How to create and keep a blog

Why it's important to have a blog

One of the main reasons for having a blog is to keep learning things, keep a blog is something that will require some dedication for you to keep it updated, and as time goes by, you will need fresh topics to talk about, so it will force you to learn something every week.

Second, having a blog, or any other platform that you share with people, like a YouTube channel, will encourage people to connect with you, maybe because they liked how you express your ideas, or maybe because they are looking for information regarding a topic that you also are working on, or maybe because they see in you something that they are looking for.

If you are like me, you have so many ideas in your mind, that you tend to forget most of them, like, how you solved a specific problem at that time, or how I coded a given feature. So, a blog is good for you to document these stories on, so you can revisit them, maybe to remember something, or even compare how you used to be, and perhaps to compare how much you have grown.

Moving on, a blog, like a book or an article, is a good way to show authority in a given subject. You don’t need to go college and have a master's degree to talk about something, we live in a world where your results can say a lot about how much you know about a given topic, so writing consistently about it, it’s a good way to build trust with people, to show to them that you can help them in this or that subject.

Last, but not least, a blog can be a way to earn some cash on the side. There is a lot of ways to monetize your blog, like Google AdSense, affiliate links, partnership with companies, and so on. Monetizing your blog can be a good way to boost your will when it comes to keeping it updated.

How to start a blog

To start a blog, the first thing, and maybe the most difficult thing that we need to do, it’s to think about what we are going to write. You can pick a subject that you are already an expert in, or maybe you want to go for something that you don’t know yet but would like to build an expertise on. Both ways work great.

So, a good strategy to overcome this first problem, it’s to think about a small list of themes that you have a particular interest in writing, like:

Cooking
Investing & finances
Lifestyle
Web development :)

This part can be very frustrating because we don’t know what you want to write about, there are so many options out there, but my recommendation here it’s to keep it small. Pick a very specific topic, so you can focus your energy there, and it will give you some constraints to work on. This can sound bad at the beginning, we don’t want to limit your options, but in the end, having too many options it’s worse than having too few. Pick something that you like and move forward, you can always change it later.

Hosting a blog

Selected our theme blog, next step is going to be to host it. As a web developer, you are going to have a lot of options. This blog, as an example, was written in next.js and has a custom theme developed by me entirely. But you don’t need to do it, if you don’t want to spend so much time on that, or maybe you are not a web developer, you can go with a more robust and user-friendly platform like WordPress or Medium. The important part at the beginning it’s to pick something that you are comfortable with and move on. There are a lot of tutorials on the internet, but if you have any questions about it, please let me know in the comments below.

Also, another important thing to do it’s pick a domain that reflects what is the content of your blog, you can pick something very personal as your name, like David Hansson (creator of Ruby On Rails) did, you can pick something less personal like Joel Spolsky (founder of StackOverflow) did. Invest some time here, given the domain is how Google will see you as an authority in the area, but keep in mind that you can change to another domain that suits you better, as you learn more about what you like to write about, it’s not a big deal at the beginning.

First steps to create content in your blog

Well, let’s go with the most important part of a blog, keep it updated consistently. So to make your life easier, I will share with you a strategy that I use to keep my blog updated.

decide how many posts you want to commit per month: I can say that it’s good to have at least one post per week, which is feasible, and not very intimidating, but think in a number and move on to the next step;
let’s say that you pick 4 posts per month, to accomplish it, aim to have at least 4 times it in a list of ideas. So first step here, it’s to have a list of brainstormed ideas to always have fresh content in your blog. After one week, do a new brainstorm and come up with at least 4 new ideas to post, so that we way you will always have a good set of ideas to work on. Also, if you feel that an idea doesn’t have much purpose anymore, just discard it and think of a new one on the next brainstorm

What to write about

To do this list with 16 ideas, there is a broad of different “categories” where you can think about new ideas, like:

Tutorials and how-to’s
Book and product reviews
News roundups
Commentaries on other blog posts and news articles
Interesting stories about your life (related to your theme)
Interviews with people in your field
Lists of things (Top 10 ways to ___, My 7 Favorite ___)
Controversial/provocative posts
Video or Vlog posts
Guest posts (let someone else do the writing)
Multi-part series posts (cover a much larger topic)
Resources and links
Case studies
Answer a question
Funny parody posts
Cheat sheets
How you solved a problem
A problem that is currently stumping you
Predictions about the future
Product comparisons
Define something

How to be consistent with blog

Well, it will sound a bit cliche, but it’s important to have a clear purpose and a reason why you are blogging regularly. It could be, because you want to learn new things, because you want some extra cash, help others to thrive, whatever. Just keep it in mind, because it will help you on those days when you are not so willy to write a new post.

Another reason why people give up on something, it’s because they want to embrace the world, and it turns so hard and overburden that they eventually give up. So, keep things simple, pick one subject, stick to it, and don’t try to write seven posts in a week, if you commit yourself to only one. People tend to overestimate what they can do in a short amount of time and underestimate what can do in the long run. Stick to the plan, and you will see how great things you can be able to accomplish

A strategy that can help you on this consistent journey, it’s build a content calendar. So think about what is going to be your monthly posts and work on them regularly. Give you a deadline to work on, and put your head down. This can help you give focus to work on something. Also, if you aim to write your monthly posts and you don’t feel very motivated to write in a given week or day, you will have some extra posts in your belt, so you can keep your commitment to post regularly and catch up next week.

Here, again it’s important to keep things smaller, so you can feel overwhelmed. Instead of thinking that you are going to write indefinitely, make a commitment to yourself, like writing 12 posts. Also, you can handle it as a milestone, like:

Write 1 post;
Write 10 posts;
Write 50 posts!

This can give you a great sense of progress and help you to be successful in the long haul.

Keep going: don’t be too harsh with yourself if you miss a post. In the same way that you can’t undo 5 years of bad diet and no exercise in a few months, you can’t screw up the last 5 years of work in two or three weeks. Well, technically you can, but missing one or two posts it’s not a way to do it. So, forgive yourself and shift your focus to the next post.

Don’t aim for perfection: At the beginning, don’t fall into the trap of polishing your posts at perfection. First, because it doesn’t exist, you will never be 100% happy with your work, because you are constantly learning and improving, so there will always be room to make that paragraph better or include something that you missed. Second, it’s just not worth the time, it’s better to ship 5 not-perfect posts than keep polishing a work that will never see the light of day.

Conclusion

So I think that’s it people, remember too:

Purpose: keep in mind why you are blogging, can boost your career, connect you with people, or just be a hobby to relax. Keep this purpose in mind and it will help you go further;
Don’t overthink it, focus on the start: choose your theme, keep a domain and a platform, and just start. Many people just don’t start because they are too concerned about what to write, and what people will say about it. If you just start it, no matter if it’s not that good, you will be ahead of the majority of people;
Commit to consistency: use whatever strategy suits you better and focus on being consistent. It will certainly make you successful in the long run;