15 proven ways to become a productive blogger

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In this post, I am going to share with you fifteen proven ways to become a productive blogger.

It’s been a long time since you first launched your blog, compared to the success you’ve desired.

You’ve been asking yourself since the beginning: Is it worth it?

Is blogging really a profitable business? Is it really as promising as I’ve read and seen?

Do you want to hear a direct answer? Yes, it is.

Blogging is not rocket science, nor does it require attending hundreds of physics, math, and aerospace classes.

Any kid is capable of blogging.

Being a blogger doesn’t even require money. You can use a free platform to spread your thoughts, like Blogger, Medium, and Tumblr.

However, pinky dreams are not achieved this easily.

Being a blogger is not the same as being a productive blogger.

Wait!

Why have you looked pale after reading the previous line?

If you think I accept you as having the mindset of a normal blogger, then this post is not for you.

It’s not all about knowing the blogging essentials; it’s about the blogging roadmap.

A platform, a domain, a desktop, etc. are things you need to start a blog, but tell me:

• How do you behave when you face writer’s block?
• How often do you stick to a publishing schedule?
• Where do you dig to find content ideas for your blog?

A productive blog requires more than knowing the blogging essentials, and I’m here to help you by explaining my proven ways to become a productive blogger.

1- Set your goals, be more productive

Apart from blogging, any business that aims to be productive must start by setting goals. These goals are answers to questions like:

• What do we really want from this business?
• Where do we find ourselves after one year?
• What revenue do we expect in the first year?
• What tools are required?
• And many other questions

After setting your goals, you will have to start planning the steps that lead to achieving these goals, then put your plan into action.

So, the roadmap will follow this sequence:

Set goals, plan, and execute.

In terms of blogging, you know your blogging goals, so use the tips in this post to increase your blogging productivity and get things finished as soon as you can.

2- Schedule blogging to become a productive blogger

First things first: if blogging is just writing and publishing posts, then everybody is a blogger.

It is true that a blogger is someone who writes and publishes blog posts, but is it all about the number of posts that makes him a blogger? What about quality?

Honestly, the simplest part of blogging is writing.

Even if you don’t know anything about the topic, AI writers can write on your behalf.

Not convinced yet? Read this article.

Does this classify you as a blogger? Not at all.

Blogging is about writing great posts and publishing them at the best times.

Along with crafting your best post, it is critical to know the best time to promote it.

It is not easy to know the best time unless you experiment with your marketing campaigns, analyze the results, and learn exactly what works for your audience and what doesn’t.

Scheduling needs to be applied to both writing and publishing.

Starting with writing, find the best time that you feel your brain is the most active.

Although no size fits all, the best time that I recommend is the early morning, which mostly suits full-time bloggers.

Other bloggers find that late-night blogging is more effective.

Find the best blogging time, and learn how to switch your brain into writing mode.

The second part of scheduling is so important and crucial; scheduling your publishing.

Finding the best time to publish your posts means getting more success, traffic, and a high ROI.

You don’t have to waste your time and effort publishing to people who are unlikely to find your content.

Knowing your targeted audience is the key to matching your publishing time to the time they are available.

According to Dan Zarella from HubSpot  

• The best time to blog for pageviews is Monday between 8 and 11 am
• the best time to blog for increased engagement is Saturday between 8 and 11 am
• Publishing in the morning (around 9 am EST) leads to more Facebook shares
• Tweeting the post in the afternoon (around 4 pm EST) leads to more retweets
• Publishing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday leads to more Facebook shares
• Publishing on Friday can also lead to more retweets
• Increasing publishing frequency leads to more traffic and incoming links.

3- Create a to-do-list

You can never imagine how effective this tip is until you apply it to your daily activities.

This is a great way to improve your productivity and ensure that you are always on the right path when it comes to blogging effectively.

But! 

Creating a list that has little chance of being used is equivalent to having no list.

To become a productive blogger, you need to know exactly what you are capable of doing and whether your time will be enough to complete your tasks.

Therefore, your to-do list should not be long and filled with tasks that will burn you out.

You can simply open an Excel sheet and create your list.

Again, always be realistic and do not overestimate your capabilities.

With time and experience, you’ll gain a better understanding of how things work and how much time they take.

Look at a sample of one of my to-do lists and create a version of your own.

I would recommend creating your list the night before and starting your tasks in the morning.

This will activate the “wake up vigorously” command in your brain, which results in you taking a step forward to being a productive blogger.

4- Avoid multitasking, a productivity killer

We are born as humans, not supernatural creatures.

Women can handle more tasks at the same time than men. This is true.

