Blogging to be done perfectly, needs a discipline and planning. And for a beginner blogger it is really hard to manage time. You’ll end up wasting time on unnecessary blogging tasks and suffer from a shortage of time to grow your blog.
Most of the beginners knowingly or unknowingly waste time concentrating on things that doesn’t actually help in growing their blogs. You realise it lately and then regret about it.
This is a straight forward guide to get rid of waste of time blogging activities and get more time to do actual blogging and grow your blog quickly.
1. Blog Design
You just started a blog, worked hard on it for day and night to make it look beautiful. Changed the fonts, adjusted padding, added attractive colours to your blog template and shouted with joy-
Hurray! I have a professional looking blog.
Now what? Realised it or not, You just wasted all of your time?
The worst thing that kill most of your time is Blog design. When I started blogging, I was Over-concerned about my blog design. And wasted a lot of my valuable time in trying new blog templates and editing HTML.
And as a result, what I got is nothing more than compliments from few of my Blogging pals about my blog design.
When I first came to know about Seth Godin’s blog, I was surprised to see his most popular marketing blog with an extremely simple layout and plain design. And I laughed at myself on wasting so much of time with this thing.
I am not saying that you don’t need a good design for your blog. Having a professional looking blog surely help you build a brand for your blog. But I do say that it is really a waste of time at this stage of blogging.
So What you should do?
It is not really important to have a great design at this point. Just choose any clean template and don’t bother about it for some time. Now focus more writing more quality posts as possible. Later as you get your blog to a certain position, then you can work on your blog design or hire a designer.
2. Social Media
Social Media is really a great source of traffic for any beginner blogger. As you just started a blog, it takes time to build readership and get traffic from search engines. It is really a good way to get traffic to your new blog.
Then why did I called it “Waste of Time”.
I really never say that it is a waste of time to promote your blogposts and interact with readers on social media. But you will be wasting a lot of time on other things like Chatting with friends, Commenting and liking posts, in the name of promoting your blog.
And as you are a beginner, you have only fewer followers. So you cannot expect a blast of traffic to your blog from social media.
So What you have to do is:
- Join 5-6 social network sites, but try to be active on only 2-3 of them that work for you.
- Make a schedule to stay active on each of these social networks. And give more preference for creating Quality content.
- Turn off any distracting things like Chats.
- Try other ways like guest posting, commenting to get traffic.
3. Blog Stats
Accept it! You do visit your Google analytics or CMS statistics dashboard daily (even hourly) to see, how many visitors you got.
I am not blaming you for this. As this is a common habit every new blogger have. I still have this habit a bit.
We just publish a post, post it on social media and run to analytics dashboard to see anyone visiting our blog. Then come back the next day morning to see the page view count, Alexa rank and this continues.
How silly Are we! It is like Sowing a seed and watching it to grow and yield.
It doesn’t mean that you just stop monitoring you stats completely. Analysing your stats help you take your next step and fix things that don’t work for you. But it becomes a Time Killer when you spend overtime on it. Also, it may even
discourage you from blogging.
So don’t look at our stats for month or two after starting a blog. And kill your habit of looking at stats every day and hour and fix a period like once every 15 days or 30 days.
4. Search Engine Optimisation
SEO can be a most beneficial task for any blogger to get traffic for long term. But most beginners take this thing too seriously wasting time and money.
There will be some serious dangers if you take it too seriously:
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You may waste a lot of time learning and applying different SEO techniques, so you cannot concentrate other important tasks like content creation, Blogger outreach.
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You may over-optimise (like keyword stuffing) your content and search engines may penalise you for this.
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You may get scared of learning & applying SEO (unless you already know SEO) and even Quit blogging.
Remember that SEO is meant for helping a search engine understand your blog, not to write for the search engine. I heard many people saying that they don’t pay much attention to SEO but still getting traffic from search engines.
