Most niche bloggers have definitely experienced what is called a “writer’s block”. It’s a natural reaction that comes along with writing to much on the same subject and can be induced by many other things, non-blogging related, like the lack of sleep.

Just as writers experience these blocks, readers are no exceptions. They too can experience what people call reader’s block.

The good thing is that writer’s block and reader’s block can be treated or prevented by using the same medicine: Diversity.

Diversify by breaking your blogging patterns

At one time, many of us felt that a certain writing style or topic is more appreciated by our community. The obvious choice was to expand that topic and create follow-ups, or write aticles on other topics, but use the same writing style.

For a period of time, that proves to be a good strategy, but in the long run, you and your community will experience saturation which will lead to a block. This is where diversity should step up and break your blogging pattern.

Blog post alternatives

There are quite a few types of blog posts and writing styles you could experiment with and even mix them up as you find fit for your next article.

• Pillar articles
  These are long posts, usually well above 500 words, containing valuable, in-depth information on a certain topic. Tutorials are good examples of pillar articles.
• Interviews
  If the right people are interviewed, your readers will love them. Further more, interviews are a good way to reach out to those people you wanted to get in touch, but never knew how. They are a great networking tool.
• Market Research & Statistics
  Doing a bit of research did not hurt anyone. It keeps you and your readers informed and could also help catch some traffic if the topic is hot. Take Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere for example. Many bloggers republished the study’s results, analyzing them from their own personal point of view.
• Link Round-ups
  Many bloggers do it, but only a few go beyond linking. Link out and share your those on the topic. If you’ve enjoyed it enough to link it, you definitely can write something about it too. Here’s a good example on Words Of A Broken Mirror’s Monday Reading Roundup. Linking too can prove to be a great networking tool.
• Lists & Resources
  Lists are fun and easy to follow. Good resources are always appreciated. So, why not writing some good resource lists once in a while. You can take my Domain Names for Bloggers Series or WordPress themes round-ups (here and here) for example.

There are, of course, more types of posts that you could consider, such as: industry forecasts (predictions), relevant reviews, rants and gossips (be careful with these), open discussion threads, group writing projects and many more.

It’s up to you which one will be your next post or how would you mix up these blog post types.

Some writing styles alternatives

Different blog posts require different approaches. A “positive” approach may prove a good choice some times, but not always. Consider alternating your writing styles, once in a while:

• How NOT to’s
  “How to” posts have always managed to attract a good community response, but how often have you considered writing about the down-side of things? How often have you made your readers aware of the things they should stay away from?
• Thinking outside the box
  Presenting things from another perspective can prove to be not only a well deserved mouth of fresh air but also fun to write. Remember my Are Bloggers Hollywood’s Next Big Shots? post or 10 Blogging Tips from the Top 100 Songs of 2007? They are a good example of thinking and writing outside the box.
• Getting personal
  Bloggers are people. People have emotions, expectation and preferences. Sometimes it’s good to let your feelings about things show in different posts. Back in April 2008, Daniel Scocco wrote a post about the old WordPress Theme Viewer. If you read the post now, you’ll see how his personal feelings and opinions on this website stick out of every sentence.  My post Top 5 Reasons Why Blogging Rocked Our World would be another good example in this case.

Conclusions

In order to prevent blockage, be it writer’s or reader’s, a good deal of diversity is required. You don’t really need to look for topics outside your niche, but rather take a look at your niche from the outside. Go around it and look from every perspective that you can connect to.

The results will be amazing and fun. Just remember to break the blogging pattern once in a while!

Photo credits to Vivek Chugh.

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One lesson that I had to learn the hard way was to maintain my publishing rhythm. I was so sure that I could keep up with writing a post every two days until that moment when the inevitable happened. I was out all day on business and got back very late and very tired. So, I decided to leave the writing for the next day.

All good, except that no matter how much I wanted to publish something, anything, the page remained blank for a few hours. I had no back-up posts, no drafts saved and not even browsing the web in search of an idea did not help very much.

That was the moment when I decided to keep a tighter schedule if I wanted to maintain a good rhythm and encourage readers to come back daily and look for new posts.

Planning my publishing schedule

In order to be able to make a plan, you need to have a goal. In my case, the goal was to publish at least one in-depth post every two days. For other people, this rate varies based on being a part-time or full-time blogger, on spare time available daily, on the selected niche or it simply represents a blogger’s personal decision.

With a goal set in mind, it’s time to begin the actual planning. While in this post I’m mostly explaining my publishing habits, various bloggers could and should decide on their own timeline, picking the best moment for planning according to their own daily/weekly schedule.

Since I’m living in Romania, I have the advantage of being awake when most of my readers are asleep (~60% of my traffic is US and Canadian traffic). This gives me time to plan my actions every morning, when I’m fully rested and with a fresh mind.

Each Sunday morning, I’m planning my next week’s timeline so that when Monday comes, I’ll have a fresh idea to start developing from the moment I wake up. On every Sunday morning I’ll sit down at my computer with a blank document and try to come up with at least three post ideas that I’ll usually post on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday or Friday.

