You’ve made it all the way to Month #3 of blogging successfully. It might feel like you have forever to go, but this path you’re on will pay out in spades months and years down the road. Trust me.
Habits don’t form overnight. That’s not news to any of us. But, in fact, they actually take a bit longer to form than just 21 days, as previously thought. According to this study conducted by Phillippa Lally at University College London, it takes a minimum of 66 days for a habit to form, and can take as long as eight months! With that in mind, we’re in the heart of the habit-forming territory, so don’t lose sight of where you want to take your blog to augment your marketing strategy, and know that each day is another opportunity to get yourself back on the right track.
That’s all you need. After all, you do have ALL month to accomplish these to-dos.
So, before we do anything else, give yourself a hearty pat on the back and applaud yourself for making it this far. Even though it’s not a required to-do this month, you might be able to peek and tie some favorable Google Analytics metrics to your efforts in the past couple of months. If you can’t yet, don’t fret, we’re still building your blogging Rome, little by little.
If you’re hopping in partway and wondering how to start a blog, start with the Month #1 post to properly establish your blogging foundation, and here’s Month #2 as well to get your writing off running.
Ready or not, Month #3, here we come.
1. Write three blog posts. Publish them.
You wrote two last month, and now we’re upping your game. Three it is.
If life gets in the way and prevents or pushes you out from writing a blog post, schedule some time on your calendar. It may seem like overkill, but it may very well be the ONLY way it’ll get done.
And, like any meeting, you likely wouldn’t want to hassle with rescheduling, since you already set the time aside. Honor your commitment to your blog, like any other hardworking employee you have, and uphold that time for drafting. An hour per blog post is plenty.
How do you think I made time to write this blog post?
And, as with your previous three, optimize them (with the help of this SEO checklist) to make sure they have plenty of SEO juice to perform well for you on search engines.
2. Brainstorm 10 more future blog topics.
#realtalk: A lot of my best ideas come to me as soon as I wake up in the morning. Therein lies the challenge—remembering those first thoughts of the day and actually getting them down by the time I make it to the office.
There’s plenty of research to back up the assertion that the mind does some of its best, creative thinking in the first waking minutes of the morning.
Here’s a new angle to try this month. Before the pressures of constrained thinking collapse in on you over the course of the day, allow yourself 5-10 minutes of fresh brainstorming time as soon as you wake up and scribble them down on your list of blog ideas. It’s a working list, and every idea won’t be gold, but could lead you to think of an even better idea.
Get 10 more added before next month. Try to impose fewer filters on yourself this month when coming up with those ideas.
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See you next month for #4! After this month, you’ll be a quarter of the way there. Buck up, young champion. (Victory dance optional.)
(Want a preview of the rest of the months? Or just a printable checklist to keep you honest? Download or print the full guide here.)