Dear men! Let me ask you

Have you ever turned your radio down when stuck in a traffic jam? I bet you did.

This is because our brains are mono-taskers and incapable of doing many things successfully at the same time.

Apply this to blogging and remember to do one task at a time.

Multitasking is another prescription for a less productive blogger.

I like what Eb Gargano, of productive blogging, said:

“When you are flitting between activities really quickly, your brain is constantly having to re-warm up to each activity every time you pick it up again.” 

Focus on what you are doing until you finish it or until the time specified for that job ends.

The more focused you are on one activity, the more productive you will be. 

5- Be prepared with emergency blogs

These pre-written posts are like having a bank of content ideas, but this time you have a bank of posts.

Your readers expect you to publish once or twice a week, but sometimes you may face some ambiguous conditions that prevent you from writing and publishing.

“I built and grew my businesses because I prepared weeks of content before they were scheduled for publication.”

Neil Patel.

Consider how much confidence this provision gives you.

Always prepare five to six posts prior to publication time, and once you publish a post, refill your blog list again.

Don’t worry about the expiry date of your posts; they’ll always be valid and easy to update.

If you don’t know how to update an old post, read this post.

The best formula you can apply is to write more, save more, and publish more posts.

6- Create an editorial calendar

Becoming a productive blogger means that you have to do a lot of tasks at the perfect time.

To do so, you should have some characteristics that distinguish you from ordinary bloggers.

One of these characteristics is being organized.

Being organized means knowing how, when, and where you are going to complete your job.

I like this quote from brainyquote:

“Organizing is something you do before you do something so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.”

A. A. Milne

However, even organized people need some tools to keep things at their best.

Creating an editorial calendar is another way to be a productive blogger.

Although it takes time to include your ideas on the calendar, the outcome is worth it.

Some of the best tools to use are Trello, Asana, and Notion.

You can create an account for free and start organizing your ideas, creating to-do lists, storing them, assigning tasks to team members, and more.

7- Update old contents

Deleting an old blog is not an act of production. Bringing it back from the dead is a productive activity for a productive blogger.

Old content needs to always be updated for SEO, data purposes, and the user’s experience.

Google loves new content, as do your readers.

Reviving your old posts can help them rank higher or extend their life on the SERPs.

If you want your blog to be more productive, then why don’t you update it and upgrade it to a better version?

Use these tips to make your old post new again:

1- Change old images and add more visuals.

2- Create a better, catchier title (don’t change the URL)

3- Add more word count

4- Use more internal linking

READ MORE >> How to craft catchy blog titles for your blog?

READ MORE >> What is Internal Linking and how to boost SEO with it?

8- Content curation is another way to become a productive blogger

According to Hootsuite, “curated content” is content from other brands or people that you share to your social media accounts.

Examples of curated content are: sharing a link to a blog post, creating a roundup of quoted advice from industry experts, or even simply sharing someone else’s social media post.”

Don’t worry!

Content curation is legal and not considered plagiarism as long as you link to the original content or author.

Don’t hesitate to curate a piece of content if you find it relevant and share it with your readers.

The best practice is to add value to the curated content.

Content curation improves your productivity and saves you a lot of time.

It also increases your authority and establishes you as an expert in your field.

Find relevant content for your niche on Quora, Medium, and other platforms, expand them, and add more value.

Don’t forget to cite the author or the blog.

9- Write without editing

Writing and editing at the same time is a productivity killer, believe me.

I bet this is somehow psychological.

We have a tendency to see ourselves as flawless individuals who strive for perfection.

That’s why we correct mistakes whenever a red line (when using proofreading tools) appears.

When you are in writing mode, switch off your editing mode and focus on one thing only: writing.

No matter what distracts you, keep your concentration at its highest level; otherwise, you’ll lose the flow of ideas, even if they’re on your calendar.

A lot of concentration is needed to link ideas together, and once you are distracted, you’ll break this link and change your writing rhythm and style.

I recommend writing a draft, however bad it is. 

You can make hundreds of writing, grammatical, and structural mistakes, but remember, no one will see them but you.

Write a draft, add details, links, quotes, and whatever, then move to the next step: editing.

10- Edit and proofread your posts

Finishing your draft doesn’t mean that you’ve completed your job, but it does bring a sense of relief.

You unconsciously feel that a burden has been removed from your shoulders and that the hard part has come to an end.

I’m not going to say the opposite because I really have the same feeling even though my editing process has always been longer than my writing process.

My formula is to write massively and edit aggressively.

When it comes to editing, there is a lot of work to do.

You need to edit your title, headings, body text, meta description, add images and other visuals, and a variety of other sections of your blog.

