Michael Hyatt, former chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, spent 30 years in what he calls “slow media” where it can take years to publish a book. So when blogging emerged with instantaneous publication, Hyatt was hooked. He started blogging as a hobby in 2004, and for the first four years, he never had more than 1,000 unique visitors a month.
In 2008, his traffic rocketed to an average 20,000 unique visitors per month, and kept escalating steadily, with more than 437,000 monthly visitors last year. Hyatt’s exponential blog growth boils down to one thing: consistency.
“By being consistent, and making a commitment to be consistent, it improved my writing,” he says. “I could write better and faster. It generated a lot of traffic, and it ultimately enabled me, when I stepped away from Thomas Nelson in 2011, to monetize my site into a seven-figure business.”
At Social Media Marketing World , Hyatt explained how to blog consistently by sharing 10 simple strategies to crush the 4 most common obstacles to consistent blogging.
Most people feel pressure to blog “enough,” but there’s a lack of clarity around how much posting is actually enough to attract an audience.
STRATEGY #1: Set a minimum posting goal.
“There’s incredible power in goal-setting,” says Hyatt, who also leads a goal-setting course called 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever. “Just by writing down the goal, there’s a 43% bigger chance of accomplishment because it crystallizes your thinking, galvanizes your resolve and gets you focused on the outcome.”
At first, Hyatt blogged whenever inspiration hit – which became increasingly infrequent. “In 2008,” he says, “the single biggest reason why my blog took off is because I got serious about posting.” He started blogging 7 days a week. Still working full-time and raising 5 kids, he cut back to 5 times a week, then 3. Thinking that frequency equaled visitors, he worried that the cutback would kill his traffic – but it grew, and fans thanked him for the change of pace.
Hyatt says the “minimum effective dose” for blogging is 1 post per week. “When it comes to blogging, consistency is more important than frequency,” he says.
[_] ACTION ITEM: Set a goal for the number of times you’ll post per week.
STRATEGY #2: Connect with your why.
Ask yourself what’s at stake. What’s hanging in the balance if you don’t blog consistently; how does your business suffer? What would be possible for your business if you did blog consistently? You could:
- Build an audience.
- Become a thought leader in your industry with established authority. “I don’t know of anything that establishes authority and expertise faster than having a consistent blog,” Hyatt says. ”You’ll be perceived as a thought leader.”
- Increase influence with ideas that move people.
- Monetize your platform.
[_] ACTION ITEM: Write your why as a series of bullet points.