I am not saying you to ignore SEO completely but don’t get serious about it now. First learn and apply basics of
On-page SEO and then gradually go for advanced SEO techniques (i.e., Off-page SEO). I would recommend you read this
basic SEO guide by Google to get started.
5. Pictures for Blogpost
I haven’t realised I was simply wasting time on this thing until a published a post on “Google Keep for productive blogging”. I eventually spent a lot of time for creating graphics for this post, which made me spend a more on it.
A Picture is worth thousand Words
It is indeed my favourite Quote too. But if you are unnecessarily wasting time in this task is absolutely not acceptable. If you really prefer pictures more than words why stuff it in a blog post, better combine all of them and make an Infographic.
So to be straight forward, do not waste your time on creating or editing pictures for your blog posts. Only use pictures where there is necessary, where there you cannot explain with words.
6. Shadowing other Blogs
You may be advised to observe other blogs in your niche closely (also called Shadowing), so that you can learn how they work and develop your own style based on that.
But there is dark side too for this strategy.
Reading blogs can be more addictive that you forget the thing that you too are a blogger and responsible for managing a blog. I never thought reading blogs would be waste of time. As once I examined my activities, I found Reading blogs is the main thing killing my time.
The other Waste of Time activities you spend time on other blogs include Over-Commenting, Over-following and Over-interaction on their social media updates.
The another most dangerous thing is Cloning the style of your influencers. You are not said to Clone their style, but observe them, Develop your own style and improve it day-by-day. This act could be Time wasting as you try to Rewrite your posts when you fail to write like you influencers and may even Discourage from blogging.
Final Words
Making a perfect schedule is the most useful fix I found to be working to avoid all these kind of Time wastage. Organise every blogging task and make a perfect weekly and monthly plan for your blog. Again and again I advice to focus more on creating Quality, helpful content.
All the things I mentioned above are written based on my own experience. Which I feel may help you to find more time to blog.
What do you think?
Are you wasting time on these blogging things? Did my post helped you get rid of these things and find more time to do actual blogging?
Please let me know your opinions through comment below. And please do share it with your friends if you like the post.
Amazing Post Susheel.
I am very curious about the design of my blog but I like it just because I love designs and trying new designs can be beneficial in recommending others. But you said that right, if design is not the niche, you should not waste time in that.
Each activity must have a strong and specific reason of doing so., I learned a lot from your article. As I am also a newbie, I am following your blog to get some tips and I must say that you're an awesome productivity hacker.
I wish you all the best sir.
Hi vashisht,
Feeling very happy that you learned something from this post.
You are right. Unless you are writing about design, you need not worry about your blog design. And personally this was major time waster in the beginning. I spent a lot of time tweaking my blog design and ignoring an important thing, CONTENT.
Every newbie blogger like their blog to look professional waste time in it and later as they regret it.This is why I included it as #1 thing.
Thanks for taking time to comment here (and also first to comment) and adding some kind and praising words.
Have a Happy, Successful and productive blogging ahead.
Hi Susheel,
Your advice is spot on! When I was a complete newbie I used to waste so much time reading other blogs and often used to ignore my own blog. I learned to manage blogging time the hard way.
Search engine optimization should not even be cared about by the new bloggers. I believe once you get a grip on how a post should be then start worrying about SEO.
In my initial blogging days, I used to change my template too often and later I stopped even caring about the blog design and started focusing on the content. That helped me grow my subscribers list.
Thanks Susheel for sharing such an interesting and insightful post. I am sure many newbies will benefit for this. Can't resist sharing this post on Google+, Pinterest and Twitter. 🙂
Have a great week ahead. 🙂
Rohan.
Hello Rohan,
Glad to have you here.
As I said most of the new bloggers have a habit of changing template or tweaking, which is a worst thing that kill most of your time.
And coming to SEO, you are right. A newbie blogger need not focus on SEO. Just creating useful and quality content is enough at this point. But as you go, you can learn it gradually and apply it. But SEO is important to get long term traffic for your blog.
