Blogging Tips

A Battle With Blogging Consistency

When I launched this site in early July, I was like a volcano of information spewing forth, bottlenecked only by how much I could recollect and how fast I could put it into digital format. My posts aren’t that long so I was writing two or three a day for the first week and scheduling one a day. I knew long term daily posting wasn’t in the cards for me, but while I had them completed, I figured I’d get them out there. For six weeks straight I was staying three to four posts ahead of the next scheduled post.

Every time I recalled a program I tried or a business idea I had, I started a post and saved it in draft format. For every book I was done with, or domain name I had for sale, I also started and saved a new draft. I have about a hundred drafts waiting to be written, and I was being super consistent for a good month and a half. Then it happened. A fleeting thought, a domain name search, then a domain name purchase followed by a new website being started.

To give you an idea of how quickly I can veer off track, my last post here was on 8/12 (four days ago). If I had about three days worth of posts in the tank, the last post I wrote was probably around 8/9, which happens to be the same day I purchased that new domain name and have been preoccupied with for the last week.

The idea is so simple and I didn’t even think of what I would do to earn from the site. That’s a big problem of mine. I think up ideas for websites I would like to visit, but not necessarily ones that would make a ton of money. That’s not to say this one couldn’t earn, but I should have thought of all that before I ever pressed the buy button on the domain name.

This is how I know where my passion lies. I love the thrill of coming up with an idea and implementing it, but you typically don’t get rewarded that way. Mark Zuckerberg didn’t earn his billions selling to Viacom a year after Facebook launched. He made them building his site into a social media juggernaut over the next 10 years. I think I would have taken the first (10 million dollar) offer and moved on to the next idea. Gotta stick with your strengths, right?

OK, so back to this idea. Imagine you are meeting a specific celebrity and you can only ask them one question. What would it be? That’s it. I forget who I was specifically thinking about, but I remember thinking if I met this person, what would I ask him? For the hell of it I did a domain name search at Namecheap 1 for ifimet.com and bingo, it was available. Minutes later it was mine.

I would usually purchase a premium theme for any site I play around with, but I lucked out for this one. A theme I had been eyeing was part of a special the vendor was having that allowed previous customers to download it for free for a short time. Sweet. Free premium theme. I set this basic site up for super cheap because I was able to use almost all free plugins too. The only one I ponied up for was a grid displaying one for $30 because the free one I was familiar with had not been updated since 2012. Final tally was $40.68.

I love site ideas that cost more in time and energy than they do money. The most time consuming part of this one is building a cache of celebrities for people to post their questions. I started by posting a handful of celebs I like with the rest being selected from various lists found in web searches. Most polarizing celebrities in Hollywood. Famous douchebags. Most popular athletes.

Long way to go with this one, but I think it will be a fun site to build up. As you can see, this pattern is my modus operandi as all my other sites suffer while the new one gets first billing for awhile. The great thing about this site is I may go missing for awhile, but every absence is another post idea here too.

Now, if only I knew how to build website traffic…

  1. Namecheap affiliate link ↩

Should your blog post include images?

Always? Sometimes? Never? I was researching what others thought and I couldn’t really find anyone saying not to use images. However, I did find a few sporadic posts about how vital images are, but none of them ranked very high in the search engines. I had to dig deep to find support in favor of blog images.

That either tells me there’s no compelling evidence to support either side, or I was using the wrong key words to search. Personally I like images in blog posts. I enjoy reading a blog if images are included in the right way. What’s the right way though? For me, it’s scarce but incisive. I don’t need there to be a picture for every action you describe or joke you tell like it’s a Family Guy cut away.

If you’re going to use images, make it compliment the point you’re trying to make in your post. I’m tired of seeing that stock photo of some guy in a suit smiling way too big at absolutely nothing. You know what I mean. If you’re writing about how black clothes are more slimming than colors, show a side by side comparison. If you’re talking about favorite ice cream flavors by age group, include a fancy little demographic pie chart. Otherwise, let it be.

Even though I enjoy pertinent images in blog posts, I’m trying something different here at All Start No Finish. I’m keeping things as textual as I can here. That doesn’t mean you won’t see the occasional image included from time to time, but finding images can be a pain in the ass too.

Acquiring images adds an unnecessary layer of time and stress to blog publishing. Sure, it can be worth it sometimes, but not every post needs a picture in my opinion. You either have to create it yourself, obtain permission from someone else, or pay for it. I’ve also heard the horror stories of authors paying for images from large sites only to have the authors come hunt them down still claiming infringement.

People come to your blog to read what you have to say. There are exceptions if you’re a photo or travel blogger and speak more through your images. Similar situation if you host a podcast on your site. You’ll speak more through video. If you’re a writer, you speak through text, and that should be your focus to get your point across.

If you find the ideal image that compliments your post perfectly, by all means include it. If you’re struggling to find the right image and spending more time searching than you did writing, you might be wise to just pass on the picture this time. Chances are it will not make that much of an impact to warrant wasting all that time.

Here’s something interesting. If you do include an image or two in each blog post, it may serve you well to add a catchy caption. I guess it’s natural for our eyes to move down when we view an image, so make that caption memorable or enticing. I’ve never done it myself. I only found this on SocialTriggers while doing some research and figured I’d pass it along for you to try.