Content Strategy for next year- Why you should Blog less in 2018
It would have been an easier task to advise and encourage everyone to blog more in the new year. Makes an ideal new year resolution isn’t it? But wondering why I am suggesting to blog less in 2018? Read on
While blogging and bloggers continues to retain their share of importance in the social media and online space, a time has come that just having a blog and lots of blogposts is not enough. If you need to grow your blog in 2018, you need to focus on various secondary skills/additional activities listed below and use them to supplement/support your blogging initiatives. Because of this, my suggestion for bloggers would be to spend less on actual blogging (writing blog posts) and focus more on below aspects in 2018, introspect, refine your strategy and then resume blogging in full force. Of course not all of these applies to everyone- like if you're a pro photographer already, #8 doesn't apply to you.
Why blog less in 2018? Because you may need some time and effort for other supporting activities.
1. What’s your video strategy for 2018?
Compared to 2-3 years ago, now no one cares much about data consumption on the mobile. Thanks to Jio and other such generous data offers. People may not have time to read a long post that needs 10 minutes to read, but if there’s an interesting short video, they will have time for it. Given the growing importance of youtube, what would be your strategy to it? Ignore? (that is perfectly fine) Focus half on blog, half on youtube? If you’re decided to go serious on youtube in 2018 how do you plan to generate video content, edit it etc. Think about it
2. Grow your secondary platform profile
Besides blogging, what else excites you? Identify one or two secondary platforms where you can contribute/activity participate and establish an identity/credibility. Zomato, Tripadvisor, Quora etc are some such platforms which your readers as well as brands care about. A good visibility here will add to your credentials and hopefully some readership/other benefits. Of course it is important to balance your time and effort spent on these platforms- too many users there and you can’t afford to spend all your time there trying to dominate. Right strategy will be select a few topics of your expertise and stay focused on that (example- It may not be possible to be #1 reviewer in your city on Zomato. But if your specialty is Chinese food, review all Chinese restaurants in town on Zomato and aim to reach good popularity among fans who like Chinese food.)
3. Review your old posts
Old posts usually draw good amount of traffic from Google. But information gets outdated fast. If your search engine based readers get obsolete info when they open an old post, it won't be good. As much important it is to write new post, it is equally important to keep older posts updated and make them work for you. Check your old topics- do they need an update? Can you add a better photo now? Does it make sense to include a link to few newer relevant posts in them? How are they doing in terms of SEO? Any comments on them not responded to yet?
4. Try contributing to print/other reputed online publications
Every 3rd person you meet these days is a blogger or influencer. How will you stay ahead of the curve? Try to contribute to print or reputed online publications. It takes time and effort, there will be many rejections but if you can succeed, it adds lots of credibility.
5. Attend events
No amount of social media can substitute a real meeting. Attend relevant events (events related to blogging or events on topics you blog about), meet people- bloggers, brands etc, share your visiting card like the old fashioned way and network. Lots of opportunities arise from networking and existing contacts.
6. Read and encourage other bloggers
If everyone is a writer, who will read? A good blogger or writer is also supposed to be good reader. Do take a moment to read other bloggers who write on similar topics. Indiblogger is a great tool to start. Reading other blogposts will also give you lots of insights- what kind of posts are getting more comments/ shares, how good is their writing/photographs etc compared to yours. If you think "everyone else is a competition. I will not share any other blog post however good it may be" you're getting nowhere. Read more, encourage others and learn. Not everyone will reciprocate but that is fine.
7. Check if your blog is able to make any real life impact
We often publish a post anticipating that everyone will love this post, like, share and comment on it. But 24 hours later, we realize that rest of the world hardly cares about what we have written. It is important to write stuff that offers some sort of value. Forget the metrics like DA,PA, page views etc. Your blog will be successful if it has made an impact on your readers- Did lots of people buy the product you’d positively reviewed? Did people travel to an offbeat destination you’d recommended? Did the Restaurant manager say he got many customers after your review? Did your critical review of a faulty service helped many others stay away from it and save their hard earned money? Depending on what niche you’re focused on, try to gauge the impact of your work on your readers. If you're already getting good number of comments and views/share etc then you know there is good impact. if not do a survey or ask on social media etc. If the content is not getting any traction, there’s hardly any impact you might have to introspect if anything needs a change.
8.Focus on your photography skills:
When you share your blogpost on FB, Facebook preview shows one photo from the post. If this photo is tempting enough more and more people will click and visit the blog. If the featured image is too ordinary, most readers may skip the post. Now everyone has a mobile camera, every 3rd person has a DSLR and thus everyone is a photographer. How can you ensure your photos stay a step ahead? In 2018, spend some time honing your photography skills- join a photography workshop if you can afford, or use online tutorials and learn some post processing skills, join photo walks, take inputs from expert photographers. Learn mistakes to avoid (like not factoring direction of sunlight), learn some basic post processing, learn how to get more interesting perspectives. Better photographs will get you more readers, also more fanfare on Instagram.
