Have you ever felt stuck?
Blogging should be an easy process once you have come up with your ideas and scheduled them in your editorial calendar.
Or is the process the part you got stuck at?
Sometimes it’s a good idea to hire a blogging coach when you feel you are going nowhere with your own possibilities. Hiring a coach is not a sign that you are a failure and you should give up blogging altogether — just the contrary! It means you haven’t figured out yet what works for you, and a blogging coach will work to bring out your full potential as a blogger.
In this post, let’s see 8 situations that may benefit from the help of a professional.
1. No clue where to get started
You started a blog but then… what? You have no idea how to proceed, how to come up with ideas to write about, how to setup an editorial calendar to keep your posts coming in regularly and satisfy your readers’ thirst for knowledge and hands-on advice.
A blogging coach can guide you through the whole process of story creation, writing, scheduling and how to collect feedback from readers to create even more engaging posts.
Also, a blogging coach can explain and guide you to promote your posts on social media and your communities.
2. You can’t come up with an editorial calendar that makes sense
Managing an editorial calendar is not a trivial task. It’s important to study the times your readers are more receptive and you get the most visits to schedule your posts in a way that ensure they will be read and appreciated.
If you can’t come up with an editorial calendar or your current calendar doesn’t work to your blog’s best interest, a blogging coach can help you analyze your audience and come up with posting times that will ensure the highest engagement.
3. You struggle to publish new posts (or you post too much)
When was the last time you published a new post? How do your readers react to your posting schedule? How is your traffic faring?
If you publish too sparingly (less than once a month) or too much (more than once per day), you may lose readers. In fact, readers feel overwhelmed with a crazy posting frequency, but they will also lose interest in your blog if you publish new content less than once a month.
As always, the truth is in the middle. A blogging coach can help you find the right posting frequency that best meets both your needs and those of your readers.
4. Little time to dedicate to your blog
Do you make time for your blog every week? Do you plan your blogging activities or do you prefer going with the muse?
If you don’t make time for your blog, it becomes harder to maintain a posting schedule, interact with your readers and keep your blog and its connected social media activity alive.
A blogging coach can help you with time management and productivity on the basis of your daily routine or day job.
5. Low engagement on posts
Do your get enough shares on social media and other communities? Do readers post comments?
Measuring engagement is important, because it determines the strength of your content and how much it pushes people to react to it and interact upon it. If engagement is low, your content is not leaving a footprint in your readers’ thoughts and it doesn’t contribute to the discussion around the topic.
A blogging coach can help you find out what’s wrong with your posts and why they aren’t creating traction, and provide guidance on how to boost engagement on your new and old posts.
6. Short posts (below 500 words)
How much do you research for your posts? Do you write posts that are long enough to accomodate both research and the development of your points?
If all your posts are below 500 words, something’s wrong — and it could be either your research or the way you tackle each problem or point in your post.
A blogging coach can help you find out what’s missing to write posts that really help readers find the answers they’re looking for.
7. You don’t know how to handle your guest posts (and promote them)
How do you organize the guest posts you wrote for other blogs? How do you promote them via your blog? And social media?
If you don’t follow a plan, your guest posts may not bring you big benefits (more traffic to your blog, conversions, etc.) and your guest posting efforts will remain pretty much isolated.
A blogging coach can help you setup a plan for each guest post you wrote and published to market it aggressively and get the most of your ROI — because the time you spent to research and write your guest post and any materials related to it are a big investement!
8. You don’t know how to match guests’ posts to your blog theme
Have you received guest posts from other bloggers of late? Did you accept them for publication on your blog after carefully considering your blog theme and how the pieces would be received by your readership? Do you have guidelines for guest writers?
If you don’t know how to match guests’ posts to your blog theme, your readers may feel confused and alienated by content they are not looking for, that’s not tailored for their needs and eventually leave.
A blogging coach can teach you how to edit and present posts by other bloggers in a way that meets your readership’s needs and engages them.
Does that mean you have to hire a blogging coach for every blogging problem?
The answer, of course, is no.
You will know when it’s time to hire a coach — if you want to hire one, that’s it — when you have been struggling with a given part of the blogging process and you see you have started to look around the Web for help.
That’s when some guidance will come to your rescue.
Have you ever felt the need to hire a blogging coach? Or did you sort out your blogging problems with the help of online guides or books?
