Don't like to blog? Just Do It

I learned a while back that the secret to being effective is to learn what you are both good at and enjoy doing, and then organize your career around doing more of those things. But, along the way, you run into activities that you find important to running your business or getting your job done that just don’t come natural to you.

It’s these things that take a little more commitment to get done if you want results. For example, as business owners, we all know that we need to do at least some accounting, customer service and selling – even if they aren’t our strengths.

For many professionals, you can add blogging to the list.

Like sales, you shouldn’t ignore blogging if you want to get maximum results out of your business. Yet, many of us start with the best of intentions and then taper off, and your blog becomes the dusty treadmill in the basement—creating guilt each time you think about it.

The guilt is because we know that blogging, just like using that treadmill, will get us the results we really want. Yet, we procrastinate and get nothing out of our investment.

So, I offer a parallel mindset to any of you who have made the leap to a committing to a habit that you previously dreaded. Approach blogging like running.

Colleen at Hubspot wrote an insightful post this morning on this very subject. She presents this very sharp and true fact that many of us refuse to embrace:

Blogging is probably the most efficient and most effective way to drive traffic to your website. An hour or two per week and you are creating a marketing annuity. Like running guarantees to burn calories, blogging absolutely guarantees more, free, search-based traffic.

For me, like so many others, the efforts that require small, sustained tasks over time are the hardest to accomplish. But, those can also be the most satisfying accomplishments. You can blog, and you can generate large amounts of targeted traffic over time even if it isn’t your favorite thing to do. If you absolutely hate it, find someone to help you or turn your ideas into content. But, start today and keep it up.

The free and continuous traffic you look at in your logs a year from now will be more satisfying that any procrastination or excuses you can come up with today.

Check out Colleen’s post for more inspiration: Why Blogging is Like Running.