Coming up with post ideas and developing them

While most post ideas have already been generated in the past week, sometimes I have to come up with new post ideas to fill the schedule. One of the best ways to do it is by reading. Whenever I need a new post, one that should provide help and answers to my readers, I’ll go on a post and comment hunt across the blogosphere.

Many great ideas rise up in topics that can be further developed. Many problems and questions that require solutions and answers are raised in posts’ comments. This is one amazing way to come up with posts that are guaranteed to answer real problems, and we all know how important that is.

With these ideas wrote down, I start to outline each post, think of titles, subheadings and key phrases in the future posts. In about an hour, I have outlined my next week’s most important posts, posts that I’ll develop on each publishing day’s morning and so, secure my posting target.

Filling in the blanks

Since the Sunday morning planning secures the achievement of my publishing goal, I have more time to engage in research, without being pressured by posting deadlines.
This allows me to stay updated with the news, themes and plugins/widgets launched every week. Writing about them whenever I feel that they are helpful to my readers will fill the empty spots in a week’s schedule.

While this is a good way to fill in the blanks, not every week I’m able to find such interesting news or great new themes or plugins. So, this can potentially generate a problem, except it doesn’t.

Again, planning steps in to the rescue. Saturdays and Sunday I’m writing two series. Usually, on Saturday, I’m publishing my list of handpicked available domain names for bloggers, while on Sundays it’s time for the “Blog SEO Tips” series. Further more, on Saturdays I’ve developed a habit of testing out an online service or tool that I’ll review or promote to my readers.

My advice to you is to think of those topics that you enjoy writing about most and you know most about, write them down, split them in sub-topics and begin writing about them on a weekly basis, create series.

Looking at the results

Planning my weekly timeline has generated great results for me and Blogsessive. At this time I’m able to keep up with my publishing rate and even write a few more posts every week. Find that day when you can take some time away from everything else and start planning your future posts.

Further more, if you have a Google / Gmail account, make use of their free tools: Google Calendar and Google Docs. They’re easy to use, free and you can access them from everywhere, as long as you have an internet connection available.

Over to you

This is how I plan my weekly timeline and I hope it will be useful to you, my readers, and that it will help you find that perfect blog posts publishing rhythm.
If you already plan your postings, it would be nice to read about your habits in the comment section.

Photo credits to Daniel Branco.

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A question that has been haunting many bloggers is whether to publish short or long blog posts, when to go for one or the other, or just simply stick to one. This is one of those questions that cannot be answered by a simple “Go for short” or “Go for long”.

There are multiple factors that will affect the way your posts will be received by your readers in either one of these situations. What can be said right from the start is that your readers’ time is short and precious and this will determine whether they’ll read the post or not.

Common Reader Habits

No matter how long your post is, a reader will most times scan it first, and only after decide if that post is worth reading. This clearly indicates that topic, structure and quality of writing are essential factors that will affect your reader’s choice.

While most readers don’t have a lot of time on their hands and that time is split across many blogs, they’ll most likely prefer a concise post that does not stray from the topic, while still providing good insight and personal opinions.

When to go for short blog posts

If you’re going to post on topics that are current or in the news, it’s most likely that readers will rather read a shorter post since their interest is more concentrated on the news itself and they are likely to want to read more opinions on that news. Be short but don’t be cheap on your words either, for that we have Twitter.

A short post has the advantage of being quickly and easily read, but won’t contribute very much to your statistics in terms of time spent per page. Also, if you’re considering writing short posts, make sure you keep a higher publishing rate. There’s actually no point in publishing 2 paragraphs every week.

Writing long blog posts

Although people don’t usually spend a lot of time on a blog post, they’ll take the time to read a good article, even if it’s longer or even spread across a few pages. As stated earlier, they’ll first scan the post and if you manage to grab their attention, they’ll go back from the start and read the whole article.

Writing long blog posts is suitable for “opinion blogs”. Reviews, tutorials, editorials and guest posts usually require and tend to be longer and more insightful.

Since longer posts require more attention and more time to read, it’s indicated that you structure your post well by making use of paragraphs and subheadings, lists and images to break large blocks of text. Also, providing a good introductory paragraph describing right from the start what your post is all about is helpful in catching your readers’ attention.

A matter of personal choice and identity

Deciding between short and long blog posts is also a matter or personal choice. While some bloggers prefer updating their blogs a few times a day using shorter posts, others like to take a few days to write a longer post, more resourceful and well documented, such being the case of Maki from DoshDosh. This decision also contributes to establishing an identity and unique voice for you blog.

Conclusions

There’s no golden rule about the perfect blog post length. It’s all about your topic(s) and the best way to present your information without cluttering the content or filling it with unnecessary stuff.

Do what you have to do in order to share as much valuable information. Keep you posts short enough not to be boring and long enough to startle the interest. Find the right balance by studying your statistics and why not, by having a friendly, open discussion with your readers.

And now, tell me what’s your choice when it comes to deciding for one or the other and what are your reading habits.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive