To build a successful blog these are the things you should do every day.  They are listed in order of most important to least important.  Do them in this order, and spend the most time on the most important things.

Do something you have to do

A blog is not a successful blog without any blog posts in it.  Every day write new content for your blog. It doesn’t need to be every single day of the week, it just needs to be every day that you work on your blog, whether that is twice a week, four times a week, or seven days a week.

New content could be a blog post, a static page, an ebook, anything really.  You don’t even need to finish content every day, you just need to write it.  Write 5 quick drafts and then finish one of the drafts from the day before and publish it.  Write another page or chapter of your ebook.  Write content every day.

Do something you should do

A blog is not a successful blog if nobody knows about it.  Some blogs will explode in popularity without the blogger doing any promotion at all, but they are the exception not the rule.  Every day spend some time networking and promoting your blog, your brand, or your self.

Read 10 other blog posts in your niche and comment on each one.  You don’t need to target the A-list blogs to comment on, you can also make a blogger’s day by commenting on a lesser known blogger’s posts.

Create social media profiles on Digg and StumbleUpon and spend 15 minutes reading and voting on entries.  You’ll find new bloggers to connect with, and when people see you voting up their content they might return the favour when your next blog posts shows up on Digg.

Do something you want to do

I love stats.  I use Google Analytics, I install Statpress on my blogs, and I even use Tweetburner to see if my Twitter links are getting clicks or not.  Stats are great fun and it can be very encouraging to see your efforts leading to an increase in traffic to your blog.

Some people take this too far and stare at their stats all day as though they’ll magically improve on their own, forgetting that it takes great content and the right networking and promotion to make those stats move.

As much fun as stats and analytics can be try restricting your time to just a few minutes at the end of the day.  If you want to do a full analysis of your stats to see how your latest linkbait went on Digg set aside some time after the more important tasks are done.

What did you do today that you had to do, should have done, and wanted to do?

Tagged as: Blogging, Productivity, Social Media