Homeschool Blogging Basics – Day 4. Persistence

Purpose, Plan, Performance, Persistence and Payoff.

5 Days of Homeschool Blogging Basics.

Day 4 Persistence.

Read Day 1. Purpose here, read Day 2. Plan here, read Day 2 1/2. Plan here and Read Day 3. Performance here.

Having a purpose, planning, and focusing on performance won’t help one bit unless you have dogged determination.

It’s easier setting up a blog by comparison than it is to blog day after day.

Though the postal service doesn’t really have a motto that I am aware of, I am tickled when I think about this motto that has been associated with them.

Rain or shine, snow or sleet, we deliver your mail! (But sunny days are optional…)

Blogging is similar if your purpose is to reach a wider audience.

It takes time to trickle down to your audience through social media, but day to day blogging is key to making your blog stand out from the millions of blog out there.

Defining your purpose will give you impetus to setting up a schedule. For example, your blog may be about just sharing with family and friends and posting one time a week may be perfect.

However, because content is the key way to build an audience, you will want to blog more if you want to grow.

How many days will you blog is only something you can answer, but it goes right to the heart of success along with savoring your passion.

Though I have had to blog pretty slim occasionally over the last year or so (one was a move overseas) by far my habit is blogging regularly, which for me is 4 and normally more times a week or even day to day.

I do love taking off time at the end of the year. I take time off to rejuvenate, step back and recharge because no amount of time or payoff is gained if your passion is lost.

Follow me along in this line of reasoning or example if you want your blog to grow steadily.

If  you blog one month every day with solid awesome content, compare that with somebody who blogs one time a week for the year.

A person who may have blogged longer but less each week may have 52 blog posts (52 weeks in a year) compared to your 30 blog posts for one month.

Can you see the big picture now? And content is exactly what spurred my blog on to having over 100K views now.

The easy part is having a beautiful blog, the hard part is filling it with meaningful, awesome content.

Get Connected! Sharing = A Steady Plodding

Hat 1. Social Media Manager

I’m glad I ignorantly blissfully started blogging because, like homeschooling, if anybody would have told me how many different hats I would be wearing, I may have ran the other way.

Persistence is essential because not only do you have to create awesome and premier content, but next you have to shout it to the world.

A strong social media presence is a must. Though I would rather pull you into my living room and sit down and chat about about all the topics on my mind, social media is the way to stay connected.

A heavy social media presence is key to being sure your content reaches as many as possible.

Think of social media as the second platform on which your blog stands.

Everybody is busy nowadays and that means a variety of social media presence is necessary to promote your blog.

How many should you have? As MANY as you can handle! You will lots and lots of information about the pros and cons of each social media platform.

In the end what I have learned is that you simply have to diversify. People that like facebook may have no presence on Google and vice versa.

One social sharing platform that deserves attention though is Google Plus and not necessarily because it is so social, which is ironic.

However, when your blog is connected to Google and you have a personal profile page, which is different than a page, you want to harness the power of Google to promote your blog.

You don’t have to know all the technical know how, unless you want to, but you do need to see the benefits of having a Google profile.

The most basic benefit for beginners is understanding that about 70% of the searches on the internet are on Google. Don’t you want to play with the big boys?

There are many, many more benefits that go into some technical know how, but bottom line is you want a heavy presence with the big boys, so join them.

Too, Jimmie Lanley is a Google girl and homeschoolmom and a guru in the Google world. She shares many free tips on her site  and it’s worth the visit or two, or ….. to pick her brain.

One key tip to sharing on your social media is to share different content on each social media because each audience is different.

Look at these free and fun ways to help you wear your many hats by using free schedulers for social media.

• Buffer. It is a great free and hard working scheduler. You link your social accounts, choose a schedule and schedule to your heart’s delight. Tip: Install the free extension on Chrome or Firefox and buffer a post or image anywhere you are at on the web.
• Do Share – Chrome extension. There are not any schedulers that I am presently aware that lets you schedule your Google profile. For a business page, it can be linked to Buffer, but not your profile. Downloading the free extension on your browser lets you schedule blog posts on your profile page.
• Tailwind – Though I use and was accepted by Ahalogy as a content partner for Pinterest, pins can be scheduled using Tailwind. Too, now Buffer allows you to schedule for Pinterest.

Hat 2. Technical Guru and Evaluator –

The second hat I had to embrace in order to keep my blog steadily moving along was to look beyond the basics now, which is why I had to pull up and take a closer look at Genesis.

Genesis is a theme, but it is the cadillac of themes. There is a lot to learn about Genesis, but Genesis has some built in help with SEO and the strongest point is the control over customization.

Because many themes do not have the flexibility that Genesis has like, right or left sidebar, multiple sidebars, footer layout, I purchased the powerful Genesis on my blog.

The themes of Genesis are called child themes after you strap on Genesis and from the child themes comes colors, layouts,etc.

So it’s not either or with Genesis or WordPress, you need both.

Think of WordPress as the foundation of your house, Genesis as the room layouts or walls that you may want to switch around as your family grows and the child themes from Genesis as the color of your walls and function of your rooms.

Genesis is slightly different than the other themes though too because once you purchase it, that’s it. You don’t have to purchase it again. Switch around and used free or paid child themes.

I hope that simple explanation helps to explain how they work together.

After learning about how a blog is well built and how much control I wanted, I reevaluated my blog and made upgrades to be in blogging for the long haul.

Look at a few of these fun tools that I enjoy using when I am thinking about design.

• WhatFont – is an easy and fun extension on Chrome. If you like a pretty and easy to read font on a web page, just go to that page with Chrome after you install the free extension, click on WhatFont and it will tell you what fonts are on the website. Fun and easy and no guessing what looks good when you see the font displayed on another website.
• WhatWordPressThemeIsIt – Another fun and nifty tool. If you see a site that makes you pine and you want to know what themes and child themes it is using, put the URL in and you get an idea of what they use.

Hat 3. Schedule, Brainstorm Content

One more free plugin that I intentionally didn’t mention on day 3. Performance was because it deserves a little extra attention and that is the WordPress Editorial Calendar.

I have used trial versions of paid schedulers, but found I like this free plugin better for my purposes right now. This is one of my very favorite plugins that help me to schedule my posts.

Brainstorming topics is different and I tend to write down thoughts right then. So my printable planner is close to me always.

This free plugin is a calendar that I can look at the back end, but more importantly it allows me to drag and move posts if I ever need to move them around. You can even edit right on the calendar.

For example, at a glance I can see what is getting ready to publish and look at the previous month to see what I blogged about.

Look at this snippet from my back end.

If something comes up and I need to reschedule a post, I can drag and drop it where I need to.

I can have several drafts going at one time and see them from here. It is one of my favorite organizing tools for my blog posts.

Sharing ways that I adjusted during the last year have been essential to keeping my blog growing.

When it comes to blogging for the long term, persistence and grit are must-haves.

Making changes where needed and not staying comfortable at status quo are vital to moving ahead and making your blog successful quicker.

Moving into success, my next post on day 5. Payoff, I will share a few tips in how to measure payoff or progress.

Hugs and love ya,

I have been sharing pictures on all these 5 days of blogging from my Forever Blog Planner that I use and look at this one today. Be sure to grab the free printable from Day 1. Purpose.

Also, check out iBlog Pro, Proud to be a Co-Author