*_Abhi_* / Flickr

I love blogging. Or, more specifically, I love my blog.

If you’re blogging and you don’t love it, it probably shows, so change what you’re doing, how you’re doing it or just stop. I guarantee that you have something interesting to say, but if you’re not enjoying what you’re saying, there’s not much of a point in saying it.

It’s OK to get stuck. It’s OK to reformulate. It’s OK to hang it up for a bit.

Brittney Bush / Flickr

Somehow, this is my first post since last Friday, though before that, I was on a tear and posted every day, if not multiple times per day.

I’m a streaky blogger — I post a ton, then I fall off the earth, then I post a ton… — which I realize must be frustrating, as I find baseball players who perform that way completely aggravating.

The thing is, I struggle sometimes to know how to keep fresh content on my site. I’ve heard all the “schedule posts in advance” and “keep a few posts in the can” advice, but I just haven’t found a rhythm yet.

So I’m appealing to you: What do you do to keep your blog fresh?

Lately I’ve stopped caring and just posted whenever there’s something I want to shed light on. It’s been fun and it’s felt good to write here every day.

Here’s how it’s paid off in pageviews:

It’s a bit of a dog and pony show over here, but I love it and I’m proud of the traffic I get. Thanks to all of you who come by and read, and to those who think enough to pass my posts on.

ruminatrix / Flickr

I was this close to publishing a post entirely different from this one. I had written it the other day; I flipped open my laptop about 10 minutes ago, read over the post and…it sucked. I mean, it seemed genius when I wrote it the other day, but it sucked.

Two lessons here:

1. Whenever possible, give your posts 24 hours to marinate and reread before you publish them.
2. Don’t be afraid to trash them altogether.

I’m a better writer and blogger for chucking that crap piece on the scrap heap. You will be, too.

Go to Google and start querying questions…if I worked in the motorcycle gear industry I might go to google and begin searching for “what is the best motorcycle” – DON’T HIT ENTER – then just watch the suggestions come back. BINGO, now you got topics.

via How to produce 2-3 quality blog posts in 1 hour a month | Seer Interactive SEO Blog.

In keeping with that, I found an interesting page on Ryan Sholin’s site, which sort of functions as a newsfeed/link roundup:

Newstangle | Invisible Inkling

Looks like — and I’m thinking in WordPress terms here — he created a category and then ran that category on its own page. It comes up specially flagged on his main page. UPDATE: Should’ve looked back a few posts — he’s importing his Delicious links.

What do you think of this method? Would it be worth it for me to implement something similar on this site? (For the record: I like it.)

Link via Kevin Sablan, who, along with Ryan, runs a kick-ass blog worth subscribing to.

Source: NASA Commons on Flickr

I’ve been mulling for a while how to add more valuable content to this site without spending too much time every day writing and blogging and for the next week, I’m going to experiment with treating this blog like it’s my Tumblog.

Here’s what that means:

• More posts, more often.
• Shorter posts.
• More links.

In addition, I hope to keep up my usual pace of blogging. So essentially, I’ll be shooting for a handful of short posts throughout each day and 3-4 longer-form, original posts throughout the week.

Wish me luck, and if the change in format becomes annoying or strikes you as an abysmal failure, please let me know.

Source: p0ps Harlow's Flickr page

Copyblogger’s 5 Content Steps to Take For the New Year made me think about the long-delayed moves I’ve been wanting to make to this blog that I hope to finally make in 2011. Maybe if I spell them out here, that’ll keep me motivated to follow through:

• Migrate over to WordPress.org. I’ve wanted to move this site to its own host and take advantage of all the customization available with hosting my own site for a long time. What’s stopped me? Time and level of difficulty. But I’m ready to just say to hell with it, throw down the money and learn, the hard way, how to customize my site. If it looks crappy for a while…oh well. I’m all about transparency and learning out in the open.
• Come up with a new name and brand for my blog. I’ll always keep paulbalcerak.com as an online business card, but I’ve wanted to move the blog over to its own identity, independent of me. For one thing, “Balcerak” isn’t an easy name to spell and for another, it’s too easy with a name like mine to own my search engine rank. I want to get out there and try to compete for SEO in a niche. (More on the name I came up with in a future post.)
• Blog more often. I say this one all the time, but I’ve been trying it more in recent weeks. I’ve realized that the blog I want — one that’s updated constantly with always-original content — isn’t feasible and I may need to stick to just occasional fully-original posts while piggybacking on others’ posts for daily updates (like this post).

What plans do you have for your blog in 2011? Better yet: How are you planning on sticking to those plans? Let me know in the comments.

A big thanks to the editing/curating team over at TNTJ. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to contribute to a group blog with such a talented roster of writers. It’s also very cool to have the occasional post showing up on an overseas (British) site.

Please do check out the post and leave feedback over there.

Source: victoriapeckham's Flickr page.

I’m embarking on a change in format for this blog today and it may ultimately come off as too ambitious. Basically, I have ideas about how a newsroom ought to run with regard to getting content posted online. Here’s the gist:

• Some nugget of information (link/photo/etc.) is found.
• That nugget, along with a little bit of copy and a “check back for an update later” message is posted to the site.
• The story gets updated and evolves throughout the day.
• It keeps getting updated for days/weeks/however-long-it-takes till it reaches its logical conclusion.
• (Optional step: On “deadline day,” however much of the story exists is copy/pasted into print.)

The reason for this switch is twofold: (1) to lead by example/put my money where my mouth is and (2) to hopefully end up producing more quality content, more often.

I say this could wind up too ambitious because if I post three “nuggets” one day and try to update all of them…well that’s just beyond what I’m probably capable of (time-wise). Besides that, my current design isn’t optimized for a situation where multiple stories would be highlighted (fortunately I’m working on a redesign anyway, so maybe that’ll be included).

Stay tuned….