Before you throw in your blogger’s towel, try at least one of these five tips. They’ll help you reinvigorate your blog and get back on track:
Tip 1: Work Consistently
You may already post regularly to your blog, but how regularly are you writing? Do you have a specific time when you sit down to work or do you strike when the moment takes you?
W. Somerset Maugham famously said “I only write when inspiration strikes, fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.” Try writing at the same time every day for a couple of weeks and see if the quality of your posts improves.
Tip 2: Get a Point of View
Like it or not, controversy attracts readers. There’s nothing people like more than a good scandal. You don’t have to write about inflammatory topics in order to generate controversy, you just need an opinion for people to disagree with.
Do you blog about history and feel a certain popular character needs his villainous side highlighted? Write about it and you’re bound to spark some discussion from your readers who feel otherwise. Whatever you feel strongly about, state it. You can’t please everyone, but by polarising opinion, you’ll attract loyal, committed readers.
Tip 3: Spice it Up
Perhaps your blog is full of too-similar posts. If every blog is a newspaper-style description of a topic, then you may feel creatively stagnant yourself and need a change of pace to energize your blog.
Try making a video post, or as HostPapa’s blog suggests, don’t be shy of interviewing an expert and posting the transcript. Alternatively, you could create an in-depth how-to guide. Whatever you try, make it different from what you normally do.
Tip 4: Be More Relevant
Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Reddit keep track of the hot topic items of the day. Browse these sites and look for trends that you can shape to fit your blog. What are the latest Justin Bieber antics? Who are the winner snowboarders in the 2014 Winter Olympics?
Find a link between your blog and current events or popular culture, in order to reach out to thousands of viewers keen on listening to popular events. Once you think creativity, you’ll find people coming for one reason and staying for another.
Tip 5: Look Inward
Sure, the reader is important, every writer knows that, but that doesn’t mean you’re unimportant. If you want the reader to be interested in your topics, then you have to be interested in what you’re writing.
If you’re feeling stuck, maybe you’ve gotten too far away from what you loved about your blog in the first place and are playing an unwinnable game of please-the-reader. Think about the original purpose of the blog and create your next post with that in mind. Your readers will notice the difference.
Did any of these tips help you? Do you have any others to add? Let us know in the comments.
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