometime my paragraphs are just one sentence long, especially if I want to add emphasis to a thought.
- Consider updating the content. Your most popular posts got to be that way for a reason. If you can add new content, or rewrite, you’ll capture more readers, people who wanted to know more about what you were talking about. So think about the new things you could add.
- Add new tags. A tag is merely a keyword or category used to describe the topic of your post. Tags are indexed by Google and Technorati, so someone doing a Google search is more likely to come across your posts. Revisit your tags and think about whether adding a few new ones might help more people find your post.
- Think about adding a new image or two. If you are like me, you didn’t give much thought to images when you first started blogging. But images can be very powerful, hitting the part of the brain that triggers memory and emotions. The result: You attract more readers—and keep them engaged in your post. For more advice on what the right image can do for your post, read 5 Ways the Right Photo Can Get You More Blog Readers. For some good sources of photos, see my recent post, How to Find Spectacular Free and Low-Cost Images for Your Blog Post.
What about you? Do you republish old blog posts? Do you think it’s a good strategy?
