I make it no secret. I work two careers. I'm an engineer AND a real estate agent. What that means is I have to be VERY efficient with my time, and that includes our blogging.
My goal is to blog with a purpose each day, every day, rinse, lather, repeat to the tune of in excess of 3000 posts to date.
To make sure I fit in a blog post into my daily routine, I need to be VERY effective with my time.
I don't sit down to write a post until I KNOW what topic I'm going to explore for the day. White blank screens are (IMO) detrimental to inspiring me, so I want to have the spark, sit down, start typing quickly and get the ball rolling. For me, once I get the first few sentences in place the rest rolls readily.
So IMO there are a few key elements to blogging:
- Idea
- Eye candy
-
Time (preferably UNINTERRUPTED!!!)
Now the ideas can come from just about anywhere, although from a business generating perspective, the closer you get to detailed home information that a buyer or seller wants, the more likely you'll get that smokin' hot lead we all live for. There are certainly no short of posts here in the Rain that discuss blogging post ideas so I'm not going to deep dive that one, just click the link and you've got the cure for any blogger block you've got.
Eye candy? Honestly sometimes finding the right picture(s) or 
graphic(s) to decorate your post can be tougher than the writing. Again, plenty of ROYALTY FREE PHOTO SOURCES posted about in the Rain, so click that link to find a few. Personally, we're fans of Pixabay.com for free photos and have a subscription to iclipart.com for about $50/year that is well worth it to me.
Time? Now THAT can be the toughest of all since we're all being pulled in every direction Gumby-style. Pick the time of day that works best for you, and did you know that there are quite a few premade blogging templates to work with provided by ActiveRain? Click the link and follow Kristi's instructions! Links are also to the right when you click WRITE POST from the main nav bar.
For me personally, I've got my own templates for market reports, listings, etc. I'm rarely starting from scratch, and that saves me quite a bit of time. Additionally, creating tools to save me time helps. I have an Excel form I use for collecting market data, and Excel worksheets that I fill out to produce my two graphs that I use for each market report. While it might SEEM like all the data we provide in our market report would take hours to compile, the reality is about 10 minutes of MLS data collection time per market report and another 4-5 minutes in that report's Excel workbook and I've got everything I need to populate my market report. Start to finish shouldn't take me much more than 30 minutes for a fairly comprehensive deep dive.
Bonus tip for streamlining your blogging? Beware of gremlins. BEFORE HITTING SUBMIT ON THE AR EDITOR, RIGHT CLICK COPY!! Just in case the gremlins eat your post, you'll still have it available to paste. Seriously, who has time to write the same post twice in one day??
Basically, find the rhythm that works for you, remove as many distractions as possible, and blog. The more often you do it, the easier it gets. And double bonus? As long as you're picking the right topics, your phone WILL ring if you've got the patience to see it through.
Until next Tuesday, just Ask An Ambassador if you need help!
Bill of Liz and Bill aka BLiz
Comments(35)