To learn how to edit a post, read this post and use my checklist for all your posts.

Once you finish editing, proofread your blog for any grammatical or punctuation errors.

Use Quillbot or Grammarly.

Do this to your title, slug, meta, and other components of the blog.

The process will become easier and faster over time, and you will notice that you are a more productive blogger every day.

11- Have a content plan

One of the most essential practices that define you as a productive blogger is having a content plan.

This is not only about planning what to write but also about when to publish.

A productive blogger knows how to match his goals with his content.

He also knows when the best time is to publish his content.

In terms of writing content, if your goal is to make more money with affiliate marketing, you need to write more content about the products you are going to promote.

You need to have a list of potential programs that you need to sign up with, then plan your content about these products, like writing reviews, comparison posts, or others.

Another example is special days.

Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve, and Black Friday are among marketers’ top goals, and if this is the same with you, include them in your calendar before their due dates.

12- Sweep your browser, keep blogging tabs only

Another way to increase productivity is to stay focused on blogging when you have designated time for it. 

Simple right?

Think with me!

How often do notifications pop up on your screen? Many times, right?

How many times do you check your email campaign open rates while writing?

What about Instagram and Facebook?

These are distractions that badly affect your productivity.

When you distract yourself, you are not only losing control over your productive status, but you are also destroying the sequence of your thoughts that you are putting into the post.

Don’t worry! I used to do the same.

I was always sorry for the time I’d wasted and the ideas I couldn’t recall.

Thanks to a post written by Neil Patel that introduced me to a great Chrome extension; Simple Blocker.

This productivity booster allows you to block certain apps that are consuming your time.

It is easy and free.

You can block TikTok or other apps for a specific period of time.

Install the extension, set a timer, and you’re done.

Another tip to mention is that you need to open only the tabs that are really necessary for your blogging process.

Moreover, whatever ideas come to your mind, write them down for later and avoid looking at your bookmarks.

By following these steps, you stay focused and eliminate any distractions.

As a result, more focus leads to more productive blogging.

13- Keep a list of new ideas

One of my favorite tips that I apply to myself is to always be ready for the writing battle.

I always avoid writer’s block when I have a long list of content ideas on hand, which I refer to as my “content debit card.”

You know your niche better than me; this is true.

So, the first thing you need to do is brainstorm ideas relevant to your niche.

Write on the draft as much as you can.

If you have different categories on your blog, find ideas for each category and try to have the same number of ideas for each category. Although this part is not mandatory, having a lot of ideas will enhance your productivity.

Once you finish collecting content ideas for your blog, choose the best ones and add them to a calendar or to-do list.

To be a more productive blogger, plan a year’s worth of posts and create a calendar around them.

We are not going to dive into this here, but to plan for a year of blog posts, read this post.

14- Stick to a timetable

A productive blogger is someone who doesn’t post randomly but rather follows a strict timetable. 

Pssst! You can cheat from time to time.

It is because having a writing and publishing schedule is what gives you authority and trust.

Moreover, your readers will eagerly wait to read your new post according to the schedule they are used to.

Publishing 16 posts per month will bring 3.5 times more traffic than publishing once a week.

Assuming that you are a beginner and don’t have staff to help you or the time to publish this much, it’s enough to publish consistently on a regular basis, whatever the number is.

15- Use a blogging checklist that suits you the best

In my post “blog post checklist”, I stated that in order to make your blogging experiment easier and less chaotic, you need to create a “rhythm” for yourself, a system that you will always follow to write, edit, proofread, polish, and publish your posts.

This system allows you to leap into the world of professional writers who also follow it to rank their posts at the top of the SERPs.

And since we are talking about professionalism, productivity is a trait of it.

Follow a system; a checklist when writing, editing, proofreading, and even promoting to become a more productive blogger.

Follow this checklist, add more tips that suit you better, and make some changes if you need to, and you are done.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why bloggers quit this job months after they first start.

Blogging is easy to start but takes time and effort.

If you are an organized blogger, you’ll survive.

Find the best way to become a productive blogger.

Set your goals and plan your blogging roadmap.

Schedule the writing and publishing times.

Stay away from distractions, keep focused, and avoid multitasking.

Create a to-do list to save time, and a calendar to save your ideas.

Always be prepared with content ideas and ready-to-use posts to keep sticking to your timetable.

Write without editing, edit, and proofread using a checklist.

Take a break and reward yourself.

Now it’s your turn.

Tell me which of these tips you’re going to apply to your routine, and what other tips would you like to add to this post?

Share this post to help more people survive this job.

Join our growing community on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Until next time.