Marc's Blog

Blogging can get overwhelming. There’s a lot of writing, marketing, learning, and a bunch of other things as well.

Even the most passionate bloggers can sometimes feel overwhelmed by their work level.

When we get overwhelmed, our minds freeze. We have so much to do, but we don’t know where to start. The result is nothing getting done.

That’s what happens when you overwhelm yourself.

To get your work done, you cannot get overwhelmed by your workload. That means you must make your blog strategy less overwhelming.

Just because you make your blog strategy less overwhelming does not mean you are decreasing your productivity. You are just increasing the odds that you get everything done.

To make your blog strategy less overwhelming, follow these seven tips.

#1: Acquire More Knowledge

There are two reasons a blog strategy becomes overwhelming. The first reason is a time crunch and the second reason is a lack of direction.

Acquiring more knowledge accounts for both of those reasons.

If you learn more about your niche, then you will write blog posts in a shorter amount of time. If you learn more about blogging, then you have more direction with your strategy.

If your niche is blogging, then you get to feed two birds with one scone, but if your niche is not blogging, then no worries.

#2: Create A Plan

As you acquire more knowledge about blogging, you need to create a plan. What types of results do you want to see and how will you go about achieving those results?

That’s a plan in a nutshell.

Creating a plan gives you a sense of direction in your blog strategy. You know where you need to direct your time to get your desired results.

#3: Implement Now

If you learn without doing anything that you learn, you will quickly find yourself overwhelmed. Each time you learn something but don’t implement, you are adding something to your to-do list.

Learn without implementing for a few weeks, and that to-do list can get quite large.

When you come across new knowledge, you have to apply it in one way or the other. If you realize doubling your tweeting frequency results in more blog traffic, then implementing means doubling your tweeting frequency.

See what happens. If it works, great! If it doesn’t work, then at least you know (for me, it works).

Applying the knowledge can also mean writing a blog post about what you learned. When you write about the same topic you are trying to master, then don’t be surprised if you retain more of the knowledge.

The way I learn more about my niche is obtaining the knowledge and then writing about it in my words. Effectively communicating what you learned is proof that you understand the concepts.

#4: Outsource Some Of The Work

Time is always ticking and tocking. Those ticks and tocks can result in an overwhelming sense of urgency. If we had more time, we would not be as overwhelmed as we are now.

Luckily, there is an easy way to regain time in your day. In fact, it is the one tactic that you must leverage if you want to become a successful entrepreneur.

That one tactic is outsourcing.

If you outsource 80% of the work in your day, you will have a lot more time to work on the important parts of your blog strategy.

Your blog strategy will also be less overwhelming because you will have a team around you.

In other words, it’s not all on you anymore. You have people to help you.

UpWork is the best place to find freelancers who will help you with various tasks that take up your time.

I have freelancers on UpWork who schedule my tweets, create pictures, and manage my social networks among other things.

All of that time I gain now goes towards my blog and Udemy.

#5: Streamline The Writing Process

You want the writing process to go by as quickly as possible while ensuring you provide the value.

If you can cut your time spent writing a blog post by half, then you will have a lot more time available. Bloggers spend much of their time writing the content, so streamlining the writing process is the best way to open up more time.

I recently wrote a blog post that goes into detail about getting blog post ideas and then rapidly turning blog post ideas into blog posts. If you are looking to streamline your writing process, then you’ll want to read that blog post.

#6: Take Breaks

Sometimes when you feel overwhelmed by the workload, it is simply necessary to take a break.

It isn’t always a matter of giving yourself less work or working smarter. It is just a matter of abandoning your work and taking a break.

Just a 15-30 minute break. Nothing substantial.

That break will allow you to remove yourself from your work and go back to fulfilling the work-life balance. Then, once you are ready, resume your work.

You will feel less overwhelmed about the work since it won’t consume you as much as it did before you took your break.

I take breaks by watching videos, reading books, listening to audiobooks, or writing in one of my journals. There are plenty of ways to take a break that can also be useful for your blog strategy, but make sure you take a break that you enjoy.

