“Journaling is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time.”

Mina Murray

Blogging is like shouting your thoughts to the universe. Connect them and you have a high traffic blog with valuable insights.

Mental health experts, Baikie & Wilhelm, 2005 tell you that journaling can improve life. In the same way, a blogging journal can also take your blog from lifeless and disorganized and add sparkle, interest and so much clarity that your uppity friend will want to read every post. 

From Journal to Amazing Blog

“I’ve always written. There’s a journal which I kept from about 9 years old.”

Maya Angelou

Top Tip #1 Date and Time Stamp

You can buy or make journals both paper and online. Before you write a word, date any journal entries {especially with paper journals} Don’t wonder later! Dating an online journal, though less disastrous if you miss, maintains an organization useful for scheduling and searching.

Top Tip #2 Set Goals

“Writing in a journal reminds you of your goals and of your learning in life. It offers a place where you can hold a deliberate, thoughtful conversation with yourself.”

Robin Sharma

List your blogging goals for:

• Learning about blogging – classes, webinars, conferences, coaches
• Researching posts
• Writing headlines
• Writing posts
• Editing posts
• Reading blogs – readers, email, social media
• Expanding your reach – newsletters, social media

Goals can be as large as a mission statement and as small as a daily to-do list.

Top Tip #3 Document News and Weather

Why include information about news or weather? When you reread your journal, it gives you a perspective you might use when writing a new post, or a comment. You might even include how it made you feel.

Writing improves memory. Ask yourself, what was in the news six months ago? Did anything get resolved?

New post idea – follow up on last year’s news.

Top Tip #4 Review & Revisit

“Journal writing, when it becomes a ritual for transformation, is not only life-changing but life-expanding.”

Jen Williamson

• Each month, maybe mid-month, read back over your journal from the month before. 
• Highlight or star the blogs of your favorite influencers for each day based on what or how much and what you wrote about the blog. 
• At the bottom or top of the online journal, use these starred entries to create a list of URLs to your favorite sites to create an easy roundabout blog post. The roundabout blog post features influencers and what they have to say about a certain topic. Your saved URLs in an online journal make it so much easier to create this type of blog. 

Tracking your favorite blog posts provide you with data to find your writing niche. [Acccording to Sophie Lizard of Be a Freelance Blogger, successful bloggers have their own niche or niches] 

Tip #5 Blog with an Open Journal

“I started writing a journal, and I was learning so much along the way.”

Jay Leno

You always learn something as you read blogs, so keep the current month’s journal open at the same time to record your thoughts and insights. Keep it open as you write. In an online journal you can cut and paste and note the URL of the quote.

Top Tip #6 Curry your lists

I seldom used reader. However just visiting people who comment back to you limits who you visit after a while. Create a separate Google doc for favorite URLs. At the top of your online journal, paste a link to this doc of your favorite blog’s URLs into your journal. You can cut back your list to weed out those who are not responsive, don’t blog consistently, or any other reason you have to eliminate them from your current open blogging journal.

Top Tip #7 Track your own posts

You might use the journal to also keep track of your own posts. It is sometimes quicker than searching through your blog for your posts. Write as much information as you want but include the link to the post. 

I did this more when I first started. WordPress keeps pretty good track of your posts if you organize your tags and categories and reuse the same ones. You do get excess posts when you search on WordPress because it tracks search words used within posts as well as titles.

Top Tip #8 Develop Your Niche Sheet

Bing defines niche as a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service.

Use your search feature to create a Niche Sheet to categorize your blog posts. Unless you want an excessively long journal, cut and paste your blog links on a separate Google Doc, and link it to the top or bottom of your current online journal.

Blogging journals help immensely if you have more than one blog or blog on public platforms like Medium or Linked In.

Tip #9 Link a Notes or Research Page

If you have spent about two hours visiting writing communities on Facebook. Let’s say you created a list of great writing groups you joined or want to join on a separate Google Doc. Link research doc to your online journal!

You could also link the handouts and your notes into your journal so that you can find them easily. Important research links may follow you in month-to-month journal entries. 

Summary

If you blog consistently, you will develop your own system for managing all the work that you put into blogging. These are tips I’ve learned from years of journaling and blogging experience,  picked up from classes, face to face meetings with powerful influencers, reading books, and reading thousands of blog posts. 

I hope this post will encourage you and give you useful journaling tools that will make your blog posts 100% interesting

Related Post

13 Reasons You Should Start Online Journaling Even If You Hate to Write

Always Write Gifts

There are many kinds of journal formats. You can spend hours creating your own. Or you can use mine for free.  Click to receive a free PDF template or Google Doc for an online journal or print it out to create a paper diary. 

Debating which to use – paper or digital journal? Join the debate.