Here’s a quick piece of blogging advice, which I think is extremely valuable for new and established bloggers alike.

I decided to share this with you, after one of the readers of my marketing blog emailed me earlier with the following question.  Here’s what she asked;
“apart from all the obvious stuff, what’s the best piece of advice you can give to fellow bloggers that want to improve their blog in 2010?”

Here’s my answer: Don’t wait for a post to be perfect before you publish it!

I think of a blog as being pretty-much organic.  Your blog is constantly changing, as new posts are added, new comments are added and (if required) whenever you update a blog post.  Now, back in the old days, we published things on paper and once they were sent, that was it. You lost control over what you had written. It was in someone else’s hands.  So, when we published information on paper, it had to be as close as possible to perfect, before we distributed it.

However, when publishing content via a blog, it’s super easy to update and amend your work “on the fly.”  In other words my friend, you have no need to wait for everything to be perfect before you publish a post.  If the worst comes to the worst, you can always amend an error later (if it really needs it.)  In my experience, you will seldom need to do this.

Here’s the thing though: The REAL magic of not waiting for everything to be perfect, is that it will encourage you to write more naturally, in your own unique voice AND it will allow you to write more often too.  This makes your blog more human and individual.

I blog almost every day on Jims Marketing Blog, but if I was waiting for every post to be perfect, that would be impossible for me to do.  Apart from anything else, if I can’t finish a blog post in 30 minutes, I would not have the time to post most days!  So many people only blog occasionally, because it can take them several hours (or more) to get a post perfect. As Hemingway famously said; the best way to remove writers block, is to write for the waste paper bin.  In other words, remove the barrier of perfectionism and let your imagination come alive!

So, why not give it a try?

Why not try a few posts, where you give yourself a time limit of 30 or 45 minutes and if the blog makes sense to you, publish it! Take a look at the feedback (your analytics as well as comments) and I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Here’s quick question for you

How long do you usually spend writing a blog post?  Please take a moment to share your feedback.

Photo credit: ChanChan222