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What Blog Tasks are You Embarrassed to Admit You’ve Overlooked?

Over the last few days we’ve been talking about taking your blog to the often-elusive “next level.”

We’ve seen tips for developing your voice and message, creating stronger calls to action, and increasing traffic.

If you’re already working on those aspects of your blog, and are happy with your approach, you’ll probably be hungry for other ideas, looking to the future, and trying to predict what will be most successful tactics for you.

I know I do this myself—I’ll get an idea like the QLD blogging challenge and throw myself into making it happen.

That’s great—one of the best things about blogging is that it lets us pursue our passions!—but I have noticed a tendency to let things drop off my To Do list as these new ideas pop up. An example was pointed out by Ed Boyhan on my Google + post. He wrote:

“Seems kinda odd: here you are providing some useful info on how some use G+, but nowhere on this page is there a “+1″ button to let me share with a circle I have for future reference. Makes me doubt your involvement in the G+ community.”

This is a valuable comment for two reasons. First, it’s a reminder of something I need to do, which dropped off my list. Whoops! Second, it explains what the implications of that oversight are—how that looks to my readers, which gives me motivation not just to get that task back on the To Do list, but also to actually act upon it and make that change to my blog.

But I know I’m not the only one who hesitates or overlooks small blogging tasks that, logically, I have no excuse not to have done!

Take a look at the comments on Kelly Crawford’s recent post, If Your Email Newsletter Isn’t Generating Cash You’re Doing Something Wrong.

Many of the people who responded to that post admitted that they hadn’t tried out some of the most common, and proven, newsletter marketing techniques for one reason or another, even though they knew they should, and wanted to.

All this makes me wonder if we wouldn’t see some big advances on our blogs if we just got through some of those little, should-have-done-it-ages-ago tasks that we keep pushing aside (even if we have good reason for doing so).

What if each of us put a day aside in the next week to knock as many of those little tasks off our To Do lists for good? What difference would that make to our blogs over the longer term? If nothing else, it would probably give each of us a much more solid platform from which to try to climb to the “next level.”

At the very least, let’s start by admitting some of the things that have slipped off our To Do lists. Don’t be embarrassed—I bet the things you’ve neglected aren’t as basic as my G+ sharing oversight!

What do you know you’re not doing, that you should be doing? Admit it in the comments. (You might even help remind the rest of us of other things we’ve forgotten we should be doing…) Even getting a small task off your list could be a big step in the right direction for your blog.

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. I am ashamed to admit that I don’t spend as much time researching for my posts as I should. I’d spend a little time just enough to think I had it but I really hadn’t. Woe is me. =(

  2. Something as simple as checking the titles of pages. Until recently, I had my site name showing up twice due to some weird combination of theme and WordPress SEO plugin but was most likely my fault. It is the details that we often overlook. Thanks for the list

    • My problem is similar. I turned off the auto fill seo title, and about 50 of my pages have no title displayed. I just need to go back in to each post and manually fix it. Simple to do, just time consuming.

  3. I need to update my “sneeze page”, the one that lists all the weekly round-ups on the blog.

    I also need to start using DeviantART’s journal function to keep my watchers over there informed about what’s going on.

  4. OK, mine is even more basic than yours. But linking to other posts in my blog. I am so buy writing content that I don’t even think to link to other posts I may have written. I’m going in right now and make sure I have linked to other posts.

  5. I agree with your particular points. We need to take a hard look at the things that we are doing as bloggers and seek to rectify them. Sometimes we fail to realize that we miss certain things and other times we really have to take that hard look at why we are not getting the results that we want.

  6. Hi Darren,

    Bingo! We all do this. Nobody’s immune from it because nobody runs the perfect blog ;) So dig deep, admit, and improve.

    #1 – Making social share buttons more prominent. I was so obsessed about getting people on my list that I buried social share buttons, ignoring the fact that as more people shared my stuff it would receive a niche search engine boost. I fixed that yesterday.

