Blogging tips for busy parents

Thinking about becoming a parenting blogger, but not sure where to start? Maybe you’ve been blogging for a little while and you’re looking to grow your blog, or maybe you’re completely new to the blogosphere and want to get a solid introduction to how this blogging thing works and how you can start your own blog. Whatever your experience, if you want to create a successful parenting blog, you’ve come to the right place.

If you’re a blogging beginner, you may want to read up on some basic tips for bloggers, which will help you to set up your site and write your first post. Once you’ve done that, you can start to think about what will make your blog special and how you’re going to schedule in regular writing time.

Make It Unique

As you have no doubt noticed, there are plenty of parenting blogs already out there online. So what is it about your blog that is different and will draw in readers? What unique perspective do you have to offer that no one else does? The answer to this might come to you straight away, or you might need to do a bit of research to figure it out. You could start by looking at the top parenting blogs and thinking about why they’re so successful.

Some examples of specialist perspectives are parenting on a budget, single parenting, home education and parenting children with special needs. You could also choose to focus on a specific area, such as food, fashion, travel or education. You can use some free svg images to really develop your design and make the graphics on your site really stand out. One of my favourites is the butterfly clip art – these are perfect for any posts relating to children.

Develop Your Style

Depending on the career path you took after finishing school, you might not have much experience in writing relatively long articles – or even relatively short ones! This is absolutely fine and doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t start a blog, it just might be that you need to brush up on your writing techniques. A few basic tips are to develop a strong voice that matches the style and tone of your blog, to practice using a range of techniques and to always proofread your writing once you’ve finished.

Really Use Social Media

Social media and blogging are perfect partners, and there is no doubt that, without social media platforms, blogging wouldn’t be half as popular as it is today. Even if you don’t have a personal account on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, using all of these three platforms is absolutely essential to developing a successful blog. It’s easy to set up an account for your blog, and you can use programs like Hootsuite to cross-post on all platforms simultaneously.

If your blog is picking up traffic and you’re ready to invest in some social media marketing tools, there are a range of options you can go for. You can use Instagram marketing, which will help you to grow your followers and get more likes, or you can boost your Facebook posts by using Facebook Ads. This might seem like a big leap for a personal blog, but it is actually designed for blogs and can be affordable even for non-profit bloggers.

Quality, Not Quantity

One of the most challenging things about being a parenting blogger is finding the time to write. Of course, your family is your priority, and you don’t want to take too much time away from them. Despite this common worry, there is actually no need to lock yourself away for hours at a time, because there’s no need to write blogs that are thousands of words long! Short, punchy blogs that give a fascinating snapshot of your family life are just as popular as long posts, and they don’t force readers to commit huge chunks of their time either.

When it comes to thinking about how often you’ll writing a blog, there really is no right or wrong answer. If possible, schedule in a bit of time every week where you can write, be it during nap time, swimming class or after the kids have gone to bed. By having a regular time each week to write, you can make sure that you continue your blog, even when life gets stressful. If you’d like to post more often, you might consider writing several posts at once and scheduling them for different days.

Enjoy It

The most important piece of advice to take when it comes to blogging is to enjoy it. Writing your blog is something you do for yourself, it’s time you take away from the rest of the world to express your thoughts and talk about your experiences, so don’t think of it as a chore. It’s a chance to tell your story to the world, so make the most of it and take it in any direction you like. Who knows, you might be on a list of top parenting bloggers by this time next year!

*This is a collaborative post*