Keith Goodrum

Today is the 21st post of my getting back into the habit of blogging thing. I started this whole odyssey back on the 22nd of September in the blog post Let’s Break Some Rules… The rules were pretty simple:

So, I’ve decided to get the momentum back, and I have a plan. I’ve read many times that you can make or break a habit in 21 days. It’s pretty simple to explain, and tougher to follow through till the end.

Here it is in a nutshell: Any good habit you want to start, you just do it for 21 straight days. At the end of those 21 days you will have added that new habit to your life. Likewise for a bad habit. Just cut it out for 21 days & will be gone from your life.

So, I’m going to blog for 21 days & get back into the habit of writing. Not going to make this overly complicated with a bunch of rules. Just going to write a post & publish it… simple.

It took a little longer than 21 days because I skipped a day early in the challenge. So, I decided to start again from day one, and commit to finishing. It would have been easier to catch-up by writing a couple posts & publishing them one day. But, I wanted to create a habit of blogging daily.

I did learn a few things the past 21 days…

1. Setting a goal to blog for 21 days in it’s self is not a very good idea - I jumped into this with only the plan of writing daily. There was no purpose other than to write, and that made it difficult to get this done on several days. There was no master plan, or direction to the blogging. As I look back over the posts… they were all over the place.

2. Traffic increased by posting content - Once I did start posting on a regular basis the traffic started to return. I watched the Alexa score drop from just under 200,000 to 132,000. Even with the lack of focus there was a return of traffic. I wonder what the traffic stats would have looked like if I had narrowed the subject matter.

3. Less participation in the comments - Except for a few posts. the comments & emails have been less frequent per post. Once again I can attribute the lowering of participation to the subject matter of the posts being scattered.

What am I going to do with this information?

This is something I’ve been thinking about over the past few days a lot. And I’ve decided to spend a few days to put together a plan for this blog. It will be related to online marketing… I just haven’t decided the exact direction. But, it definitely be more focused than the past few weeks.

Feel free to leave your thoughts, or comments below.

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t explain long absences from your blog…

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t blog about things like your spouse or kids…

Conventional wisdom says you shouldn’t blog about your dog…

Sorry… Gypsy!

Well, being conventional & wise are two things I’ve been accused of lacking a few times in my life… I’ve been anything but conventional at times… and I’ve certainly lacked wisdom every now & then!

The truth is this past month I haven’t felt like blogging much. The motivation to sit down & write was missing. So, I skipped a couple of days, then it turned into a week and each day I skipped it became easier to skip the next day… Before I knew it a month had passed.

Wow, that flew by quick!

I’ve been thinking about blogging again for the past week. But, boy it sure was tough to get back in the saddle again. You know we it’s easy to take the path of least resistance. And I can tell you not writing sure has been an easy path.

Momentum is a funny concept. Once you have it… it’s easy to keep it going. But once you stop, it’s a bear to get going again.

So, I’ve decided to get the momentum back, and I have a plan. I’ve read many times that you can make or break a habit in 21 days. It’s pretty simple to explain, and tougher to follow through till the end.

Here it is in a nutshell: Any good habit you want to start, you just do it for 21 straight days. At the end of those 21 days you will have added that new habit to your life. Likewise for a bad habit. Just cut it out for 21 days & will be gone from your life.

So, I’m going to blog for 21 days & get back into the habit of writing. Not going to make this overly complicated with a bunch of rules. Just going to write a post & publish it… simple.

Ok, I’ve made this goal public, so the pressure is really on. As a side note making your goals public is a great way to help your motivation. It adds a high level of accountability.

Here we go… one day down, twenty more to go!

Now is the time to start a blog. Many people have discovered that they are a great tool to get your ideas out to promote you and your business; it builds a relationship with your readers, and the platform simpler than ever to get your message out. For this reason they are more popular than ever.

Here are three reasons why you should start a blog.

1. It’s the best form of marketing and branding you can do for your online business - One of the easiest ways to market your business is to build trust with your market. Relationships and trust build a sense of community. And when you have a sense of community there is no need to use hardcore marketing to make sales.

2. You can use a blog as a direct line of communication - Ryan Healy in his post titled Copywriting Is Not the Most Important Skill said: “It’s my belief that communication is the most important skill you could ever learn.” A blog opens a direct line of communication between you and your readers. This is a great platform for communication. In fact many times you start getting feedback within hours of posting… priceless information.

3. A blog is easier than ever to start - The tools to start a blog are easy to learn & use. You can have a blog started within minutes if you choose to use one of the free services like blogger.com, wordpress.com, or typepad.com. If you wish to host the blog on your own domain, you can be up and running within a couple hours. Where else can you start a business so fast, or so inexpensive?

One of the complaints I hear is people hesitate to start blogging because they believe it would take huge amounts of time to write a blog post everyday. Many people abandon their blogs because they cannot find the time to write blog posts. They are caught up in a busy life, and it tough to carve out the time.

It would take me hours to write a simple blog post…

I had the same problem. It use to take me hours to write a simple 300-word post. It was agonizing, slow and frankly became a drag. I would go through spurts of writing several posts at a time…. then go weeks, even months without posting. My blog looked like it was abandoned at times.

I finally made the decision to figure out how to write faster. After trying many methods without much success… I finally figured it out. I found a speed writing technique, and modified it to make writing blog posts. I can now write a regular blog post in 10 minutes or less. It has been working great, and producing great results.

I’ve recorded this technique, and will be releasing it as a new product called “10 Minute Blog Post”. In it I show you how to write a blog post in 10 minutes. You get to see how I prepare, write and edit a blog post. You get to look over my shoulder as I write one of the posts I wrote for this blog.

Tomorrow Thursday May 1st “10 Minute Blog Post” will be released…

Of course there will be special pricing. Now, I have to warn you these recordings are not pretty. I’m not a professional presenter, and my Camtasia skills suck. It ain’t going to win any awards… it ain’t even going to be nominated.

So, if you are looking for pretty, flashy recordings with fancy graphics… save your money. This is not the product for you. But the information is valuable, and that’s what’s important… how to write a blog post in 10 minutes.