If you must blog for business, how much time should you devote to it? Do you need to spend 20/24 hours blogging, or is 2/24 hours okay? Let’s find out.
“I know I have to dedicate a lot of time to it, that’s why I don’t even want to get started.”
Is that you’re thinking right now?
I’m not new to it, and it’s the same way most people think. It’s also the primary reason a lot of really creative people run away from blogging when trying to build solid service businesses online.
The truth is, if you want clients to come to you…
If you want a system where even when you sleep, clients are discovering you online and filling your contact form…
Then you can’t run away from blogging.
According to this study by Hubspot, companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who don’t.
But the question now is, if you must blog, how much time should you devote to it?
How much time is needed for it to actually start bringing forth its fruits, which in this case is clients?
Do you need to spend 20/24 hours on your blog, or is 2/24 hours okay?
Let’s find out.
That Beast Called Time
If time were human, he’d have lots of enemies, myself included. More than money, it is an asset with a high expense rate.
However, while time can be really naughty, it always depends on the person spending the time.
What do I mean?
Sometimes we feel we need to spend more time on something in order to make it work. Sometimes we feel some things or activities are a complete waste of time. At other times, time is never enough to accomplish all our tasks.
For blogging, just how much time should you spend on it?
The truth is, it’s all up to you! But here’s a way to find out.
What Are Your Goals?
As usual, everything seems to boil down to goal setting. The amount of time you spend on your blog depends on the goals you want to achieve in your service business.
Such goals could include:
I want ‘X’ clients in the next ‘Y’ months.
I want to have made $XXX in the next ‘Y’ months.
I want my business to have ‘X’ leads (subscribers) in the next ‘Y’ months.
‘X’ and ‘Y’ in the goals above then determine how much time you should spend on your blog.
The higher ‘X’ is, the more time you spend blogging and vice versa.
The smaller ‘Y’ is, the more time you spend on your blog and vice versa.
So according to Math, ‘X’ is directly proportional to blogging time and ‘Y’ is inversely proportional to blogging time.
I’m a genius! *pops collar* :).
To further explain the formula above and to reduce the headache you’re probably already having, let’s compare these two goals:
Goal 1: I want 20 clients in the next 2 months (X=20, Y=2)
Goal 2: I want 3 clients in the next 4 months (X=3, Y=4)
Which goal requires more time on blogging?
Goal 1.
How about these two goals:
Goal 1: I want to make $5,000 in the next 2 months (X=5,000, Y=2)
Goal 2: I want to have make $2,000 in the next 4 months (X=2,000, Y=4)
Which goal requires less time on blogging?
Goal 2 of course.
Hope you get it?
What Really Does Blogging Involve?
Now, when you want to spend time blogging, this is what you’ll be actually doing:
- Studying other influential people in your field who have the kind of audience you want.
- Brainstorming content ideas for your own blog. Ideas that actually differentiate you from those influential people you studied.
- Creating the content on your blog. This could be articles, videos, audio (podcasts), infographics or a combination of two or more.
- Sharing that content on social media.
- Creating content on the blogs of those influential people so you can also grow your own audience, leads, clients and revenue.
Does that sound like too much work!
I won’t lie to you by saying it isn’t.
But one thing I can say is it depends on your perspective. Do you see the time you spend blogging as an expense or as an investment into your business?
Do you see it as you wasting time, or you investing into the long term revenue of your business?
Your perspective would give you the drive you need, not just what you read in this blog post.
Blogging for business is like learning to walk, one step at a time. Tweet this.
What Are The Benefits Of Blogging?
I’ll state three benefits here.
A few weeks ago, I got a client request from my personal development blog.
The funny thing is that I haven’t updated that blog for over a year now. Yet, when I opened my email, my jaw dropped at the request.
1. Blogging is like a legacy, it lives on after you’re “long gone”. Long gone in this context means not published content in over a year.
Content published online stays online. And as long as people continue consuming information, your content is part of it.
Potential clients will continue to discover your content, depending on how much you created and where you published your content.
2. Blogging brings clients to you, and prevents you from pitching. When clients come to you, you have the audacity to call your rates. When you pitch them, especially on freelancer sites, you have to come down to the rates they state.
All you need to do is to follow a blogging strategy that works.
3. Blogging builds your portfolio. When potential clients ask for work done, or just want to see what you’re about, you could simply refer them to your blog. That’s what I do most times.
For example, if you’re in the writing industry (editing, freelance writing, etc.), or you’re in another industry and just like writing, populating your blog with text content would help boost your portfolio.
For designers, using infographics as the primary kind of content works. That’s because such content already shows your expertise not only as a designer, but a content creator (that is if you sell infographic services).
How about coaches and consultants? Video and audio work best. However, due to the time it takes to create both, they’re often mixed in with normal text articles. For these people, clients like to hear their voices or see their faces. It just adds to the trust.
What To Do Next
If you feel you should be blogging for your service business, getting started is super easy. You can do either of two things.
- Enter your name an email address below. You’ll get my blueprint where I show you exactly what you need to do to make blogging work for you. It outlines 20 steps in detail from start to finish on how you can start getting your first few leads online.
- If you still don’t have the time to blog, but can see the importance that blogging adds to your long-term revenue, I could work with you on that. Visit my services page and contact me via the form at the end. This will completely take all the work off your hands so you can actually focus on other things. That way, I can use blogging to help your service business get more clients and make more money.
The amount of time you invest in blogging depends on your values of X and Y as in the formula I gave above. A higher value of X means you’ll spend more time blogging and a higher value of Y means you’ll spend less time blogging.
The question is, “Are you ready?” Let me know in the comments below.
Please send me your blueprint of how blogging can work for me.
Hi Helen,
You can get it by simply entering your name and email address in the form below the post. I see you’ve done that already :).