Ah, blogging for writers. When you think of blogging, you probably think that it’s something that writers should be excelled at.

Well, you’re not wrong to think that way when you compare it to writing a book.

But here’s the thing that most people don’t realize when it comes to blogging – it’s more than just writing a blog post and being done with it.

As you can see here, it’s not the writing part that many writers seem to struggle with.

It turns out to be something else that has nothing to do with blogging.

What got me into blogging for writers in the first place

For the longest time, I have always heard that content marketing can be the best thing you can do for your business.

In fact, it can do so much better than paid advertising over the long run.

That statement is music to my ears, especially for a broke writer like me.

With so many ways to do content marketing, I decided to opt for blogging of all things.

For me, I find that blogging is easy to do. The only thing I need to do is to write a blog post, edit it and publish it.

Unlike podcasts or videos where I may have to hire someone to do the editing for me, I can edit the blog post myself.

Sure, I can spend the time to learn how to edit a podcast or video. But knowing my nature, I doubt that I have the patience to care about tiny bits of detail during the editing process.

It’s because of this reason that I focus a lot on blogging when I was writing my first novel, The Diary of Modern Cinderella.

But later on, it dawned on me. That can be true for nonfiction authors who have books, courses, coaching, do public speaking, and what have you.

What about fiction authors who have nothing other than their books?

Can content marketing work for them too?

A part of me feels that it can work for fiction authors too. But a part of me seems to believe that fiction authors are better off writing their next book instead.

It was only until I read this blog post by Icy Sedgwick on Your First 10K Readers blog that made me realized that blogging might be worth pursuing.

Looks like I’m on the right track, or so it seems.

It didn’t end well for me

For the last couple of years, I lost count of how many times I killed my blog and revived it again.

If you think that only happened to my fiction author blog, you’ll be surprised to find out that it happens to this blog as well.

Heck, I even thought about letting this website die for real and not going to bother about it again.

Strangely enough, I can’t seem to let go of this blogging ship for whatever reason.

Since I can’t seem to give up on blogging, I decided to resurrect my blog once again.

And it’s not just resurrecting my fiction author blog. I’m planning to do the same for this blog as well.

While I still struggle to maintain this blog, I managed to maintain my fiction author blog even to this day.

The lessons learned from navigating through blogging for writers

Here’s the funny part about these lessons. They only start to sink in when my blog starts to generate affiliate commissions and book sales.

Well, it’s easier to analyze when you know what’s working and what’s not working for you, right?

Just to be clear that the book sales that I’m referring to are direct sales, not sales on other retailers.

It’s hard to know if blogging does help with sales on other retailers or not when retailers aren’t transparent about how the books are generating sales in the first place.

Okay, maybe I’m lousy when it comes to tracking down my book sales on other retailers. But if you’re talking about direct sales or other sources of income, these lessons on blogging for writers sure do hit me hard.

Your blog can only gain traction when you update your blog once a week

During the early days of my fiction author website blog, I tried all sorts of publishing schedules.

Weekly, twice a month, once a month, and blogging when I only have something important to say on my blog.

The only schedule I didn’t try is blogging every day since I know that was impossible for me to do. It’s a different story if I have someone else writing for me.

Out of many publishing schedules that I tried, it’s the weekly update that brings me the most traction.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the evidence that blogging once a week has a better result than blogging once a month or at an irregular interval.

If you do plan to give blogging a try, then try to write a new blog post once a week.

And that leads me to this big kahuna.

Well, I should say that it’s the biggest kahuna of all.

You don’t have to write a new blog post all the time

Wait, aren’t you supposed to write a new blog post once a week for better results?

And now I’m saying that you don’t have to write a new blog post all the time?

Okay, let me clarify here.

If you have a brand new blog, then it’s obvious that you need to write a new blog post every week.

There’s no exception here.

But if you’ve been blogging for quite some time, there’s a high chance that some of the posts are already outdated by now.

Rather than focusing on writing a new blog post all the time, you should be focusing on updating your blog posts instead.

Not only you’re giving a new life to the old blog post. But you also don’t have to crack your brain for another new blog post to write.

It can feel exhausting when you have to think of a new topic to write on your blog. And it’s even more so if you’ve been doing this for a long time.

Just go back to your old blog post, rewrite it, and publish it as a brand new blog post.

To be honest, I never thought that you’re allowed to do that since I always assume that you need to publish a new blog post all the time.

Now that I know that I don’t have to come up with a new blog post all the time, it takes the pressure out of me.

The SEO that you do on your blog post affects the overall SEO that you do on your website

When you think about SEO, you probably think that optimizing your homepage for the search engine should be sufficient enough.

Just find the keyword that has a large search volume, easy to rank high on the search engine, and has a high cost-per-click (CPC) and you’re good to go.

Unless your website only has one page, it’s important that you optimize other pages on your website as well, not just your homepage.

And it’s important for you to do so when you have a blog.

The reason for that is simple. It’s easier for your website to rank well on the search engine when you optimize your website to rank for many different keywords.

The more keywords you rank for, the easier it is for your author website to rank higher on the search engine.

And it’s easier to rank higher when you have an active blog due to blog posts being dynamic content on your website.

So, it pays to have an active blog.

Consistency is the key

Well, the rest of the things that I say before won’t matter at all if you’re not consistent with your blogging effort.

If there’s one thing that you can take away from this blog post is this lesson.

Whether you like it or not, you can only see results when you’re doing it consistently. And that applies not just in blogging but also in other things in life as well.

Yes, I get that you feel like wanting to throw the towel when your blog resembles a lot more like a ghost town.

Nobody seems to share the post that you write on social media, let alone comment on the post.

But don’t give up on it too soon. It takes time for the blog to gain traction even for something simple like liking a post on social media.

Should you consider blogging or any other form of content marketing?

If you can dedicate a day or two to writing, publishing, and promoting the blog post after it goes live, then I should say go for it.

Whether your blog will gain traction fast enough or not will depend on your target audience and what your blog is all about.

But if you’re consistent with your content marketing effort, you’re bound to see results eventually.

Even if it doesn’t lead to book sales, at least you’ll get dedicated readers who love your blog. You can then monetize your blog in another way.

Buy me a coffee, anyone?

P.S When you’re consistent with your blogging or other content marketing effort, your social media profile will start to take off too.

You see, people are more likely to follow you on social media when you’re updating your profiles with new content regularly.

And that seems to be the case for social media platforms like Pinterest and Twitter.

Love using Twitter and want to learn how to use it effectively without driving yourself to the corner?

If that’s you, take a look at my Twitter Marketing for Business guide.

You can learn more about the guide on my Payhip store:

Twitter Marketing for Business guide on Payhip