With a few days to go till the end of 2012, an email about the first blog challenge of the year dropped into my mail box. Blink and all of a sudden, it’s 1st January 2013 already. How did it get here so fast?
I dutifully signed up…
Blogging shouldn’t make you feel like this…
Now I’m sat here thinking once again – I don’t have time for 1 post a day for 31 days. I‘ve not planned enough posts, my diary is full for the next few of weeks…
Excuses, excuses, excuses!
Get a grip woman!
Breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth…
Now I really understand the wild-eyed fear when I mention blogs to my local business clients! Those thoughts were racing through my head and my heart rate increased a hundred fold.
All totally unnecessary reactions of course!
What is the Ultimate Blog Challenge?
(and why you should give it a try)
For those of you who haven’t taken part before, this is not some form of modern torture. I promise!
Every quarter, bloggers of all shapes, sizes and interests come together and rise to the challenge of creating a blog post daily for a month. Don’t worry, there’s no hard and fast rules. No one is standing over you with a stick to make sure you’re posting.
The idea is to get you into the habit of regularly updating your blog.
Regularly updating your blog helps to form that initial relationship with potential customers, show off your expertise and personality, increase the likelihood of getting found in search, increase email sign ups, and more.
By tweeting and posting to Facebook you’ll expand your reach and drive traffic to your blog. Commenting on other peoples blogs helps you form relationships, increase your reach, and drive traffic back to your blog too.
And, if you can’t commit to 31 posts in 31 days, that’s fine. There are no failures – blogging regularly, whether it’s once a day or once a week brings it’s own rewards.
It’s quite simple to join in. Pop over to the UBC website and sign up. You’ll receive an email with details of how to join the Facebook group, how to add your details to the UBC website and some useful links and downloads all about blogging. You’ll also receive a daily email containing blogging ideas.
If you need more ideas about what to write, check out these previous posts:
A Month of Blog Ideas For Your Business Blog
Blog Brainstorming With Free Keyword Suggestion Tools
I already have a post planned out to give you more ideas, so do keep an eye open for that!
Local Business Blogging?
If you are a local business, I really do encourage you to dive in and give blogging a go. Over the holidays, I was doing some research for a couple of local businesses and I am seeing more and more “local business blog posts” ranking. I use the term lightly, because they’re written for search and not readers.
I know you can do better and make those posts work for you. Local ranking isn’t difficult, I’ll show you exactly how to do it later in the week. Ranking is pointless though if people don’t stick around to read!
Over to you…
Are you taking part in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this time around? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
It’s that time again – The Ultimate Blog Challenge by Jan Kearney
It’s great that you’re encouraging other businesses to take part in the blogging challenge. All the best for your blogging over the coming month.
Hi Tracey. I’m always encouraging (nagging!), I’m hoping a couple of my local business ladies will dive in this time too. Thanks for popping in and commenting, I appreciate it. Good luck with the challenge and Happy New Year!
Good luck Jan, I hope I can keep up as like you I am pretty hard pushed for time this month! 🙂
Hi Jo – I feel you! Good luck with the challenge and Happy New Year!
Hi Jan,
I’m loving the fact that yu took the bull by the horns on New Years’ Day! We are so sad… LOL! The problem I have is I think too much when I’m writing blog posts and it can take an hour to write 500 words sometimes and get some correlated images in there to liven it up.
Doing that every day for 31 days does seem daunting but I hear what you’re saying, we do all need to post more as it’s so easy to forget and then nothing gets posted for weeks, months sometimes and that’s bad for momentum and continuity in your readers eyes.
Thanks for the post, appreciate it.
Chris
Hi Chris, thanks for popping in on New Years Day! I know how it is with blog posts.
I find myself doing that too – pondering, picture hunting, writing and re-writing. Before you know it half the day has passed! My solution is to set a timer, turn of everything and just write. It helps if there’s a plan of posts so you can picture hunt for them all at the same time too 🙂
Happy New Year!
Can’t believe I have signed up again, too. Good luck.
Nicky
Hi Nicky – you somehow managed to land in my spam! Dug you out and wiped you down 🙂 Good luck with the challenge!
Hi Jan. So glad to see you’re participating in the Ultimate Blog Challenge this time around! Me too :-). I’m looking forward to reading and supporting your blog posts. For what it’s worth, I spend a lot of time on my blog posts too. I think you have to if your goal is to deliver tight, interesting, useful and shared content. Frankly, I’d be more bothered by prospects reading material that is not well crafted (this never goes away in the age of the internet) than I am by investing time in business promotion. It pays off with new contacts and client work – just takes some time. Thanks for all you do!
Not sure I write “tight” posts, Nanette! I ramble far too much for that 🙂 It’s brilliant to see you blogging in the challenge. I can’t wait to read the your posts, they’re always so useful and give me a different perspective.
Hi Jan,
Guess who made a stink that it was time for UBC again, but she drug her buttsky over to the sign up form and duly squeezed out a registration form. LOL
Here we go again! 🙂
Great stuff, Bonnie! Brilliant to see you taking part 🙂
I’m baaack! I’m happy we’re going to be blogging together again Jan. Happy New Year.
Happy New Year, Julia! Thanks for popping in – great to be blogging with you too 🙂
Until reading your blog I had not heard of the ultimate blog challenge. I know updating your blog frequently is important but I don’t know if I am up for the challenge of doing it daily! I will need to think about this for a few days. Good luck on the challenge if you decide to go ahead with it.
Hi David, thanks for popping in and your comment. The great thing with the challenge is you can make it your own. Commit to 2 or 3 posts a week if 1 per day is too much, and go for it 🙂
Good point! I think I could probably do 2 to 3 posts a week. For some reason, I work better when I know other people are counting on me to produce! Thanks for the encouragement.
I’ll pop over and crack my whip later, David!