Make Writing A Habit and Help Your Blog Grow

In 2021, I have decided to make writing a habit to ensure my blog’s growth. I have not been a consistent blogger since I started this blog in April 2019. And, I didn’t even meet my writing goals in the past few months.

My writing goal is not really that high, I am only aiming to create at least two blog posts per week that I hope readers might find helpful. However, even if my target was so low, I was still consistently failing to meet my target.

 

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

A Quick Background on my Blogging Journey

I consider blogging as my part-time gig (while online selling is my full-time hustle) even though it’s not earning me that much yet. I was just earning a few cents per day in my 21 months with Adsense.

And then, when I moved to Ezoic last January 8, 2021, my earning grew to at least a dollar or two per day, which is way higher than what I used to get with Adsense. Feel free to read my review on Ezoic if you want to learn more about it.

In the meantime, back to the topic. 🙂

One of the primary reasons why I built Thrifty Hustler is that I wanted to be around like-minded people who share the same goal as me.

Since I started this blog, I was able to achieve my primary goal which is to have a platform to interact with PF bloggers and to learn from their best practices.

Sure, you can interact with them and learn from them without a blog! But I believe that having a blog is sort of like having a give and take relationship with your fellow bloggers. They share ideas with you and you also share your ideas with them thru your blog.

Another reason why I built Thrifty Hustler is to have hands-on experience in building online money-making opportunities for myself. I don’t know if it would be this blog or if this blog will only serve as a medium for me to experiment with. In the meantime, I put some advertisements on my blog while I’m still deciding which monetization route to take.

My timeline to monetize this blog is actually long (three years to learn traffic generation and monetize after that) since I’m doing it part-time. I’m hoping that in three years, I could learn how to drive traffic and once I achieve that, then I will start thinking about monetization.

By some stroke of luck and by consistently reading the Tweets of the people I follow on Twitter that have achieved the level of success that I want to be at, I was able to shorten my timeline from three years to two years (or 21 months to be exact).

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have that massive traffic yet. But, I do have a better understanding now how SEO traffic is generated.

Below is one of the PF bloggers that I follow on Twitter. If you’re not following him yet, I suggest that you do so! There’s so much that you could learn from him.

Here’s one of his Tweets that made me realize why I should make writing my habit and how this habit can help me achieve one of my blogging goals.

I like to think of each article I write on my websites as mini digital assets.

Once published, each article works tirelessly to earn money for me 24 hours per day.

Each day I create more of these digital assets.

Each day the asset army grows larger.

— Four Pillar Freedom (@4PillarFreedom) November 10, 2020

 

Why You Should Make Writing a Habit

There are so many reasons why you should make writing a habit especially if you are a blogger and Zach of Four Pillar Freedom mentioned one of those. Aside from what he said, here are some other reasons why you should also make writing a habit.

You Become More Efficient in Writing

I have mentioned earlier that I was failing to consistently meet my 2 articles/week target in the last few months.

However, as of the time of writing (January 21, 2021), I was able to create 19 articles already including this one. I believe that all of those articles are helpful to my target audience and not just written to meet my target number of articles.

English is also not my first language but it’s considered in the Philippines as our second language even though we don’t use it that much in our day-to-day living. Writing frequently helps me improve my command of the English language.

The more you write, the more you become faster and better in writing. You just simply become very good at what you do consistently. Our brains adapt to what we always do and if you make writing a habit, then your brain will just simply become very good at it.

You Become a More Effective Writer

The more I write, the more I improve in getting my point across without too much fluff. And since I’m a blogger, I have also learned how to write effectively for both people and the search engine. My blog traffic continues to grow as months go by. You can see the traffic growth of my blog in my previous blogging reports that I post on my blog quarterly.

It can also happen to you if you write consistently. You will not only get faster in writing, but you will also become a lot better in some other ways.

It’s Therapeutic

Writing is considered therapeutic. Personally, since I started writing more, I find myself more relaxed and calmer.

Whenever I’m writing, my mind just focuses on one thing, and the noise of the external world just subsides.

I love it!!!

I love the feeling that I get whenever I’m writing that’s why I’m doing it more often now.

