With my response to tomorrow’s prompt, I will have officially reached 500 consecutive days of blogging. I thought it would be interesting to look back on the last 17 months to see how my writing, and my blog have changed.
I don’t pretend to have anything near what anyone would consider to be a “highly viewed blog” but the reason I continue to write every single day is because I have seen my traffic increase substantially by doing so. Here’s a little bit of advice that I would offer. Keep in mind this is advice that’s just coming from an every day ordinary guy. I don’t know anything about SEO. I’m not constantly on social media trying to plug this blog. I’m just happy to get a few dozen people looking at my blog every day. Granted, they are probably the same few dozen people looking at my blog every day, but I digress…
Write. Every day.
this one sounds like a no-brainer, because it really is. The only way you’re going to get people to look at your blog every day as if you have new content for them to see every day. And when you are writing every day, the people who just discovered your blog for the first time will actually have plenty of material to go back and look at. In a lot of ways, I feel like being part of a blogging community is just like being a part of any other social circle. You’ll find your group of people, and your group of people will find you.
Properly tagging your posts also helps. Well, I don’t pretend to know much about effective tag writing, I will say that WordPress’s “daily prompt“ tags garner me the most traffic. I don’t pretend to know what makes a tag effective, but every now and then, even a blind squirrel finds a nut. 
Including this post and today’s daily prompts post, my total number of post for this blog stands at 1,078. As it is, it posted two, and in a few instances, three times per day on the run to 500 consecutive days of blogging. That means that it took me the previous 12 YEARS to get to my first 500 posts!
Interact with other bloggers
When asked how one becomes a better writer, anyone who knows anything about writing will tell you to read, read, read. The same holds true with blogging, read other people’s blogs. Like them, comment on them, interact with their authors. If nothing else, you’ll get ideas for what to do, and what not to do, on your own blog. People are generally very grateful to get feedback and interaction with you on their blog. Most of them will, in turn , check out your blog as well. No, I’m not suggesting somebody that has 30 million daily readers is going to respond personally to your likes, comments or post, but with smaller blogs, you can build up a support group of sorts. I know I’ve been lucky enough to do that.
Social media does make a difference! 
I don’t pretend to know the first thing about using social media to help promote my blog. I know nothing about effective hashtag use, but even linking to my blog through various social media accounts does send me a few readers here and there.
Something has happened to me over the last few days. I know that the vast – and sometimes overwhelming – majority of material and social media is negative. But for the first time that I can recall, I am really getting the sense that we may, one day soon, see social media implode upon itself.
With the very real prospect of TikTok getting shut down in the United States, I see content producers picking and choosing various platforms that they plan to move to. Many of them aren’t looking to contribute anymore to X, or the various Meta accounts. there are many theories out there as to why TikTok seems to be incurring the wrath of the federal government. I think we’re on the verge of seeing a tectonic shift and the way that we consume social media. i’m just wondering where everybody plans to go next.
Everybody loves a podcast 
Look, podcasting is all the rage these days. In fact, I feel like there’s an absolute glut of them out there. But last year, even I took a stab at podcasting. My podcast was essentially a “directors cut“ some of my more inspired blog entries. Once in a while, I did venture into just going on random rants. But for the most part, I was “just another white guy with a podcast”.
In spite of all of this, podcasts do attract traffic. This past year, I was posting episodes of my podcast on Wednesday mornings, where I saw a substantial increase in traffic.
I still don’t really know much about how to promote my podcast, per se. But most podcasts tell you that your first couple of podcasts are going to suck. So I’ve expected that at this point.
I think the most important piece of advice I could give regarding a podcast as to make sure that your podcast is something special. Something unique. If you can, make it kind of niche, so that you can attract a particular audience. If you try to spread yourself too and talk about too many different topics, it’s going to just slip between the proverbial cracks.
Keep it fresh!
After several months of rehashing WordPress’s daily prompts, I recently stated choosing daily writing prompts from this website. I have seen a spike in my numbers in the last few days, so that’s always encouraging!
As great as the increase in traffic has been, I’m especially excited that I’ve felt INSPIRED to write more again. In addition, I’m teaching traditional high school English classes again for the first time I 10 years; which is forcing me to spend more time reading and writing than I have a long time!
Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, 👍 comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:
- Teacher Armor and the Saturday Clearing
- The Extra Day: A Ten-Year Memory
- Of Training Wheels and Christmas Lights
- Charity Starts at Home (And I’m Back in My Childhood One)
- The Muscle of Empathy
The article “Lessons Learned From 500 Days of Blogging” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.
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