Hi and welcome to The Candid Talks blogging series. In this series, I will each week cover a different topic, question, news or trend from the blogging world.
The new posts will be uploaded every Sunday evening at 8pm Central European Time. So in case, you do not want to miss it, I encourage you to sign up for the newsletter or the in-browser notifications.
In the first episode I have covered the blogging in 2020 and more specifically the question “Should you start a blog in 2020?”.
Episode 2.
How to stay motivated as a blogger (new or advanced) and keep a positive mindset. 7 tips to stay motivated.
One of the biggest problems of bloggers (new or advanced) is to stay motivated and keep going forward. In the research, I did earlier this year 37% of bloggers (the survey was conducted on 47 bloggers) had problems with their motivation.
And I can totally understand why. The biggest block (and shock at the same time) is when you open your Google Analytics and see zero or almost no increase in your traffic. Then you open your Google Adsense (or other affiliate program dashboard) and you see the same. Zero sales or almost no sales.
Last but not least, you go to your Facebook Insights and Instagram Analytics and see that you gained
On the other hand, there are 50 unfollows, 0-1 comments on Instagram, and 0 shares and 1-2 likes per post on Facebook. Once you see that, the only thing you can think of is the song from Justin Timberlake “Cry me a river”.
How is it possible? You have made 3 new recipes last week, spent 8-10 hours on lifestyle/food photoshoot or invested 200 EUR into your last travel to Israel and see ZERO return on investment? You spend 10+ hours on keyword research and hardly found 2 awesome topics to write about.
Dammit. You get pissed, your blood pressure will increase and the cold sweat will come down on your forehead. As a result of that situation, you will decide that in the next week you will do less work. And the week after even less. There is no point in doing so much anyway so why should you bother.
A few weeks later you open your Instagram or Facebook and see that your fellow blogger meanwhile posted 49 photos on social media and 25 posts on the blog. His/ her engagement is higher than you ever dreamed of. So you quickly check your data and hope your results got also better. But what you see is a ZERO increase in your blog traffic and even lower engagement on your social media. And I guess you already know what is coming.
The stress, higher blood pressure, and the cold sweat on your forehead are back. Just now the whole situation will have another outcome. You shout out a loud “FUCK” and at that moment you decide that you will not continue the blogging anymore.
You were blogging for few months, and got nothing so why you should continue.
But what if there is an easy way out? What if I would tell you that there are a few steps that will help you to stay motivated even when the “shit hits the fan”.
7 tips to stay motivated as a blogger (new or advanced) and keep a positive mindset.
Create an editorial calendar. + free template
One of the most underestimated and used things in the blogging world is an editorial calendar. And why is that? Bloggers usually think that to have an editorial calendar is something special. Or that it requires a big knowledge or that it is hard to create and maintain.
In my opinion that is not true at all. I use mine every single day and it defintely helps with my daily blogging work.
And if you wonder why you should have one here are the biggest benefits.
- An editorial calendar will help you with the work organization. (and nope, you do not need to have a certificate from strategic planning).
- Planning your topics in advance will give you more creative freedom.
- Seeing your progress will create a smile on your face :).
- Your editorial calendar will help you to keep all your work in one place (e.g. links, keywords, dates, social media, and digital marketing).
- It will give you transparency on what you already have or what you still have to do.
- Once your content (work) is planned you can focus more on execution.
Editorial Calendar 2019/2020
To save you some time I have prepared an Editorial Calendar template. The template is a “copy cat” of the Editorial Calendar I am using each day. To make it a bit easier to understand I have also included the “How to use this file” tab with all the necessary information you might need.
You can download it under
Editorial Calendar macOS (numbers)
Editorial Calendar Windows (excel)
Create content that matters to you.
Too many times I see other bloggers creating content which is not coming from their knowledge or experience. Just go to Pinterest and type into the search bar the following keywords “what to blog about?”. What you will see is hundreds of blog posts with
On one side this is cool, as you do not need to spend too much time doing keyword or topic research. But on the other side, writing about things you do not know, or never experienced might lead to your burnout. Why? Because you will spend more time on research and understanding the topic than on writing.
