Tag: blogging

Cutting back

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I plan to blog next week about my goals for 2026. I want that post to be written in the new year. But in this post, I will reveal one of said goals. I want to improve the quality of my blog posts.

I don’t mean improving the grammar, spelling, or punctuation of my posts—although I will not stop growing in those areas. I mean the content.

I will be the first to admit that some of my blog topics are lame. When I brainstorm topics, sometimes stupid ones are all that come to me. I recently turned to ChatGPT to help me come up with topics (but not to write the posts—I do that myself) and it does an okay job, but some of the topics it lists I am unable to write a whole post about. Still, its results are a lot better than some of mine. (Emphasis on some of. Most of my topics are at least decent.)

So I will both brainstorm on my own and practice prompting ChatGPT by having it continue to give me lists of topic suggestions. But that’s not enough. What else must I do to improve the quality of my posts?

I have to cut down on my blogging. Specifically, beginning this January, I will post twice a month, on the first and third Sundays of the month.

I believe that doing so will give me more time to turn out good writing related to my topics. I will be able to produce more intelligent posts that hopefully will be helpful to you, my readers. In the past, there have been times when I have gone on and on about something very trivial while looking at my word count to see if it has reached 300 yet. This cannot be helping you all. You deserve better.

Stay tuned next week for more of my goals.

Bump on a blog

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If you are a freelance editor and you have a website (which you should), your website should contain a blog.

Your potential clients will want to see how you write and how you edit your writing. Therefore, the grammar, spelling, and punctuation on your blog must be impeccable. I have had the pleasure of finding a glaring typo on my blog after I have published a post and having to go back into the web hosting site to fix it.

What should you write about? You should write about things that are professional, for the most part. For example, I am writing about blogs and blog maintenance right now. I’ve also written about my foray into writing, what an editor should do when they cannot concentrate, and the software I have learned, to name just a few topics. I believe it is also fine to occasionally write semi-cute posts about my workplace, such as descriptions of my bulletin board or the stuffed animals on the bookshelf to my right.

Some other blog housekeeping issues:

Make a new post at least every month or so. Nothing looks less professional than a blog with a timestamp that is, say, two years old.

Decide on how frequently you want to post and stick to that frequency. I post once a week, usually on Sundays. However, as I said before, you can post just once a month if you like. Just make sure you are consistent about it.

Once in a while, brainstorm blog topics so that you have a nice list of topics you can choose from when it is time to write. Keep them in a Word doc (or Excel spreadsheet, or whatever best meets your needs).

Decide on the approximate length of your posts. I usually keep mine from 300 to 400 words, but some bloggers prefer longer posts. Again, consistency is key.

If you have a blog on your website, what are some guidelines that you follow?