It’s an Important Skill to Learn

Regardless if you’re a blogger or not, becoming good at writing can also help you achieve success in the corporate and business world.

Writing is a form of communication that is frequently used across all industries.

It Opens Doors of Opportunities

If you are a blogger, writing more frequently especially if you know how to write SEO-Optimized content could help you generate traffic for your blog.

More traffic means more opportunities to monetize your blog either in the form of advertisements, affiliate marketing, or by selling your own products.

It could also lead to other opportunities since your blog also serves as your portfolio.

I came across a writing opportunity last week because of my blog. A startup company sent me an email last week asking me to write for them and I said yes as long as it’s part-time since I have a full-time gig already (plus this blog). It’s just so surreal to have landed a short-term writing gig even without applying and I’m so grateful for that opportunity.

Photo by Courtney Corlew on Unsplash

 

How to Make Writing a Habit

Set a Time and Space Conducive To Writing

Writing requires focus. And to stay focused on what we are doing, like in this case – writing, I suggest that you set a time and space for yourself.

Personally, writing in the morning works for me quite well. As soon as I finish my morning stuff (breakfast, shower, and cleaning the house), I proceed to write. Unfortunately, I don’t have a specific room for writing. I usually write in the kitchen area where I’m actually prone to distraction. That’s all that I’ve got for now so it’ll do.

Some people are comfortable writing in coffee shops, and I think I’m ok with that idea too. But you know, there’s COVID lurking somewhere out there, so I think I’ll just stay put for now. LOL!

Have a List of Topics

I keep a list of topics that I want to blog about, but to be honest, I always don’t get to follow that list. However, it is something to start with.

It’s a growing list and a lot of my ideas always come to me before I go to bed. I list those new ideas using my phone’s notepad and I add them to my spreadsheet containing my list of articles to write once I wake up in the morning.

Having a long list of articles gives me the flexibility to continue writing even if I’m not in the mood. Sometimes, if I’m not in the mood to write articles that require so much research, then I’ll just write articles about topics that I know very well such as online selling.

Create an Outline

Once I have decided which topic to write about, then I will create an outline. My outline is basically how I envision the article to flow. I usually start with writing a temporary headline, headings, and sub-headings, and then I proceed with creating the content.

Make Sure to Edit But Don’t Be a Perfectionist

Once I finish writing the article, I will then read it from start to finish. I will make all the necessary corrections in spelling, improve the flow of thought, improve the title, etc.

I use the free version of Grammarly to help me catch the misspelled words easily.

I still miss some things that need to be corrected and I often catch them once I have published the article. I’d like to publish an article as perfectly as it could be.

However, since I’m still in the process of building my writing habit, I don’t let the thought of perfection hinder me from building this habit.

Sometimes, this process takes more time than writing the article itself (depending on the topic of course).

Monitor the Time Spent on Writing

I don’t track this using a spreadsheet. I just keep a mental note on how long it takes me to finish an article. On average, it takes me 2 -3 hours to finish one article and this does not include other blogging tasks such as sharing the post on social media websites.

This includes though, brainstorming, formatting the article in WordPress, and adding Creative Commons pictures to the article (from Unsplash).

My goal, for now, is to identify how much time I spend creating helpful articles so I can incorporate writing into my daily schedule.

At the Very Least – Try

There are days when I’m not really in the mood to write. However, even if I’m feeling very low, I still open my laptop and try to write anything.

Whatever I create during the days that I was not in the right mood, I save them as drafts and I edit them once I’m in a better mood.

Sometimes, when I’m really not into it, then I just let the day pass without writing. However, I will make up for it that’s why sometimes I have two or three articles posted in one day (started doing this in January 2021).

Rinse and Repeat

 

 

Final Thoughts

When I started pushing myself to write more, it really felt like a drag. However, as days go by, I actually find myself looking forward to writing blog posts.

Making something (such as writing) a habit really does take some time, so, give yourself time to adjust. Don’t be too hard on yourself when you miss a day or two.

Enjoy the process and everything will fall into its right place in due time.

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How about you? Do you want to share some tips on how you made writing your habit? Feel free to share your tips and suggestions in the comment section below.