Note: You can also source photographs from loyalty free websites. If photography is not your area of interest or your blog niche isn't photo intensive (like say poetry blog) then feel free to skip above points.
9. Short post vs long post
This is another aspect about blogposts blogger should think about. A general belief is that long posts (2500 words or more) are good for SEO and google will take them seriously. May be true. But the truth is, readers are getting increasingly impatient of late. Not many have the time to read entire post and extract the essence- they might just skip the post if they sense it is unnecessarily elongated. Of course there are readers who have the time and love to read detailed narrations. In 2018, what should be your strategy? Write extra long, detailed posts or write shorter, crisper and more focused posts? Both have their pros and cons. I am not voting for either. You may decide what works for your readers and your writing style.
10. Art of promoting on social media
How were you promoting your posts on social media in 2017? Dropping the URL in dozens of FB groups, tagging all friends etc? Happy with the result? What plans for 2018? Keep doing the same? Or try something else? Are you getting good traffic from FB page? Is FB ad worth anymore? Should you try some new platform in 2018? I don’t know. You’ve to analyse for yourself and decide your future moves.
Related: What I learnt from Rs 200 FB promotion
So, all the best for blogging in 2018. Blog more if you can, but do it with a purpose, planning and a sense of satisfaction.
Similar: How to manage time for blogging * Sponsored post- how much to charge *
While blogging and bloggers continues to retain their share of importance in the social media and online space, a time has come that just having a blog and lots of blogposts is not enough. If you need to grow your blog in 2018, you need to focus on various secondary skills/additional activities listed below and use them to supplement/support your blogging initiatives. Because of this, my suggestion for bloggers would be to spend less on actual blogging (writing blog posts) and focus more on below aspects in 2018, introspect, refine your strategy and then resume blogging in full force. Of course not all of these applies to everyone- like if you're a pro photographer already, #8 doesn't apply to you.
Why blog less in 2018? Because you may need some time and effort for other supporting activities.
1. What’s your video strategy for 2018?
Compared to 2-3 years ago, now no one cares much about data consumption on the mobile. Thanks to Jio and other such generous data offers. People may not have time to read a long post that needs 10 minutes to read, but if there’s an interesting short video, they will have time for it. Given the growing importance of youtube, what would be your strategy to it? Ignore? (that is perfectly fine) Focus half on blog, half on youtube? If you’re decided to go serious on youtube in 2018 how do you plan to generate video content, edit it etc. Think about it
2. Grow your secondary platform profile
Besides blogging, what else excites you? Identify one or two secondary platforms where you can contribute/activity participate and establish an identity/credibility. Zomato, Tripadvisor, Quora etc are some such platforms which your readers as well as brands care about. A good visibility here will add to your credentials and hopefully some readership/other benefits. Of course it is important to balance your time and effort spent on these platforms- too many users there and you can’t afford to spend all your time there trying to dominate. Right strategy will be select a few topics of your expertise and stay focused on that (example- It may not be possible to be #1 reviewer in your city on Zomato. But if your specialty is Chinese food, review all Chinese restaurants in town on Zomato and aim to reach good popularity among fans who like Chinese food.)
3. Review your old posts
Old posts usually draw good amount of traffic from Google. But information gets outdated fast. If your search engine based readers get obsolete info when they open an old post, it won't be good. As much important it is to write new post, it is equally important to keep older posts updated and make them work for you. Check your old topics- do they need an update? Can you add a better photo now? Does it make sense to include a link to few newer relevant posts in them? How are they doing in terms of SEO? Any comments on them not responded to yet?
4. Try contributing to print/other reputed online publications
Every 3rd person you meet these days is a blogger or influencer. How will you stay ahead of the curve? Try to contribute to print or reputed online publications. It takes time and effort, there will be many rejections but if you can succeed, it adds lots of credibility.
5. Attend events
No amount of social media can substitute a real meeting. Attend relevant events (events related to blogging or events on topics you blog about), meet people- bloggers, brands etc, share your visiting card like the old fashioned way and network. Lots of opportunities arise from networking and existing contacts.
6. Read and encourage other bloggers
If everyone is a writer, who will read? A good blogger or writer is also supposed to be good reader. Do take a moment to read other bloggers who write on similar topics. Indiblogger is a great tool to start. Reading other blogposts will also give you lots of insights- what kind of posts are getting more comments/ shares, how good is their writing/photographs etc compared to yours. If you think "everyone else is a competition. I will not share any other blog post however good it may be" you're getting nowhere. Read more, encourage others and learn. Not everyone will reciprocate but that is fine.