Thanks for adding your valuable opinions here and sharing the post.
Thank you
Hi @Shusheel,
Nice to meet you here on your wonderful page.
This is my first visit here, and ha, of course i am here via AhaNOW pages where this is shared. I posted the following comment there too. Thanks.
This post is really a timely alert to the bloggers especially the newbies, I too wasted lot of time in many of the areas mentioned in this especially on point #5 and #6, selecting or creating pics for our pages are indeed a tedious or time consuming task, but in some cases as the age old saying goes it speaks volume. But at the same time spending too much of time on it is surely be a wase! About # 6 of course I do not count that is a mere wastage of time, but in a sense as you said spending more on it will surely be eat our time. Though we may gain some valuable information from some of the readings. Thanks for sharing this informative piece for your readers. I am here via AhaNOW pages I shared this comment there.
Keep sharing
Keep informed
Good day
Hello Ariel,
First of all, as this is your first visit here, I heartily welcome you.
Thanks for taking time for reading the post and sharing your valuable opinions.
Yeah! having some graphics help you grab the attention of readers and also explain things easily and effectively. But if you spend time more than that is enough, you will be easily killing time without realising it. And the post that actually take a day to complete, take even whole week.
Canva can be really helpful here, where you can actually create attractive graphics in a very little time.
And coming to #6, it is a great idea to read other blogs and observe them, as you can learn many things. But I personally had the problem mentioned in #6. It became so irresiteble to me to not to read other blogs daily. So it is best to choose a 5 or so blogs to read regularly.
Good to know you didn't faced any time wastage in it.
I have written this post so that beginners dont waste time on this things and later regret about it.
Anyway thanks for commenting, And thanks for Aha!now and harleena singh for giving me such a valuable readers.
Happy blogging
Wao, i am still a year hold in blogging. My blog is still lacking traffic though but i thought all you mentioned are the things am lacking, thank God i have not wasted tie doing them. Let me go quickly and increase my contents because i am even wasting time reading this (lol). Thank you, its realy helpful…
Hey Bamise,
Thanks for commenting. I am glad that you found it useful.
If you stop wasting time on these things you can get a lot of time to create more content, thereby Your blog traffic will also improve.
Wish you all the best for your blog.
Happy blogging.
Hi @Susheel,
The best thing about this post is that we all can relate to it.
As you have highlighted, one of the task of a blogger is to be time conscious and very organized. However, there is a temptation to waste time on some blogging activities. So thanks for sharing and reminding us of what matters in blogging. Take Care
Hello Awazie,
Glad to see you here again.
You are right it works for all of us, and I wrote this post from personal experience so that you can stop yourself from wasting time.
And yes it is so tempting to waste time in such things. Especially the things #1 and #5. If you got into tweaking your blog design, you cannot stop yourself trying to make your blog look beautiful. Its so irresistible.
Thanks for commenting. Happy blogging
Hi Susheel,
I believe this is my first time here. I found your blog on ABC. Nice to meet you. 🙂
Informative post, indeed!
Yes, I agree with you on all these points. I saw a blog that has a lot of complicated design. I bet that it is a novice blogger. Since pro bloggers will use a design that is simple and professional.
I could not agree more with social media. Well, it often occurs to me though. I'm ashamed to admit it. 😆
Oh yes, we should avoid blogging for numbers. All we have to do is to create quality articles for our readers and build relationships with other bloggers. Blog stats will get better by itself. 😉
Thanks for sharing this with us.
Have a great week ahead!
~Nanda
Hi Nanda,
First of all I Heartily welcome you here.
Coming to design, it is not so important in my opinion. Just make sure you have a clean and minimal design. As you said not just new bloggers, even some experienced bloggers don't realise it and go for complicated design. Which will not only waste your time but also confuse readers
And you can easily waste time on social media. Unless you are planned you somehow surely waste time without your notice. When on social media hours go like seconds.