#7: Have A Mentor

When you feel confident that blogging is for you, and you have an idea of what you are doing, having a mentor can bring you to the finish line.

I’m not simply talking about role models whose blogs you visit on a regular basis.

I am talking about the people who you can directly contact and then get insights from them specifically geared towards your question.

Maybe you find your mentor through one-on-one coaching. Maybe you find a mentor who is willing to respond to every email or tweet you send.

Try to find a free mentor or an inexpensive mentor to get started. Here’s the best way I know of to find a quality mentor for the lowest price.

Find a high value Udemy course related to the topic you are trying to learn. Buy it when Udemy runs a discount (you’ll save a lot from their discounts). Then go through the lectures (videos).

This is the key part. As you go through the lectures, ask questions in the discussion section of the course. Here’s what the discussion section of a course looks like:

Instructors tend to respond to these discussions because responding boosts their Udemy search engine rank.

It’s also common courtesy to the students who enrolled.

Now you have a mentor who will sort of work one-on-one with you for a fraction of the cost of most one-on-one coaching programs.

When people ask me questions on social media or through email, I respond as often as I can. When students ask me questions in one of my courses, I always respond.

An active Udemy instructor who teaches a course related to your niche may be the best place to go to find a mentor to make your blog strategy less overwhelming.

In Conclusion

Your blog strategy provides you with direction for the time you allocate towards blogging. However, that strategy can sometimes get overwhelming.

When your blog strategy gets overwhelming, working through isn’t the solution. You need to change your approach. When you feel overwhelmed, sometimes taking no action is better than taking action.

But if you choose to take action, you must take action in a smart manner. In an overwhelmed state, you must make small strides of progress as you head towards goal achievement.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other tips for making the blog strategy less overwhelming? Sound off in the comments section below.

One of the questions on top of every successful blogger or rising blogger’s mind is, “How do I write better content?”

The truth about blogging is that blogging is an art. There is a certain way to structure the blog posts and write what needs to be written.

You don’t want to write a blog post for the sake of writing it. You want it to be compelling and attention-grabbing. It’s easy to write a blog post. It is more challenging to write a memorable one.

A large percentage of writing more blog posts is simply practice. If you want to walk down memory lane with this blog, you will discover that my oldest blog posts are skeletons compared to the blog posts I write now.

I wasn’t the best of writers when I started. I just got better and better at my craft. In fact, I continue to get better. It is possible that 10 years from now this exact blog post looks like a skeleton compared to what I write in the future.

So how exactly do we write better blog posts that our readers will love? Here are some tips:

#1: Craft An Appealing Title

The title of your blog post lets your readers know what will be discussed in the blog post. Be too vague and readers will get confused. Their time is too precious, so most readers will choose to ignore those blog posts.

You want to craft a title that gets the main point across (what the blog post is actually about) and use pull-words in the process.

The next time you are reading other people’s blog, pay closer attention to the titles of the blog posts. Which titles grabbed your attention the most? Which words did those titles use? What were the blog posts about?

Asking yourself these questions now will help you to craft better titles for your own blog posts later.

#2: Have A Strong Introduction

Once people start reading your blog post, they are committing some of their valuable time to reading the blog post.

But since their time is valuable and these people are busy, you need to compel them right away. You do that with a strong introduction.

A strong introduction creates a more vivid picture of what the blog post will discuss. At the same time, it is engaging because it speaks to the people reading it.

When you write a blog post title, you need to consider what type of person would read the blog post from start to finish. If I write a blog post called “3 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers,” I know a few things about the readers of that blog post:

1. They have their own Twitter accounts
2. They want more followers
3. They want a big audience
4. They may want to use Twitter to grow the audience

Now that I know these four characteristics make up the people who read that particular blog post, I can speak to them.

In the introduction, I would touch upon their desire to grow a large Twitter audience, how I did it after a lot of hard work, and how they can get the same results. Then I would discuss the methods.

You aren’t writing blog posts for every person in your audience. Even if your audience is targeted. You are specifically writing for that reader who will read your blog post from start to finish.

I know that if I write the blog post “3 Ways To Get More Twitter Followers” and published it tomorrow that not everyone in my audience will read it.

