A guide to time management and making your blogging schedule.

Managing both your time and your business projects effectively is hard to do.

And even when you are trying your hardest sometimes it just doesn’t feel like enough.

Trust me I get it.

Happened to me earlier too.

I realized I had wasted so many hours on just one task. When I could have come back to

that task at a later time and worked on other things.

And in reality, I could pay someone to do that one task I keep getting stuck one and get it done way cheaper and it would look better too.

Realizing that your time is now worth money is important because it helps you put into perspective money-making activities and activities that need to be done but that can be given to someone else to do that’s easier.

It’s no shame to have someone else to do this for you. Honestly. No one will know.

But you can have email templates made, you could have pop-ups made, etc.

And Fiverr is way better than any other site that I’ve used.

They are fast and responsive.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s talk about handling those pesky tasks that you need complete.

The first thing you should do every day as a blogger is:

1. Check your email.

2. Check out your analytics,

3. Check on if any orders came in overnight.

4. Setup Workstation

5. Check CoSchedule or Content Calendar and see what’s due.

lets set up our workstation.

Get your water, stay hydrated throughout the day it’s important.

Set your seat up comfortably because you are really about to focus.

Set your phone to silent.

Now, let’s create the rest of our to-do list for the day.

After all of the above are completed I go to my next item.

My to-do list is to edit and finalize all upcoming posts that are ready to be posted for the day.

Once I’ve done a final edit of all of those, I will publish those on my WordPress account.

Then I begin making my social media campaign for the post.

Depending on the complexity of the subject of the blog material I may only post 3 to 5

different posts on each but for most of the ads, I am running a full campaign.

It seems complicated but what I am making is automated content.

Interested in watching me create a social media campaign? Comment below and I will make it happen!

I automate some posts and others I post in realtime through the apps.

You can easily automate yours too for FREE on Hootsuite.

The reason I do this task first is that it’s the post that’s going to be posted throughout that day so the earlier, I get it out the better.

I usually take a break after this and then I collect my mind and my thoughts.

I will typically take 30 minutes or so away from the computer just to re-energize.

You want to manage your blog just like you would manage your business. So don’t take to long of a break.

However, once you have plenty of content being uploaded and have a lot of things animated you will be able to take days off at a time and make money basically in your sleep.

Like all new thing’s this will take some time.

After I have my break I go directly back into working.

By now I need to start working on my email list, see if there is anyone new who has

subscribed.

If not I move on.

If there is I will then make sure to send them the survey I am sending out right now for being apart of my newsletter. I use mailchimp to help me keep track of all the information.

My newsletter is simple its just a weekly update of blog posts and what’s going on with my blog at that moment.

I update it as I go so that I always have the most up to date information for my blog on it.

& then I move on to working on my store.

Honestly, you’ll be on the computer longer than ever now so it’s the perfect time to get you a good pair of glasses.

After I am done fulfilling orders or remarket my store I will then move on to content

creation.

Since this takes up an incredible portion of my day I usually take a long hour break and

watch some tv and eat and relax before I start working on this.

So content creation is one of the most important things you can do for your business.

Marketing is how you spread the word of your business and how you keep recurring customers. And the content is what draws them in to click your post to read more.

Whether it an ad to your blog or your store you should post it.

I promote all of my work everywhere, twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, my blogs’ Facebook page.

& then I promote my “friends” posts as well.

I want people to promote my pages so why wouldn’t I share there’s.

Get recognized by posting the authority figures in your niche.

Being active in your niche is also very important, know trending tops, tops influencers, etc.

Think of celebrities, they have a ton of comments on all their posts.

By creating powerful content you can capture their attention, and then by creating a call to action like asking a question or asking for likes or shares you can get more activity on your posts.

Likes arent everything comments and shares determine a lot of things. and I truly believe it has a big part in how to break that secret social media algorithm they talk about.

Beating the algorithm also includes adding personal touches to all your social media accounts.

Pro tip: Having keywords in your about section is also a good way to ensure you are targeting the correct audience. 