The next thing, content quality is a really most important thing. There is no use of a bunch of boring, non-informative posts. Instead, a few quality posts would be much better.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Wish you a Succesful blogging career.
Thanks
Hey Susheel,
Nice work and great share. I agree with you that most of the new bloggers do such things. But I disagree with your social media point because I had spent time to build relation and it worked for me.
Hi Jay,
Thanks for stopping by.
Yes, social media really works great to build relationships and get traffic too. But as everything has a Darkside too, Social media can be a serious time killer.
And also I haven't told you to ignore it completely. But use it smartly and dont waste time on unnecessary things. And have a plan before you step into any.
Thank You
Hi Susheel,
This is too funny because I use to do all of them at one time. 😆
I'm just learning to manage my time and this post have helped a lot. Organizing every blogging task is a must because like you mentioned, it's easy to get side tracked.
Thanks for a wonderful post!
Hi Layne,
Some times, we laugh at ourselves that we made those silly mistakes. But those lessons we learn ourselves are more valuable and help you grow big.
The most better solution to get rid of any kind of time wastage is PLANNING and ORGANISING.
Once you learn how to organise things well, you don't waste a single second.
Thanks for reading.
Have a great days ahead.
Hey Susheel .
This is really a good information for those who just started with blogging.
You discussed every point very nicely.
I suggest you to also write a post in which Suggest Newbies that what things to do in first month of blogging.
Hi Guri,
Thanks for reading.
I am very glad that it was useful to you.
And it is a great idea to write about it. When I am writing this post, the exactly same idea came to my mind. I will be surely consider writing about it.
Thank you
Happy blogging
Hi Susheel,
Am i wasting my time on rigid blog post? I don't think so. Because you know, some posts are read worthy. Add a beginner, a blogger would go through several blogs to learn the style of his own. It isn't a time waste as per my opinion.
Yes, you are right! Newbies actually waste time I blog design and if had to be controlled.
When it comes to creating the content, a blogger would choose several styles in the article so that his readers won't find the monotony of text all the way to end of the article. It should not be done like a "must-do" task for every post as you said.
You have mentioned very controversial points in this article pal.
I'm glad to voice in my opinions here.
Have a good day!
Hi Sasidhar,
Thanks for taking time to read and comment over here.
You are right, we can learn a lot by reading other blogs. And as I already explained, you should not ignore reading blogs. But if you have, say 20 or 30 blogs in your reading list, and if go on reading updates on all of them, then when will you have time to manage your own blog.
So Over-reading can be a great threat to your time. So as per the time you have, you can choose a particular number of blogs to read. And if you have other more important blogs to read, keep rotating blogs from the list, so that you can cover all of them.
But make sure you give only a certain amount of time to read so that it does not interfere with time to manage your own blog.
Glad to have you here
Thank you
Hi Susheel,
When I landed on your blog for the first time. This post caught my attraction and I started reading your blog post. You have discussed a lot of Important things that should be time wasting for a blogger.
I Believe that excess of every thing can be bad. I prefer spending my productive time writing for my blog and the non-productive one for the other tasks. It helps me managing my time more efficiently.
BTW Thanks for this awesome post. Could not resist without sharing on social media. 🙂
~ Umair Akram
Hi Akram,
First of all as this is your first visit here, I welcome you heartily.
And I am glad that you found this post useful.
Most of bloggers (Especially part-time) complain that they don't have time for blogging. But that actually mean that they are wasting time on unnecessary things.
So if they stop wasting time and spend it in productive things, then there be no such complaints.
Glad that you found this article helpful.
Thanks for reading and sharing.
I jokingly call mine "the blog with 500,000 words and no readers". I found your site by searching "is blogging a waste of time". It's different than writing for newspapers (something I did briefly in college and on leave from college, paid internships). I think maybe it's practice for some higher form of writing I may some day get the opportunity to do. It's sort of a notebook for certain things I might do some day (as compared to merely writing about it).