Blogging Basics: Rule of Five
If you are like me, your blog’s to do list can get pretty stinking overwhelming. I always have something pressing to do, but years ago I read that you should do 5 of 5 things everyday. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that equals 25 things. BA HA HA! Yeah, right. My Rule of Five is different. Simply do FIVE things everyday, not five things 5 times 😉 But, not just ANY five things – follow the Blogging Rule of Five!
What is the Blogging Rule of Five?
In a nutshell, do five things everyday specific to certain areas of your blog.
- Increase Money
- Improve (or create) Content
- Increase Engagement
- Do Maintenance AND Education
- Plan Ahead
Do Thing One: Increase Money – Why are you blogging? Personally, I am because I LOVE to write and research. This is the kind of thing I really enjoy. However, I wouldn’t be able to spend 10 hours a day enjoying myself if it weren’t producing some money. Every single day, you should do something to increase the income. The types of things are endless:
- Contact a company
- Respond/repitch to those emails in your inbox
- Check the performance of ads and improve them where necessary you could even apply for a new ad network
- Update older posts to include new affiliate links
- Work on a product – or promote the products you have
Do Thing Two: Improve (or Create) Content – Even if you don’t actually publish a new post everyday, you should be dealing with content everyday! From creating new content, to preparing for future content, to updating old posts! Content is King – seriously!
Do Thing Three: Improve Engagement – Now, this one could get tricky and is where most of us get sucked in. Make your list of must do engagement items and figure out how to work on it for an hour. Example:
- 10 minutes – Facebook scheduling, commenting, responding to comments
- 10 minutes – Responding to and approving blog comments
- 10 minutes – Leaving comments on other blogs
- 10 minutes – Plusing, sharing, commenting on Google+
- 10 minutes – Scheduling, sharing, responding to your feed on Pinterest
- 10 minutes – Scheduling, retweeting, responding to mentions on Twitter
Do Thing Four: Do Maintenance – From backing up your blog to updating cover photos. From removing spammers to removing broken links. From updating plugins to removing old ones. From cleaning up those sidebars to putting new items on them or in your slider. From creating new drip campaigns to updating your newsletter. The back-end of a blog is a never ending battle. If you can take 10-20 minutes everyday to work on this, you will be JUST fine.
Do Things Five: Plan Ahead – My favorite part 🙂 Checking that holiday calendar to be sure you have content prepared for 4-6 weeks prior to big holidays and 1-2 weeks prior to smaller ones. Run some keyword searches on your site to see what types of content you can corral into round ups or landing pages. Run some searches in your favorite keyword planning tool and make a list of future posts to write. Make a plan so you know what to do tomorrow (and the next day, and the next day). Need help with your plan? Take the Learn to Blog SEO class and get an entire keyword plan PLUS the knowledge of making your own in the future!
Now, the above five things should be on your to do list every single working day – however, there are other tasks that need to be done to make a blog run smoothly. You can add them to your to do list or hire some things out. Here are a few things that should be done as well:
- Education
- Building Relationships
- Increasing Readership/Subscribers
- Guest Posting
- Increasing Links in (like linky parties)
Those are just off the top of my head. 🙂
Great tips! I agree it is important to do a little bit of each everyday. 🙂
http://www.meowlifestyle.com
Great tips. I so need to be following these rules. Somedays I feel like I’m all over the place. I will be doing these 5 rules everyday plus some other things. Thanks for sharing on Feature Friday!
Plan ahead. It’s my biggest obstacle!
This is so true! And once you get behind, it is so hard to get caught up and ahead again
Great Post Kelli! I am glad I found it. Reading your posts and such about blogging has helped me a lot 🙂
I know this post was forever ago… but what is “digging”? 🙂
Digging is sharing and discovering content on Digg.com 🙂
Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor.
These are great ideas. I definitely need to work on doing these things and being more consistent. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Ellen, be sure to let us know! I am excited to see what things you put to use to improve your already awesome blog!
Thanks for the great suggestions. I’ll have to see how many of your rules of 5 I can fit into my day. I need to check out Digg too.
.-= Ellen Christian´s last blog ..Johnson’s Body Care Instant Win Widget =-.
I know, right!? I do not respond to giveaway comments, because well… that would be nearly impossible. Otherwise, I try to respond 🙂
Jerri, I find that I, too, go through periods of different things. This is why I felt that I should share the “better” way of doing things. 🙂 Good luck! I hope you see a difference.
Jaina’s Mom – I am so glad you found it helpful! Don’t forget to get your tasks done for the day. 🙂
These are all great ideas. I try to respond to all my comments, but some days it’s just not possible. The rule of 5 is great, especially for busy times.
.-= Serendipity is Sweet´s last blog ..Happy Birthday Bella! =-.
Excellent Post! Very helpful! I think I often try to do much commenting and networking in one sitting, and then I’ll have a couple of weeks where I don’t feel like doing much visiting or commenting at all. I just get burned out. But this strategy makes a lot of sense. Some times a little can go a long way. Thanks for posting!
Great suggestions! I know that these will really help out:)
Thanks!
Thanks for the great article, I am new and appreciate very helpful posts like this one.
.-= Jaina’s Mom´s last blog ..Tastefully Simple Giveaway =-.
Thanks, Sarah!
Great article! Thanks for sharing
.-= Sarah Marturano´s last blog ..Find Unique, Adorable AND Affordable Accessories For Your Little Girl! The Crafty Moms Review & Giveaway! =-.
Michelle, LOL! I, obviously, like mine better, too! 🙂 It isn’t quite a much to do, but is the same principle. I hope y’all try these for a couple months and keep track of if it is working or not. I am thinking it is working… I just got back on track today (and completed my Tuesday tasks WOOT!) and already have 3 new Google Connect followers. 🙂
Marj, thanks a bunch! I am excited about bringing my readers the neat little tid-bits I have picked up.
I was talking to a friend about how “newer” bloggers all seem to ask the same questions. I have decided to address them in normal people speak. 🙂 Hopefully people will learn something AND it will get me away from being a straight review blog. LOL!
Don’t worry, though… giveaways will still be happening! 🙂
Kelly (great name BTW), people keep saying “if only I could figure out Digg” I kept saying the same thing for a long time. Finally, I made an account and clicked “submit new post” or something similar. It was very straight forward. 🙂
I think I like your 5’s better. 🙂
.-= Michelle Pendergrass´s last blog ..Tackle it Tuesday–Transformation =-.
Blogging is definately addicting. Whoooweee, and I dearly love it so. Thank you for taking time to help us with the Basics of blogging.
Mhttp://driftalongattumbleweedacres.blogspot.com/arj M.
.-= Marj M.´s last blog ..I think we all would like longer stronger eyelashes, =-.
Great ideas! Now, if I could only figure out Digg. lol
.-= Kelly @ Wisdom Begun´s last blog ..Shopping – Menu Planning How-To’s Part Four =-.