What I Do Every Week To Maintain & Grow My Blog

It is so easy to get caught up just maintaining your blog.

You know that you need to respond to comments, create new content, and of course, schedule your social media posts to make sure you’re active.

But if you’re too focused on just maintaining your blog, you may find yourself wondering why it isn’t growing.

And the easy answer is that you aren’t reserving time to focus on the growth and big picture of your blog.

I struggled with this big time when I just started my blog.

After a couple of months of creating blog post week after week, I thought that I would get website traffic. And I thought that I would start making money.

But it’s no surprise that I didn’t.

Since my blog was my side-hustle at the time, I spent what time I had creating content and on Instagram trying to get more followers.

But since I wasn’t focused on tasks that would truly grow my blog, I didn’t see any real growth.

And I quickly became frustrated.

Until I realized that if you ACTUALLY want to grow, you have to spend the time working on things that would allow that growth to happen.

So today, I want to break down what I do every week to not only maintain my blog (and my business) but also push it in the direction that I want it to grow.

Let’s get started.

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WHAT I DO EVERY WEEK TO MAINTAIN MY BLOG

Before I dive into all the tasks that I have to complete every week, I need to tell you that this is my full-time job.

I am a full-time Blogger/YouTuber/Freelancer.

So I make my money by completing work for clients, jumping on consultation or coaching calls, and then, of course, ads, affiliate marketing, my paid products, etc.

RELATED: Beginner’s Guide To Making Money Online

Some of these tasks may not apply to you! And that’s okay.

I just want to share what I do every week to maintain.

So let’s break it down into sections.

First up, we have content creation.

Content Creation

I truly do consider myself a content creator.

That’s the majority of my work. With a blog, a YouTube channel, and Instagram, there is a lot of content that needs to be created.

So I spend 80% of my time in this category.

And my weekly tasks include:

• Shooting YouTube videos (typically I film 2 or 3 a week)
• Editing YouTube videos
• Launching 2 or 3 YouTube videos (I upload every 3 days)
• Writing a blog post
• Launching that blog post
• Shooting Instagram photos (3 photos a week)
• Editing & launching my Instagram photos
• Talking on Instagram stories every day
• Shooting an IGTV (something new I just added to my content strategy)
• Editing & launching that IGTV

Now if you only have a blog, then you may only need to worry about writing a blog post, talking on Instagram stories, and sharing a few Instagram posts a week.

You may not have IGTV or YouTube in your strategy. And that’s fine!

But that’s what I have to do every week when it comes to my content.

Automation

For automation, I used to do a lot.

I would automate all of my tweets on Twitter. Something I don’t even use these days.

I would automate my emails to be sent out every Friday.

And then, of course, we can’t forget Pinterest.

That’s the one type of automation that I still do within my brand.

I will schedule my pins through Tailwind. But this isn’t even something that I do every week!

RELATED: A Beginner’s Guide To Tailwind & Tailwind Tribes

I like to schedule my pins every other week.

So in 1 sitting, I will schedule 2 weeks worth of content.

It’s what works best for me and I notice that I save a lot of time doing it this way.

General Office Work

Now office work.

This includes responding to emails, DMs, and comments, checking how my stats are doing, and going into QuickBooks to approve expenses and income.

So let’s break it down:

• Respond to emails
• Respond to YouTube comments
• Respond to blog comments
• Respond to Instagram comments & DMs
• Update my content calendar
• Fix any broken links that are found on my website
• Check Google Analytics
• Check ShareASale, AdSense, & my courses platform to see how much I’ve made
• Check YouTube Analytics
• Approve expenses & income in QuickBooks

I feel like there are other tasks that I’m missing here.

And I know tomorrow I’m going to do something and realize that it’s something I do every week in terms of office work.

But you get the picture.

Office work tends to fall into the cracks.

At the start of every day, I will check my email. And at the end of every day, I will respond to all the emails that came in that day.

For YouTube and blog comments, I try to respond every day. But honestly, it’s more like every other day.

And for Instagram DMs, it’s just when they come it!

Then when it comes to analytics and my income, I try to only check that 2 times a week because it’s not healthy for me to start every morning by checking my stats.

And lastly, I reserve my QuickBooks work for Friday.

