Blogging sos from Kirsten Jassies

Take one night a week for yourself and take a hotel night every few months. Hotels are great for writing posts. Write a plan with what and when you want to write. Create an editorial calendar (or just use google calendar) and create deadlines for yourself. Reward yourself when you made your deadline. Think of all the comments and shares you will get (even if they are from your mother). Blog for other blogs and say you will deliver the blog in a few days. Other people will depend on you and that’s more of a push than you can be to yourself. And, the best tip I can give you; FOCUS and DO IT.

If you are already blogging a few times a week than you are okay. Don’t think you have to do more. Push your content more on different social media channels, but you don’t have to create more. Unless you can have guest bloggers than it’s a realistic option. 

Photograph all day. Plan your images on Instagram, don’t let your instant gratification feeling get the better of you. Use apps like Over, A beautiful mess, Layout to play around with images. Search for editing images in the iphone store. Use Canva in you browser and create some basic images which you can use as templates. Same colours, same font.  Ask a designer to create your own design. I did. These fonts and colours and logo: totally me. Nice and messy, bright colours, alive. Google for free images. Won’t get you far btw, but you may stumble upon some ideas. Use Pinterest to gather ideas, don’t just steal, copy wisely.

Practise. Read other blogs about writing, writing with a purpose and headlines.

Read the blogpost ’the perfect blogpost’ on the website Buffer. Spent half of the time writing the post and half creating theheadline for your blogpost. 2 out of 10 people reading you headline will click thought. The headline better be good. Understand SEO. If you have some good performing blogposts you will have a steady flow of visitors each month. Like I do with 5.000 unique visitors on my blogpost about buying Instagram followers. And one more that I find in a lot of bloggers: FOCUS. Don’t write about broad subjects, choose one clear niche. People know you from or for one thing and ONE thing only. If you become famous you can talk about more subjects.

Work together with brands you believe in. Become their ambassador. Don’t ask money from the beginning, built a relationship. Relationships are a two-way street. Become an thought leader. Write 6 blogs about a niche subject, preferabbly a book and you are a thought leader in the Netherlands. Then you can make money by speaking and coaching people on that subject. Focus on affiliate marketing, but focus, don’t do it all. The product have to fit, so you sell better. Write a book. You won’t get rich, but is gets you respect and loads of old skool media interviews.

Readers accuse bloggers from being too commercial. If you make the wrong choices, use the wrong words (in the eyes of your readers) they will kill you. But one blogger not too long ago wrote a very true blogpost: magazines have been paid for years for their ‘editorial’ content. No mascara is in a magazine without an advertisement. Tell this to people who say you cannot do this. You create your content for free for most of the time. You give them your advice, your ideas, your vision. Sometimes, you work together with brands you love on cool projects, and YES you make money from that. DEAL WITH IT.