7. Check if your blog is able to make any real life impact
We often publish a post anticipating that everyone will love this post, like, share and comment on it. But 24 hours later, we realize that rest of the world hardly cares about what we have written. It is important to write stuff that offers some sort of value. Forget the metrics like DA,PA, page views etc. Your blog will be successful if it has made an impact on your readers- Did lots of people buy the product you’d positively reviewed? Did people travel to an offbeat destination you’d recommended? Did the Restaurant manager say he got many customers after your review? Did your critical review of a faulty service helped many others stay away from it and save their hard earned money? Depending on what niche you’re focused on, try to gauge the impact of your work on your readers. If you're already getting good number of comments and views/share etc then you know there is good impact. if not do a survey or ask on social media etc. If the content is not getting any traction, there’s hardly any impact you might have to introspect if anything needs a change.
8.Focus on your photography skills:
When you share your blogpost on FB, Facebook preview shows one photo from the post. If this photo is tempting enough more and more people will click and visit the blog. If the featured image is too ordinary, most readers may skip the post. Now everyone has a mobile camera, every 3rd person has a DSLR and thus everyone is a photographer. How can you ensure your photos stay a step ahead? In 2018, spend some time honing your photography skills- join a photography workshop if you can afford, or use online tutorials and learn some post processing skills, join photo walks, take inputs from expert photographers. Learn mistakes to avoid (like not factoring direction of sunlight), learn some basic post processing, learn how to get more interesting perspectives. Better photographs will get you more readers, also more fanfare on Instagram.
Note: You can also source photographs from loyalty free websites. If photography is not your area of interest or your blog niche isn't photo intensive (like say poetry blog) then feel free to skip above points.
9. Short post vs long post
This is another aspect about blogposts blogger should think about. A general belief is that long posts (2500 words or more) are good for SEO and google will take them seriously. May be true. But the truth is, readers are getting increasingly impatient of late. Not many have the time to read entire post and extract the essence- they might just skip the post if they sense it is unnecessarily elongated. Of course there are readers who have the time and love to read detailed narrations. In 2018, what should be your strategy? Write extra long, detailed posts or write shorter, crisper and more focused posts? Both have their pros and cons. I am not voting for either. You may decide what works for your readers and your writing style.
10. Art of promoting on social media
How were you promoting your posts on social media in 2017? Dropping the URL in dozens of FB groups, tagging all friends etc? Happy with the result? What plans for 2018? Keep doing the same? Or try something else? Are you getting good traffic from FB page? Is FB ad worth anymore? Should you try some new platform in 2018? I don’t know. You’ve to analyse for yourself and decide your future moves.
Related: What I learnt from Rs 200 FB promotion
So, all the best for blogging in 2018. Blog more if you can, but do it with a purpose, planning and a sense of satisfaction.
Similar: How to manage time for blogging * Sponsored post- how much to charge *
This was such a bang on article! Super impressive!
ReplyDeleteThanks Saakshi
DeleteInteresting post. Great to read.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rupam
DeleteLast year you did a post on how manage the time effectively for blogging and this year this post both are gem. I have been working on 1,2 & 3 points very seriously. Hope it works out.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Best wishes for 2018
DeleteAgree with your points, Shrinidhi.
ReplyDeleteNew year is almost here with lots of cheer & blogging points to take care of!
Happy New Year & Happy Blogging to all of us :)
Thanks. Happy new year and happy blogging
DeleteA very comprehensive list. Great points there, Shrinidhi.
ReplyDeleteHappy 2018 to you. :)
Thank you. Happy 2018 to you too
DeleteExcellent post. Long posts might attract more search traffic but readers skip most of the content. So I guess it's important, at least on the long run, to keep posts to the point. Besides, it's important for bloggers to gain different traffic sources apart from Google. That's why that social networking and networking in general is going to be critical in 2018.
ReplyDeleteDestination Infinity
These are some very interesting insights Srinidhi. One more thing I would suggest if I may, try adding infographics to the blog post which are more useful and crisp. That is one think I have been decided to incorporate into my blog posts going forward.
ReplyDeleteThanks Sindhu. Good idea on infographics. For some reason your comment was marked as spam- retrieved it
DeletePoint number 7...says it all!
ReplyDeleteFabulous post with some great insights on what to consider and what not to. I've been a secret admirer of your work as have taken a lot of details from your travel posts but hardly ever commented on them. I really feel terrible for not doing so. But here I'm again after reading a much needed and an informative post, this time I won't hold myself to mention that your wit and detailed posts on travel are ah-mazing. Best wishes for 2018, Srini! 😊
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and the supportive comment. Happy 2018 for you too
DeleteExcellent post. Long posts might attract more search traffic but short posts are equally important. I try to keep a balance. Guide kind of posts are longer with every details like one stop shop and others are shorter ones.
ReplyDeleteIt's becoming difficult to be or perform on all platforms. I would like to see how people keep balance on that.
Thanks a lot
Delete