The Foundation of Blogging Success – Part 1: Making the Commitment

There’s a great article this morning on ProBlogger written by Tony Hung of DeepJiveInterests. Tony lists what he feels are the five prerequisites for having a successful blog. Tony defines a successful blog not only in monetary terms or traffic, but also in what he calls, ‘robust and continued growth.’

Over the next few days, I’ll add my own comments to his five great tips. Here are highlights from his first prerequisite: Putting in the Time and Commitment.

One of the things that I didn't fully appreciate is what a time commitment blogging is.

…It literally takes time to write something really meaty, interesting, and worthy of your blog. The stuff that makes people fascinated and can't wait to want more. It takes time to research stuff you don't know about, to find a block of uninterrupted time to actually sit down and write the blasted piece, and then actually get it out in a form that you feel comfortable with.

…when one starts out, one must make the commitment to blog consistently for a stretch of time. Its insufficient to blog regularly for a few days, then stop for a few weeks. …In fact, to grow your blog, you need to write for the intermediate-to-long term to see some kind of return on your time.

Beginning bloggers ought to plan to blog for at least a few months consistently before throwing the towel in. And there are some fairly concrete reasons for doing so as well. Having a body of work allows Google and other Search Engines time to find you (and get out of the Sandbox); it allows you to build a body of work that “proves” to your readers your in it for the long term; a body of work will also “prove” to your readers you know what you're talking about; the time will also allow you to market your blog (see below) to create other streams of traffic back to your site.

At the end of the day, the reality of blogging, is that to be successful, you've got to write regularly and consistently, and you've got to find the time to do it.

…If you can't do what it takes to give yourself the time to produce something on a regular basis, your blog…certainly won't grow.

read the full article on ProBlogger

Think about your business…the level of its success can be easily weighed against the effort and commitment you’ve put into it. As Tony saying, blogging is no different. The more commitment and effort you can make to your blog (and your readers), you greater your changes for success.

I don’t think that means you need to spend hours upon hours each day researching and writing in your blog. It’s important to find balance. Know what you can do and do that – consistently. That’s where the commitment comes in.

If you want to begin blogging for your business – then just begin. And do what you can commit too. If it’s five posts per day – then great. If not, don’t fret. Choose how often you feel you can write and let your success be built around what you can maintain.

Dave Schoof of The Disquiet in Men has commited to writing three blog posts per week. That may or may not seem like a lot to you (for the record, many successful bloggers would feel that 3x/week is not enough). But Dave’s been consistent – three times each week. And now, two and half months later, his blog is gaining some ground. He’s building relationships, he’s gaining comments, and his traffic has increased 10 fold over the first month his site was up. He’s even gotten clients through that have come through his blog. All on three posts per week, at about an hour per post.

Consistency (read: commitment) is an important key to successful blogging. Consistency doesn’t mean high volume. It means posting at regular intervals.

So if you’re looking to begin a business blog, or even if you have a blog that’s sputtering about, choose what you can commit too and that – regularly – the best you can.