A blog can be a fantastic tool  to increase traffic to your website, share expertise or connect with tribe, yet so many heart centered business owners are not sure where to start or how to properly maintain a blog. Here are my 3 quick tips to say YES to blogging.

1. START YOUR BLOG OFF RIGHT

Choose a blogging platform, where you can create and publish your articles. I love WordPress, but a few others are Weebly and Blogger. Use whatever platform you feel most comfortable with.

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Consider your blogging goals, and more importantly your audience and your message. Do you want to attract visitors? Will these visitors be potential customers? Really think about who your current and potential audience will be and brainstorm a list of issues they face that are related to your business. You will use these later when creating your editorial calendar.

You will also want a plan for how to deliver the content, in place of a blog you could do a podcast or YouTube show and post them as blog posts. Of course the written approach has always worked for me.

2. Keep it Going, Stay Consistent

One of my biggest issues with blogs is finding one that you love updated since 2012. How often should you update? Once a month will be the absolute least you should update, but you will get more benefits from weekly consistency. Try it out and find a rhythm that feels good to you. If you blan to go from 0 to 3 blog posts a week you may end up overwhelming your energy.

Creating an editorial calendar of posts will help you to stay on track, but I like to keep a loose version of a theme, and then as I sit down to write I am inspired by whatever topic is prevalent at that time.You can also vary your post types, you don’t need to spend hours writing a post, it could be as simple as a few tips or some guidance on an issue, Q and A style.

If at any time you feel blocked and procrastinate on your blog, ask yourself a few questions:

• Why do I feel like I can’t express myself?
• How am I hiding who I really am?
• Who am I helping by writing this blog?

Meditating on your answer to these may provide the clarity you need and adjust your mindset to get you typing or recording away!

3. Promote Properly

If you are writing a blog you should also be promoting it! You have the content to draw visitors but you have to leverage it. Share each post across all your social media and sharing sites, such as Stumbleupon. The more eyes on your site, the more of chance you will be connecting with someone who needs you.

You may also want to use email marketing with your blog posts. So you can email your post out in a newsletter style or another way is to add your free offer at the end of your blog post to get new subscribers who love your stuff. Either way, they are a match made in heaven!