The things I've Learned About Blogging in 2019

Back in 2018, when I had 40k views, I set myself a goal to have an additional 10k views (total of 50K) for the year of 2019 and I'm happy to report that as of 2 months ago that goal was reached. Granted, it was a pretty conservative goal but it's the best that I could do given that I'm not currently able to blog full time - I sill manage to learn a few things in the process.

The things I've learned about blogging in the year 2019:

• Be Consistent - Ripencil.com is updated every Wednesday without fault and I found that it's been a key factor in keeping steady pageviews weeks after weeks.
• Be Your Best Promoter - What I consider the best blogs of 2019 have been promoted to my friends via Facebook or at any opportunity that I had. This generated interests in my immediate circle of friends and, at times, I was even able to reach friends of friends.
• Read/Exercise/Get out of the comfort zone - In order to find things to write about you need to bring oxygen to your brain (exercise), work your mind (read) and work on your creativity (get out of the comfort zone). All of these things have helped me find inspiration.
• Goal/Track - Set measurable goals and keep track of them. If it looks like you're not going to reach your goal, adjust what you do so that you will.

While I achieved my goal of 10K views for 2019, I feel like I was too conservative. I wasn't enough of a stretched to make it happen so for 2020 I have a goal of 20K views (for a total of 70k). What will this journey teach me? Stick around to find out.

Blogging Tips: What I learned in 2018

It's been a while since I created a post about blogging tips. I'm a better blogger now. Some lessons I had to learn more than once while others are new. I hope the following tips will help you on your blogging journey.

• Have a backlog. This is particularly useful if blogging is your hobby. Life will get in the way. Be sure to have a few blogs written somewhere that you can use at a moment's notice.
• Keep track of the data. See what blogs post generated the most views, what didn’t, and figure out ways to improve those numbers.
• Figure out the “buzzwords”. For example, when you add “Free” anywhere in your post (where it make sense) it usually generates more views than blogs that don’t.
• Be mindful of current events. Talk about fitness the first month of the year. Make blog post about gifts suggestions around Christmas times. Talk about current worldly affairs that you feel would catch people’s attention the most (Facebook privacy, Trump, etc….)
• Be consistent. Do you want to write every day? Once a week? No matter what you decide, be sure to always follow through.
• Be mindful of social media. Include the standard social media share icons at the end of each post and make sure that your post is properly shown on those social media sites. Do the test yourself - you can't afford not to. (See here on how to get started)
• Reference yourself when it makes sense to do so. Did you previously talked about the subject? Include a link to your previous post. This will bring visibility to older content.
• Include a picture. This goes with the social media point. If you do not include a picture, as part of your post, it won't be shown properly on social media. Be sure that the picture doesn't have any copyrights. There are copyright free images available here.
• Be your best promoter. Be proud of what you've done. Share it with enthusiasm if you want other people to also be excited about it.

What have you learn on your blogging journey? What do you think of the above tips?

Tips on How to Overcome Writer's Block

Writing is one of the most fun activities you can do. There are times, however, when we get mental blocks. No matter how much we try, no meaningful ideas seems to come out. The below are some suggestions that may help you get out of those "dark times". They have all proven useful to me to some degree.

• When you're inspired, write until all the ideas are out of your head. You may have a couple of blogs worth of materials after each of those inspirational sessions.
• Expose your min to new ideas. Watch a documentary. Read a new book. Attend a class.
• Force it. Write anything until the ideas comes.
• Take a nap. It's possible that you've had a difficult day, get some energy back with a nap.
• Use a pen/pencil with paper. The act of writing is often all I need to get started. It's a feeling that can't be replaced with a keyboard.
• Schedule blog posts in advance. Not only will this remove some of the stress. It will also insure you have a steady stream of posts in the event you couldn't write for a while.
• Exercise. A walk is sometime all I need to clear my head.
• Have a balance, healthy, diet. Food is what gives energy to the body. If your physical health is bothering you, those are thoughts that could of gone towards a blog post.

Hope these tips helps to put you "in the zone". What do you do to overcome a writer's block?

Sharing Blog Post On Facebook With Blogger – Detailed Steps

I've struggled with this for the longest time and finally figured it out! Bellow are detailed steps on how you can take your blogger post to Facebook.

Step 1: Add the Facebook share button on your blog post by editing the Blog Post Layout (assuming you haven't done so already).

Step 2: Go to Settings/Search Preferences and click on the edit link next to the Description label under the Meta Tags section.

Step 3: Create a new post, click on the newly added "Search Description" section and fill it out with the snippet you want Facebook to see. You can also include a link image in here by using the same link that's generated by blogger when importing an image.

Step 4: Post your blog and wait a few seconds then click on the Facebook share button to see how it will be shown. You can update it if need be and do note that it always takes Facebook a few seconds to detect the changes.

Tips:
You can also use this tool to help troubleshoot your post https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/og/object/

Voila! Hope this helps :)

Blogging Tips: It’s not rocket surgery

It used to be a big deal to do a daily blog and, for that reason, I missed a lot of days. I found some tricks along the way that may help you in your blogging journey. Here’s a few blogging tips:

• Prepare some in advance: I always keep a few blogs somewhere just in case I'm not inspired that day. I prefer doing them at night and posting them in the morning.
• Read: Reading will help you find a subject and will help with your grammar.
• Follow other blogs: Doing so will give you ideas of how to organize yours and may give pretty good subject to share.
It’s about you: Don’t worry about what people will think about it. You will do things that you think everyone will love but they won’t. Be in peace with it.
• Be your best promoter: With all the social media out there, it’s super easy to make your blog interact with Facebook, twitter and the like. Advertise your work.
• Respect comments: You don’t have to reply to comments but if you do, don’t disagree with the person. It may leave him in a bad mood and he might never come back to your blog. Comments could be pointers of what you need to improve on.
• Give credit away: Find ways to give away credit. If a friend helped find a subject for your blog, give him credit. If he sees it, he’ll be more likely to comeback again to see what else you have to say.
• Copyrights: You don’t like when people steal your ideas, don’t steal other people’s ideas. Make sure to point the reader to the source of the materials that doesn’t belong to you.
• Go out: Going out to do activities with friends is a good way to come up with ideas. I lost count of the subjects I’ve found just by going to the gym.
• Listen: Only those who listen ever truly learn anything new. If you speak, you only share your knowledge and ideas. If you want more ideas, listen to other people’s knowledge and ideas.
• Visuals: A picture is worth a thousand words. A picture, related to the subject, is a good way to give an idea to the reader of what the blog is about.
• Grammar: If a blog is hard to read, nobody will read it.

This is what I apply, I hope it will help you in your blogging journey. If you are already a blogger then I’m sure you agree with most, if not all, the points. If you have anything to add, leave a comment :)