    #2 – No picture. Seriously, a social media dude did not include a smiling, toothy, grinny picture on his blog. Again, obsession with directing readers to my call to action, to hop on my list. Edit made 3 days ago.

    #3 – Engaging in my massive commenting campaign. I commented like a fiend a while back: 4 or 5 paragraph pieces, value-packed, all that good stuff. I *specifically* received feedback from folks who told me they liked my comments, and found me through blogs like yours Darren. But I was impatient. I stopped. I received a strong pull the past week to start my commenting campaign again, to add value to posts, build relationships with top bloggers and generate traffic to my blog. So far, so good.

    #4 – Gaining greater clarity on my blog. I added a Plus 1 button, and made sharing buttons more prominent, but I feel that as I establish greater clarity in what I do, I will attract more readers.

    #5 – Networking like a fiend. I pulled back on promoting my gifting blog because I was on Page 1 or 2 of google for a “cash gifting” search, by writing new posts and leaving comments on your site. Penguin smacked me down, which was an AWESOME things, because it inspired me to branch out, link up on multiple relevant sites, and spread the word. Good stuff all around.

    Thanks for sharing a thought-provoking post Darren! Appreciated!

    Ryan

  7. Oh No! Left off the G+? Okay, I’ll top that, I’ve simply (or ‘it’s complicatedly) left off traffic. I have neglected my blog(s) for so long. Started in 2009 and ashamed I let it all fall to the wayside, oh what padding in my account I could have been loving by now . . . . oh well. Mamma’s back on track.

  8. My list is a little different. I need to get a gravatar set up. Put more pictures on my blog. Set up some affiliate banners to monetize my site. And get a signup set up for my newsletter. All of these things are on my to-do list, I’ve just been so busy with work and life that all I’ve had time to do are the essentials. Thanks for the post to remind me what I have yet to do (and I think I might have a few hours to spare tomorrow to take care of it).

  9. Hey!

    This blog post really did get me thinking.

    I feel that two things really slip by me that I know I should be doing more of.

    1) Converting more e-mail list subscriptions: I don’t spend enough time building a much larger e-mail list on a daily basis. This could contribute to many more returning readers by updating them via e-mail. This is probably a very important concept because most people carry their smart phones on them all the time…what are those linked to? Our e-mail accounts! I should stop overlooking this.

    2) Expansion of blog topics: I tend to get in a subject rut where I will continue to blog about the same topics in different ways over and over again. Since considering this, I have posted a blog on my site asking readers for their input on what they would like to read more about. This has a chance of helping me expand my blog’s topics.

    Hope this helps and I look forward to reading more comments from others!

    Enjoy Right Now,
    Jeff Jones

  10. I have a hard time getting to the pictures. I have a text heavy food blog, that can’t be good! It is something I am working to fix, but it is amazing how hard it is to find time to take a single picture!

    • I agree, Claire. I am always forgetting to add pictures. It is so simple in thought, maybe that is why it is so easy for me to forget! I plan to keep this in mind even more. The little things can be the easiest to forget.

  11. Not optimizing my pages. That’s something I need to do and haven’t looked at them for a long time. Too focused on optimizing my blog posts. Thanks for the nudge.

  12. I think for the longest time (up until a few days ago), securing my blog was one thing I didn’t really thing was necessary. However, as of lately, I’ve realized that it is necessary and I’ve taken several steps to do so.

  13. you did a nice work!! i got 100s of business and professional formats. you should have a look.

  14. Guest posting is a big one for me. I have so little free time and spend so much energy on creating content for my site that it keeps getting put on the back burner.

    Also, unique content for my newsletter subscribers. I offer two free eBooks but otherwise it’s mostly just sending updates from the blog, which is not my ideal situation.

    Hopefully these will get addressed soon :)

  15. Thanks for your reminder of getting back to fine tuning our blogs. It’s amazing how just a liitle concentrated focus even once a week van really improve my blog at myvancoyver4u.com.

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