As a solution, I definitely recommend creating content that matters to you. Write about things you really know about or have experience with. Create a list of 15-20 content ideas and build a library of keywords connected to it. This way, you will create content easier and faster. Last but not least, this way you will be able to cross-link your content. Thus, create more pageviews and prolong the reading time on your blog.
Use keywords smarter.
The majority of the marketers will tell you that you should always do keyword research before you create content. In the past, I would tell you the same. But in the last days, I’ve earned one important thing which has changed my mind.
Doing keywords and pushing them into your headlines, alt-tags, subheadings and hoping that Google will rank your content high is not so effective anymore.
What works much better today is to create content and use keywords smarter. You should write content in a natural way for humans and not for computers. Try to include the keywords into your text only when it feels right.
Google will scan the whole article and once it detects a keyword it will suggest it further in the search. If that keyword will resonate well with the readers then it will show it more often in search queries. Once this happens you might be able to rank your content higher.
And that keyword might be completely other than you used in your article.
If you think this is complete bullshit, just sign up for Google Search Console and check for what keywords you are ranking for. I told ya.
5+2 working framework.
To prevent blogging burnout, writer’s block or blogger plateau (all names actually refer to the same problem) you have to organize your work properly.
There is really no point to work all the time, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
I think that after 3 years of full-time blogging I have finally found a well-balanced strategy. What works pretty well for me is to have 5 working days and 2 days off. (FYI – I work 3-4 hours per day)
My schedule looks kind of like this: Monday-Tuesday work, Wednesday off, Thursday-Friday work, Saturday off, Sunday work.
Breaking up the week helps me to work in a very effective and productive way. As the majority of my tasks are recurring I exactly know how much time I need to finish them. Therefore, it is pretty easy to plan each day in a very detailed way.
So how should you plan your week with the 5+2 working framework?
- Write down every single task you do on a list.
- Measure (or at least think about) how much time you need to finish each task.
- Cluster the tasks which are connected to each other. Like writing, graphic design, or social media management.
- Create a 5+2 working framework. Choose work and free days which are the best for you.
- Now place the tasks into the workday and see if they fit within your working hours. (note: your working hours might be different, and also your tasks might require more or less time than mine).
- Implement the 5+2 working framework into your blogging life.
Write down your ideas.
One of the greatest ways of staying motivated is to never get out of ideas. If you have ideas, you know what to write about or what content to create.
Grab a piece of paper, or a fancy planner and start writing down every single idea you think of on a daily base. Also, write down each idea you get from a casual conversation with a friend, family member, or business partner.
What is also cool and a bit cheeky at the same time is to check your competition’s comments. You would be surprised how many ideas are there for FREE. Choose the ones which might be helpful to you and write them all down without thinking if they are good or wrong.
And when it comes to content creation or research, take out your idea library, simply chose a topic and just build it up.
Don’t dwell on it. Just act!
The biggest fail and demotivating factor at the same time in the life of a blogger is the lack of action. You might think about something for so long, that you will actually not do anything about it.
For example, you would like to make new visuals for your Pinterest. But instead of sitting down and opening tools like Canva, you are still reading new posts on Pinterest about “how to create an amazing Pinterest graphic”.
As my old time favourite internet guru GaryVee would say, just get the shit done.
I say, don’t dwell on it. Just act! Just create the Pinterest graphic, put it out and move to the next task.
Because you know what? If you wait and keep reading the overpromising articles, somebody else can create and post a new graphic in that exact moment. And unfortunately for you, he/she can get 500 000 impressions on Pinterest and 2 000 blog visits in a month instead of you.
Conclusion.
As you see to stay motivated and keep a positive mindset you have to do just a few things.
Get organized with the Editorial Calendar, plan your working week and free time, get and collect new ideas. Write about things you love and you have passion for, and learn to use keywords smarter.
Last but not least, take action on your plans.
