31 smart business blog post prompts #blogging

Blogging every day for a month is tough. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I did my first 30 day blogging challenge back in November 2007. It took place on a site called BT Tradespace and I was joined by a group of people who became very dear friends:- Angela Boothroyd, Anita Hunt, Elaine Sturgess and Charles Conway. We decided for some mad reason to blog every single day during November.

Like I say, blogging every day for a month is tough and we became very close friends. The friendships have survived to this day, and our blogs have gone from strength to strength. The benefits of blogging daily for a month are immense; your co-bloggers become your accountability partners and you boost your online visibility significantly.

When we started with the Zero to Blogger concept in January 2010, it was going to be spread over 31 days. But Warren's a slow writer, and others came along with their challenges and Z2B evolved into something different, something stronger. More on that another day :)

Why are you getting all of this back story? I want you to be assured that you are in safe hands when it comes to using these prompts and  blogging for 30 days (or 31 depending on what month).

A lot of people think that posting like this is about traffic. It's rarely about the traffic it's usually about the discipline and becoming stronger as a blogger. The traffic is just a bonus along with increased subscribers. This is blogging activity is similar to running a marathon, rarely do you run a marathon to get fit (you have to be fit to start with). It's about endurance, discipline and becoming better at what you do.

Planning your posts

If you get my blogging challenge emails, look out for the editorial calendar on day three. Alternatively get a diary and on each day for that month write down an idea. Sure, I'm going to supply you  31 prompts here but there will be things that are essential to your ideal reader in that time span, industry events and other things that affect your reader – this enables you to target your content effectively. Write the event / activity down and schedule them in so that you have a post idea ready for that day.

WordPress allows you to schedule blog posts, so you can write a batch of posts in one go and schedule them to go live on certain days and at a specific time. You do not have to write 31 posts in one sitting and you do not have to write one each day. Find what works for you.

Additional tips and tactics

• Get some guest posts in place – it hurts to write 31 posts, you will be brain fried at times. Get some guest posts as a back up.
• Perfect your call to action –  you may need three or four and each post would have a different call to action
• Practice your headline writing, yes you have prompts here but you need to take them and hack them up to suit you and your audience
• Every 7 days collect the links from that week and create a link post good for your SEO and good for readers just discovering your blog.
• How to posts are great for converting but they are not the only post you should be writing – use a variety of different posts
• Images in every post
• Experiment with WordLess Wednesday and Silent Sunday where you only post a link to images
• Look for videos to embed in blog posts to support your advice.
• Get interviews via email. This can be timeless content so even if you don't use it in your 31 days of blogging then you can use it after. On Birds on the Blog in October we'll be publishing 31 breast cancer survivor stories, all of these are interviews.
• Be prepared to promote your posts. Install tools such as BufferApp and Hootsuite to make your life a little easier
• Find some accountability partners

I hear a lot of talk that quality of posts will go down if you write every day. I don't think that's true, writing is like a muscle; the more you do it the stronger it becomes. You write emails on a daily basis, reports for work etc. You write far more than what you think. However if you write rubbish now, your writing will be a heck of a lot stronger after 31 posts. You'll start to tidy up your writing, your content will become succinct and you'll improve significantly. The good thing about blogging is you can tidy up posts long after they have been published.

Secondly you are unlikely to have just one ideal customer. You may have two or three. Here's how you write to more than one ideal customer. Each time that you post you can be reaching a different segment of your audience.

And finally, when you have completed your marathon remember to go over your stats and see what your audience liked and disliked.

After you've completed 31 different blog posts you will need to make some changes on your blog, so make sure you have the time to make the changes, and remember to enjoy the journey.