Some will look at that title and think, “This isn’t what I need right now. I want to read something else.”

If someone does not have a Twitter account, then that person won’t care much for that blog post.

So even when you have a targeted audience, you are still not writing each of your blog posts for everyone. When you write a blog post, you have to get hyper targeted.

You have to look at your targeted audience and ask yourself these questions:

1. Which level of expertise do they have (are you writing for a beginner or someone more advanced)
2. For the purposes of this blog post, what area(s) within my niche should these people have a strong interest in?

My niche is digital marketing. This blog post is aimed at people who have blogs and have been writing blog posts for a while.

People who don’t fit that criteria may skip or skim through this blog post. People with the criteria may read most or all of this blog post.

#3: Spend More Time Writing Blog Posts

The more time you spend improving your writing, the better your writing will become. I make it a point to either craft an outline or write a blog post every day.

The reason is that performing the same action every day allows you to get better. That action also becomes an effortless habit.

Writing a blog post like this used to take up a large portion of my time. I struggled to think about the next sentence and how the blog post would advance.

Now I type away and barely think about what I am typing. The thoughts and idea come more natural to me than they did a few years ago.

Find some time every day to improve upon your craft. Once you commit that much time to blogging, then it is only a matter of time before you become an excellent blogger.

#4: Make Your Blog Posts Easy For Readers To Consume

Every time a reader reads through your blog post, they are consuming content. At the same time, these consumers have small attention spans (nothing personal. It applies to everyone. The average person’s attention span is smaller than that of a goldfish).

If it is difficult for your readers to consume your content, then they won’t stick around.

Making your content compelling makes the consumption process easier. However, there is another element in play. It is the same critical element that got you to reach this point of the blog post.

The truth about my blog posts is that to some degree I think of each of them as a Thanksgiving dinner.

Lots of content (food) for people to consume. I’m talking about the Thanksgiving dinner with eight or more guests.

For the sake of this particular Thanksgiving dinner, let’s say you had to eat all of the food. You could eat it within any time allocation.

Would you rather have all of that food put on one plate and eat all of the food in one bite, or would you rather eat the food more gradually and have it split amongst 30 plates.

Once you split up the food, it no longer looks intimidating. In the same way, once you split up the content within your blog post, it no longer looks hard to read.

I could have organized all of this content into one big paragraph. The only problem is that no one would stick around.

Instead, you need to break your blog post into numerous paragraphs. I’m not talking about the 4-5 liners. Those are too long nowadays.

I am talking about 1-2 line paragraphs must like this one.

This strategy just makes it easier for anyone to read your blog posts, even the skimmer. Skimmers will read small portions of each paragraph and absorb the best stuff.

If you make your paragraphs short like this, then any reader, even the skimmer, will absorb more from the blog post than if you made the blog post one massive paragraph.

#5: Learn More About Your Niche

No matter how much you know about your niche, you can always learn more about it. I often find myself reading books and blog posts about my niche and watch YouTube videos about my niche when I’m not reading about it.

Learning more about your niche gives you more expertise that you can provide to your readers. You get to diversify your blog posts while staying within your niche.

In my opinion, the best way to learn more about your niche is to read other blogs within your niche. Not only do you get to learn more about your niche, but you also get exposed to new writing styles.

Other blogs I read have influenced the way I write and structure my blog posts. Expose yourself to different styles of writing, and then you will choose the style that appeals to you the most.

Then add your own flair to it.

In Conclusion

The most successful bloggers aren’t the ones who focus on getting traffic. The most successful bloggers are the ones who focus on writing valuable content.

Once they master valuable content creation and then go after the traffic, visitors will come and stick around.

You can’t focus on getting traffic in the beginning because no matter how much traffic a bad blog post gets, the traffic will not stick around.

You don’t have to be the best writer among us before you focus on getting traffic. However, you need to have enough confidence in your style of writing that you can firmly declare that every blog post you write is going to be epic.

Which of these tips was your favorite? Do you have any other methods for writing better blog posts? Do you think bloggers should first focus on traffic or writing epic content? Sound off in the comments section below.