BLOG TOOLS: HOW TO ORGANIZE TIME AND SPACE

Blog tools help writers get where they’re going, and as any writer will tell you, they are going to fill up a page.

Sometimes it’s a long, long, loooooong haul to fill up one page, then another, then another.

Look at a stack of printer paper some time and imagine filling them all. From the blank end it looks daunting because that’s what it is.

From the filled end it still looks daunting.

120,000 words is a big stack, especially when they are different words that taken together mean something more than they do individually.

But we’re not doing that here, so rest easy. Blog tools, remember?

The tools I use come with reminders on word count, key words, key word placement and repetition, and links.

The basics.

What they don’t do is explain form, structure, or topic, which is where too many blogs go off the rails.

The struggling blogger looks for help. Instead of help, they get:

30 Tips and Tricks to Increase Blog Traffic

40 Blogging Tips and Tricks for Beginners to Grow a Blog

31 Advanced Blogging Tricks

Along with “About 90,100,000 results (0.65 seconds)” from a google search on Blogging Tips and Tricks.

New Blogging Tips And Tricks

I’ve seen the blog warning: Don’t make it all about yourself.

It’s good advice for a commercial blog about excavating equipment, but no one digs it on a personal blog.

Good ahead and open the door about you, but not too much. Use your experience to illustrate a larger topic.

Take wearing masks and getting a covid vaccine for example, and you refuse to do either. People want to know more about you.

How did you ‘do your research’ and come to the conclusion that anti-mask and anti-vax is your best way forward.

Where did you do your research? Can others follow your lead?

(Blog Trick Example: I worked for a company full of smart people. Yeah, I know your question already, ‘How did I get in?’ They needed a combo of brains and brawn and I filled the ticket. The fun part was listening to smart people work out easy problems.)

On YOUR blog, give a rundown of the thought process, the greater risk of severe illness and death, and any concerns about transmitting covid to others.

Write that blog post and put it up. You may get no traffic, no readers, just a bot in China marking your place, or you may get traffic you don’t want. And comments.

Bloggers love comments, but we know how hard it is to make the effort based on our commenting history. We’re too busy to leave a comment, busy, busy, busy. Or too afraid of sounding like a moron.

Just so you know, morons don’t read blogs or leave comments, so anything you, dear reader, offer up is good.

Resentful Readers Don’t Care About Blog Tools

If you write a ‘list post’ but don’t get to the list until 500 words down, you might lose readers’ interest.

A list post with each new entry on a new tab might lose readers’ interest too. They lose mine. I’m not clicking over and over expecting better results after the first ten clicks. Or two clicks. I usually bail after one. I’m a scroller, not a clicker.

Don’t make it harder on readers. Just give them what you promised, the thing that invited them to your page.

BoomerPdx promises trust. Can you trust me? I write about health related topics because I’ve faced a few health issues along the way, starting with a broken collar bone before kindergarten.

But it’s not about me.

I write about exercise from the inside.

Again, not about me.

Food is a favorite topic.

Health, exercise, and food? If you’ve got a good handle on all three, you’re living a great life and everyone who knows you loves you.

Hammer those three topics and you’ve got a LIFESTYLE BLOG on your hands. Expand it by taking it on the road, like to Paris, and you’ve educated people on what to do with their healthy lifestyle.

The biggest blog tool in the utility belt? It’s the same tool used by everyone with a conscience: DON’T BE BORING.

(Shout out to my new readers in Australia: Welcome aboard, I’m glad you’re here.)