How to Run a Successful Blog: Our Techniques for Consistently Posting Content Every Week
In 2019, Jalen and I decided to launch The Francofile, our shared online project that spans YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and this blog. With no prior social media experience and tons of content ideas, we embarked on the journey of publicly sharing our life as a French-loving, American couple. Since then, we’ve built an active community of internationally-minded people, and this blog is one of our favorite ways to connect with them! We’re delighted that we currently get hundreds of views daily from visitors in nearly every country in the world.
So, how did we grow our blog?
Consistency is key in the blogging world, and our greatest strength as content creators lies in our commitment to posting one blog article per week. Our success didn’t happen overnight, but rather as a result of our mutual dedication. Though simply publishing every week does not a prosperous blog make, it’s a great place to start! Read on to learn how we manage to post quality content weekly, and how you can, too!
Make a Plan
The first step towards posting consistently on your blog is making a personalized content plan. Once you decide how often you want to post and what kinds of articles you want to write, you can create a concrete schedule that reflects these goals. Given our other commitments, Jalen and I maintain a weekly posting routine and plan out our blog post ideas up to a year in advance. This means that we’re never at a loss as to what our next post will be, and our audience knows that new content is available every Wednesday evening. We suggest using a paper calendar or online agenda to keep track of what you need to post and when.
Get Ahead
Life is unpredictable, but your blog posts shouldn’t be! To ensure that you can keep posting regularly under any circumstance, you should always stay ahead. Creating a queue of articles and scheduling them in advance will keep your content consistent while making blogging easier for you. Jalen and I don’t throw together our articles the day before we post them. Instead, we keep our queue full – this way, we’re never scrambling to get a new blog post ready at the last minute. We recommend having at least a month of content queued at any given time.
Jot Your Ideas Down
If you’re posting on your blog once a week or more, you’ll need to come up with plenty of different content ideas to keep your blog interesting. Rather than sitting down every so often and trying to invent hundreds of blog posts in a short period of time, we recommend that you write your ideas down when inspiration strikes organically. Every time you think to yourself, “That would make a great blog post!” jot it down in a notebook or record it in a note on your phone. We’re able to think up multiple new blog post ideas per week simply by going about our daily routines.
Set Aside Time for Blogging
Just as you schedule in time for reading, playing video games, gardening, painting, or any other hobby, you need to set aside time for writing blog posts. Simply telling yourself that you’ll blog when you have free time is not enough! If you don’t make blogging a part of your everyday life, you’ll never be able to post consistently. Jalen and I work on the blog according to our own personal schedules, but both do the majority of our blogging on the weekends. We advise you to figure out how long it takes you to write a blog post from start to finish so that you’ll know exactly how much time you need to carve out for blogging.
Create Content You Enjoy
Writing about things you like doesn’t feel like a chore, it’s entertaining and fulfilling! If you find yourself slogging through the process of blog post creation, you should ask yourself if you still enjoy the content you’re publishing. Blog posts about topics that you know and love will stand out, entice readers, and make you excited to keep posting. Jalen and I write exclusively about subjects that interest us, and we’re convinced that this choice is a key factor in our continued consistency.
Though we’re certainly considered small bloggers, we are thrilled with how many people read the content we write on The Francofile and even more pleased that we built our platform completely from scratch. If you’re looking to boost the reach of your blog, give our tips to increase your consistency a try. Which pointer will you incorporate into your blogging routine? Let us know in a comment!
2 Comments
Leyla Alyanak
Thanks for the much-needed reminder about planning and consistency! I’ve been blogging for 15 years and it’s a skill I still haven’t mastered – mostly because I forget. This is a great reminder!
Jalen & Maria
Thanks for reading! We still have a lot to learn, especially from experienced bloggers like you, but consistency has definitely gotten us to where we are today!