When it comes to creating and maintaining a successful blog, bloggers would do well to take a few cues from Winston Churchill. When he stood before the boys of his old school, Harrow, it has often been reported the sole line of his speech was, “Never give up.” The truth is, he said a good deal more that day and “never give up” is only the essence of his actual words:
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never–in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense.
There is much to learn from this and other things Churchill had to say when it comes quality blog writing. Here are a few principles for creating blog content that accomplishes its objective straight from the golden lips of that old bulldog of war himself.
You Can Never Go Wrong With Quality Content
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
While there are numerous strategies for getting blog content seen, none of them are totally within your control. Google may change its algorithm yet again requiring adjustments in SEO strategy to maintain high search rankings. As a result, all you can do is react to those changes and play catch up for a while. Quality content, however, is totally within your control. You can write your own history by creating content that is worth linking to for a long time to come. Nothing increases the shelf life of a blog post like content that actually contains something.
Consistency is the Most Essential Element of a Successful Blog
Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential.
So why didn’t I place this one first? Because consistently poor content is like giving your blogging gun to the competition and inviting them to put you out of your misery. Churchill assumed his aids would do their best. What he expected next was they do their best consistently. Like good fiction writers, smart bloggers find their voice and stick to it. The important thing is to find a style and quality of writing that you can maintain and produce it with every single blog post. It is better to create one post a week that people will actually read and link to than five that are forgettable.
Good Bloggers Are Always Looking Back
The farther backward you can look the farther forward you are likely to see.
Churchill was a man of action but he also was a leader willing to learn from his mistakes. The only way to determine what works consistently is to do the work of analyzing the result of past efforts. Good bloggers use the tools at their disposal to analyze trends. They know which posts worked and which ones didn’t. Take the time to learn your audience. What days of the week and times of the day have been most productive? Are you making sure you very best efforts coincide with these?
Winning the Blogging Wars Requires Building Coalitions
There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies and that is fighting without them.
Had England ignored its potential allies early on the island would have certainly fallen to Hitler. Whatever the target audience of your blog is, they are not your sole possession. There is a reason it’s called “social” media. Take the time to leave a few comments on other people’s blogs. Build coalitions that end up building traffic for all parties.
Tim G. is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch
