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One of the benefits of the current stay-at-home order is that you can focus a little more time on your blog!
Whether you are a full- or part-time blogger, there is always something that can be done for your site! Creating new content or even doing regular maintenance can take hours — if not days — so why not use some of that extra time you have and put it into your blog?
If you are wanting to start your own blog, now is the perfect time to do it! You can read about my experience starting this blog and why I chose to self-host here. If you want to just get started right away, you can sign up with my hosting provider, Bluehost, now!
WAYS TO CONTINUE WORKING ON YOUR BLOG DURING QUARANTINE
CREATE NEW CONTENT – Right now, people are looking for normalcy and, really, anything to help get them through this time. So whether you write about how people can money from home, share your DIY projects or review movies and video games, we all have something to offer! Take advantage of this quarantine to help people out while getting new readers at the same time!
CREATE A BLOGGING SCHEDULE – Do you want to share a new blog post every week? Do you struggle with getting posts done in a timely manner? Do you want the freedom to take time off from blogging? Creating a schedule for yourself will help!
Print out a calendar and plan out all of your posts for that month. Work on anything you can ahead of time and schedule it for the posting date.
CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULE – Sharing on social media is one of the best things you can do for your blog! You don’t have to share on every platform, but I would highly recommend Pinterest if you can only choose only one. It’s a great place to share just about anything and it continues to circulate forever, unlike other sites where the shelf life of your post may only be a day or so.
Creating a presence on other social media sites like Instagram, Twitter, Tik-Tok, Facebook or even YouTube can also be super helpful for your blog. These platforms allow you to show more of your personality and everyday life, which helps your readers relate and get to know you better!
Whatever you choose, set up a social media posting schedule for yourself. This could be as simple as sharing a blog post or class you offer to Facebook each day. It can also be more involved, such as a video series on YouTube or IGTV.
It can be hard keep up with all of the different aspects of blogging, but sharing and getting your posts out there should be a high priority!
SHOP FOR YOUR HOME OFFICE
ADD A NEW FORM OF SOCIAL MEDIA – While we’re on the topic, now is a great time to try out a new form of social media! People are at home looking for connection with the outside world and that means a lot of people are on social media even more during the day. They may be wanting to learn something new, looking for project inspiration or even shopping. So, if you’ve been wanting to try out Youtube, Instagram or whatever other social media site, now is a great time to get into it and test out your audience!
BATCH YOUR WORK – Creating a blogging and social media schedule is a great start, but what makes those schedules even more effective is batching your work! The process of batching is meant to streamline your work, so you are focusing on one task at a time while doing it in a larger quantity.
For example, you want to have your next month of Instagram photos ready before that month starts, so you edit all of those photos at one time. You can then take all of your edited photos and put them into an app where you can plan the layout of your feed and add captions. Doing this all at the same time might take several hours, but then all you will need to do each day during that next month is copy the photo, caption and post it. This will save you a significant amount of time every day and keep you posting consistently!
I do this with my Pinterest, too! I use the last Sunday of each month to create pinnable images and graphics for the next month. It’s so much easier when I’m in a flow to make a ton at a time! I can then schedule those images directly on Pinterest to post on their own over the following weeks.
Batching any of your blogging processes will only help you work more efficiently and make those mundane tasks a little more bearable!
BRAINSTORM – Take this break to find new inspiration! Write down any ideas that you have for blog posts, a new site design, products to sell or, really, anything that inspires you. I love to use my notes app, so even when I’m out and about, I can jot down any ideas that pop into my head! Heck, it’s never too early to start planning for summer, fall or holiday content!
You should also poll and ask your followers on social media what they want to see from you!
JOIN AN AFFILIATE NETWORK – Monetize your site without using ads everywhere! There are a ton of affiliate networks and companies you can work with to make some money on the side. If you are already reviewing or linking to products for your readers, why not get paid for it?
Stay FTC compliant and make sure you ALWAYS disclose any affiliates, sponsorships or partnerships at the beginning of your blog post or anywhere else you are directed to. The company you are working with will check on this and may even kick you out for not following the rules.
CREATE A PRODUCT TO SELL – A great long-term way to make an income from your blog is to create and sell something! This could be a physical product like clothing or handmade goods, a digital product like printable art or even an educational product like a class or workshop.
Use this time to research eCommerce platforms for blogs, learning what they offer and the fees. Reach out to other bloggers with shops and ask about their experiences.
EDIT OLD POSTS – Just because a blog post is a year old — or even older — doesn’t mean it’s not still relevant. Go back to your older posts and update them!
Maybe you have a DIY project you feel you can improve the second time around. Adding newer and better quality photos will just enhance and give new life to your post. Do you work with an affiliate network now and can link to products? Why not add links your older articles that people are still reading? Or maybe you are just a better writer now than you were then. You worked so hard on those posts, it’s okay to edit them and make people want to keep reading!
SHOP FOR YOUR HOME OFFICE
ADD PINNABLE IMAGES – Whether you use Pinterest or not, your blog readers can pin and save your images back to Pinterest. Once they’re on Pinterest, millions of other people can see those images, too, so it’s important to have images that look good on your site!
I like to add a graphic at the bottom of each of my blog posts that encourages people to pin it! I add a title or other informational text and my website url, so people know exactly what it’s all about! This is especially great when you have a blog post that isn’t just a bunch of pretty pictures!
MAINTENANCE AND BLOG UPDATES – The one thing about self-hosting your own blog is that you have to do all of the updates and maintenance yourself. Take this time to back up your blog and then update plug-ins, themes and anything else that needs to be done.
REDESIGN YOUR BLOG – Give your entire website or even just your home page a makeover. It may take awhile to learn how to do all of the designing yourself, but it makes it so much easier down the road when you want to switch it up again or need to fix something.
I have so much fun updating my blog every now and then — changing the theme colors, fonts, photos and layout! Knowing how to re-design my blog comes in handy especially during the holidays when I want to make holiday articles, crafts and gift guides front and center!
ORGANIZE YOUR POSTS – Make it easy for your readers to find your posts! Did you start out writing about one topic, but have since grown and now share other subjects, too? Go back through and organize your posts into categories that are simple to get to! Add these categories to your menu so your readers can quickly find what they are looking for!
LEARN NEW THINGS – Not sure how SEO and keywords work? Want to start self-hosting your own site? Are you pages slow to load but you don’t know why?
Take this time to learn about anything regarding blogging that you don’t understand right now. There are endless resources online that you can read or watch to solve just about any issue you have! If you’re stuck in the house, why not finally learn all those things you keep putting off?
PIN IT FOR LATER!