Try giving yourself a job title.

Such as Blogger, Blog Brander, Social Media Branding Expert, Teacher, etc.

More on how to correct brand yourself coming soon!

So now I want to schedule social media posts.

When I go into hoot suite I have a couple of main objectives.

What can I say that will spark interest?

What’s going on in my life that I am willing to share with my audience?

How can I cause a reaction?

I really only use a partial amount of my time preparing premade content for personal posts.

It’s easy for me to think of something quirky so I just go with it and don’t think to much about it.

I just keep it positive and not political or argumentative.

I like to post most of this content in realtime but I still use the recommended times to post

some random things but I usually just do this for Twitter.

Mainly because my Instagram Is the account that I really want to work on organically growing at the moment.

And also I’m the least knowledgeable about twitter, so I am just trying to be most efficient on there.

It’s really simple to gain followers on twitter. But it’s known to have a better return from Instagram.

I try and make my posts based on the blog I am working on at that moment, I’ll make infographics or just an appealing piece, maybe even a quote.

Whatever it is, I spend a lot of time on this maybe 4-6 hours, so it takes up most if not all the day but I am getting more efficient with it as time goes on.

To really get full concentration I typically put my headphones in and just go hard.

I look at my competitions ads and there social media posts and determine how I could market a particular topic I’m looking into.

I then analyze the appropriate hashtags or the most relevant popularity of the content.

I then set up ads.

I promote most of my blog posts.

What I mean by that is I spend money to increase traffic.

But I do it so minimally. The money is basically the amount I’d spend if I was to go out shopping or whatever I have miscellaneous money for so it’s already in the budget just now I am using it for a better purpose.

But you don’t have to do this step at all.

But when I use ads the reason I am able to get so many impressions so quickly is that I’ve really taken the time to define my audience.

I am still learning as I am not perfect but it’s helping me learn what works and what doesn’t work that’s for sure.

I usually work on a couple of days at a time and reschedule some posts to appear more than once throughout the week.

So even though I am focusing on the next day I am also scheduling for the next couple of days as well just in case I get behind somewhere else later this week.

This also helps keep me accountable for content pumping out content because I can’t have social media posts if I don’t have new content to go along with it.

I only pay for ads for the first couple of days a post is new just to gain it some exposure.

I set my daily limits really low like $3-$5 and usually run 4-5 at a time. That’s only $20-30 a day that if I wasn’t working from home I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

I also have multiple streams of revenue right now as I grow my blog so I, of course, make time for that as well.

I go back to work full time in May so I am trying to do this much as I can right now.

At the end of the day driving traffic is important for your blog because it’s how you’ll eventually get the ability to add more ad networks with higher payouts.

Every normally business has expenses. Every business has some sort of fee for advertisements.

Shareasale allows you to place ads as soon as day one and as you grow you can sign up for more affiliates to ad more ads with higher payouts later on.

Check out ShareASale here. Click get paid.

Find a sponsor for your web site. Get paid for your great content. shareasale.com.

What I do before I buy something or join to use their information is search to see if they have an affiliate link.

Most of the time they do and sometimes they have premade interactive banners too that are great to put inside your blogs.

What you do is you sign up for a program like ShareASale, and you join other accounts like merchant accounts to get links.

Under the links tabs, you can click get link/banner select the merchant you want, I’m currently apart of 7 different ones, and you copy and paste the HTML code into your widgets or footer space on your website or if you are adding it to your blog post just check out the text system in your post editor.

You should take some time to research ad and ad placement at some point but that doesn’t matter too much when your brand new anyways.

The last part of your schedule should be some time to take out of your day to learn a new topic or to brush up on some skills.

The LinkedIn premium has some really fun learning materials that they provide that can help you in almost any online niche.

Also just taking online courses for almost anything related to business building is helpful.

I am thinking about starting a free weekly Facebook live session that goes up starting a business and business building tips.

I think it would be fun and a way for me to get to know you all a little better.

If you think it’s a good idea leave a comment and share this content.

Thank you for stopping by.

-Taylor Micheal