This is a guest post by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of college courses.
If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.
We all know that full-time blogging can at times be very frustrating, especially if we suddenly find ourselves under the terrifying spell of writers block. Every blogger knows this feeling, but few successfully deal with it.
What separates the bloggers who make money from the bloggers whose sites stagnate in low-traffic obscurity is how the former take this supposed crisis and turn it into an opportunity for more business. Remember, there’s more to blogging than just blogging, so if you find yourself unable to write a post, here are a few things you can do to maximize your return.
Publish Something!
If you can’t create new content, make sure you publish something to maintain your site’s activity and remind readers that you’re still around. Of course, don’t just publish anything! Be careful what you publish. You should have a queue of posts already drafted for dire times such as these.
Also, consider republishing an old post with a quick line of commentary that reflects your updated thinking on the subject.
Publish a guest post from your queue.
Publish a link roundup to other articles that you’ve been thinking about, but haven’t yet had time to respond to.
Publish a quotation from another blogger or thinker that you find interesting.
If all else fails, and you have the traffic and active community of readers to pull it off, publish a post devoted to an open thread and let your readers create the content.
Tidy Up Behind-the-Scenes
When you’re blocked, you can still accomplish a lot for the overall health of your site. Devote this downtime to the menial tasks of site maintenance, like killing spam comments, responding to other comments, checking for dead links, and so on.
Try to line up some guest posts for your site, by inviting frequent commenters to suggest topics they could write about or contact other bloggers to do a content exchange. Query potential advertisers. Brainstorm a list of possible subjects to write about for the coming week.
Go Out Into the Community
Once you’ve taken care of your own real estate, head out into the blogging community. Read through your favorite sites for new posts and see if their content inspires you.
Maybe you can ask to write a guest post for them?
Or maybe their content can lead to a response post on your own blog. If necessary, force yourself to write a comment on the other blog, and see if this will get your creative juices flowing. Then you can take that comment and use it as the beginning of your own post. Be sure to link to the other site in order to create the perfect environment for a community discussion.
This guest post is contributed by Angelita Williams, who writes on the topics of college courses. She welcomes your comments below and at her email Id: angelita.williams7 @ gmail.com.
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Thanks for all your suggestions Angelita. I am a newbie to blogging so at the moment still got lots of posts to write. However, it is helpful to have these tips for when I don’t have the inspiration to write.
Patricia Perth Australia
Thank you Patricia. I am glad you liked these tips. Such feedback comes as a motivation.
Hi Angelita,
Just about the post I need to read especially now when i don’t have much content to think about. I’ve got a guest post in queue at the moment on my blog, meanwhile I think I will try digging something out from an old post and give it a fresh view about it.
Aside from not have post a idea, republishing an old post is a good idea because is a way to bring up an old post that provides background context for a brand new post that comes right afterward.
I’m glad you know what you’re talking about here. It’s imperative to publish content even if you aren’t writing fresh content yourself. you don’t want your blog to lose the traffic you’ve worked hard to build.
very good suggestions ,publishing the post devoted to an open thread and let readers create the content is very useful sometimes !!
Corinne, you need to focus on three points:
1) Keep the content unique on your site.
2) Don’t republish old post. If you do so, then make sure to change the title and content entirely.
3) Even if you have more than one domain, avoid posting the same article on those sites. Google may consider it as a SPAM or Dup Content.
Hey Angelita,
This one issue (about penalise duplicate content) is still confusing me.
One to another website it is defined differently.
Some say, duplicate content is a myth, some said it exists.
In my opinion, Google won’t penalise any sites because of duplicate content (if they do, none of autoblogs out there won’t be indexed in search result).
But big G will give cold shoulder to the websites which don’t have unique content.
Am I wrong?
Thanks for great post above!
Kimi,
Duplicate content is only an issue when it comes to having the same content on your own site/ blog twice.
Check out this video:
https://www.webuildyourblog.com/1151/duplicate-content-myth-straight-horses-mouth/
Andrew
Thanks for the link Andrew,
Will check it later after lunch 😀
Bookmarked it.
Have a nice day.
When i have writer’s block i will go out there and read others people’s blog to get idea or visit a niche related forum to see what topics that people are discussing. I always have more ideas to write than have time to really sit down and write them
As written above, we must avoid republishing old posts. And, if we do, it’s necessary for us to change the title and content to avoid the dup content issue. Sometimes, Google assumes this as a tactic to get more traffic/benefits even though our intention is not bad. Just my two cents.
Yes, I have written, “Also, consider republishing an old post with a quick line of commentary that reflects your updated thinking on the subject”. But we need to change the title and content entirely so that it does not look like a copy-paste one.
I’ve been lucky enough not to have experienced a serious case of writer’s block yet. I think in part because I work full time and my blog is my second project, so it’s a way for me to think about something else besides work. I also tend to have a list of post ideas or titles in my mind that I draw on when it comes time for me to publish a post.
Personally, I find mind mapping to be a great tool for keeping a good queu of ideas flowing on guest posts. I use an iPhone app for this purpose and it gets the job done nicely!
Hello Angelita,
I find that sometimes I just can’t think of anything worth writing but I read on some other blogs about a very cool and well thought idea of having post idea.
People are taking notepads, or with the help of their smart phones they keep notes of idea that may pop-up in their minds while walking home from work, staying in their cubical etc, thus you can almost always have a great list of idea to start a post from.
Oh how I wish for writers block! I have so much to write about but so little time!! lol.
I will file away these tips though for the wonderous day that I might get where I have enough time to run out of things to write about! 🙂
Andy, I’m with you on this 🙂 I rarely get a block. I have so many ideas but don’t have the time to put my fingers on the keyboard. I really wish I make a blog post for every super idea I get 🙂 #notbragging.
I have a hard time since I will write a ton of articles and want to publish all at once instead of planning to post them over a period of time instead.
I don’t really like to force myself to write. Therefore, when i encounter the writers block, i will just relax myself doing something else like reading others’ blog, doing link building and so on. Sometimes, i will travel to other place to relax my mind. Therefore, i think it is the matter how we overcome it and manage it.