Client Work

Again, this might not be something that relates to you.

But for full transparency, I want to share what I have to do every week when it comes to client work.

So truly, each week is different.

I only have 2 clients that are signed up for a contract that’s longer than a month.

And for those clients, it’s mainly Pinterest work.

So I design pins, upload them to Pinterest, and then do their Tailwind automation for them.

The rest of the work that I get comes up whenever and I just have to do what I have to do to meet that client’s needs.

RELATED: How To Become A Freelancer On Upwork

That could mean creating contracts, sending invoices, hoping on coaching or consultation calls, performing evaluations, you name it!

But I wouldn’t consider this something that I put on my to-do list every week because I don’t!

I just go with the flow and do what needs to be done with it comes up.

And in terms of maintaining my blog and business, that’s it!

Sure there are things that I do every month or maybe even every quarter to maintain my blog.

But I just wanted to focus now what I do every week.

So now let’s talk about the growth of my blog.

WHAT I DO EVERY WEEK TO GROW MY BLOG

In a second I’m going to help you figure out what you need to be doing every week to help your blog grow.

But in this section, I’m gonna share what I do every week.

And if I’m being honest, there isn’t 1 thing that I do every week.

Each week is different!

So if I’m working on launching a new product, for a couple of weeks I’ll be focused on creating that.

If I don’t have a new product that’s rolling out, I’ll spend my time evaluating my current strategy, finding room for growth, reaching out for guest post or interview opportunities, or even trying to land new clients.

But I would say that the most common thing that I do to grow my blog is checking my stats and finding room for growth.

So I’ll look at my Pinterest and figure out what pins are performing best and then I’ll create more of those pins.

Or on YouTube, I’ll see what videos are getting a lot of traction right now, and I’ll do more promotion for them. Or I’ll create similar videos to ride the algorithm.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO EVERY WEEK TO GROW YOUR BLOG

I really wish that I could say that there were just 5 simple things that you need to do every week to grow and maintain your blog.

But that’s just not the case.

Every blog is different.

And it truly does depend on your strategy what you need to complete every week.

But I created a free weekly checklist with all the things that I believe you should be spending your time on.

You can customize it, print it out, and use it every week to make sure you aren’t skipping over things that you typically ignore.

When it comes to maintaining your blog, it’s pretty easy to determine what needs to be done. Writing blog posts, promoting them on Pinterest, responding to emails, etc.

But let’s figure out what you specifically need to get done to grow your blog.

Where Do You See Your Blog In 2 Years

The first question you need to ask yourself is where do you see your blog in 2 years.

Not 10 years. And not even 5 years because so much can change in that time.

But in the next 2 years, where do you see your blog going?

Do you want to be working with brands and creating sponsored content?

Do you want to have a paid product available for sale on Amazon?

Or do you want to be hosting monthly workshops or events with your audience?

What is a big goal that you want to achieve with your blog?

This is going to be your starting point.

Because here’s the deal.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the things that provide immediate results.

When you launch a blog post or send out an email, there is an immediate reaction.

And yes, if you want to be a successful blogger, launching a new blog post every week is so important to your growth.

But if you’re only spending your time focused on tasks that are going to provide immediate results, you won’t reach the big goals that you’ve set for yourself.

So each week, you need to reserve at least 2 hours to work on something for the future of your blog.

I try to save at least 6 hours to work on big-picture projects. But if your blog is your side hustle, you may not have that much time!

Your to-do list

This is where your vision meets your action plan.

When you know where you want your blog to go, you can break it down into baby’s steps that will get you there.

So let’s say you want to have several different paid products for your audience to purchase.

But you want to start with an ebook.

That’s going to be your first step in moving your blog in the direction that you want to go in terms of paid products.

So break it down into all the tasks you need to complete to create and launch that ebook.

You need to come up with an idea, validate the idea, create an outline, start writing it, and that’s just the beginning.

RELATED: How To Create & Sell An Ebook As A Blogger

Once you have all the tasks that you think you need to complete (some will definitely pop-up in the process), you need to create a game plan for yourself.

What do you need to complete each week to launch that ebook in the next 3 months, 6 months, or year?

Even with only 2 hours a week, you would be amazed by how much you can accomplish.

And if you didn’t reserve that time to work on big-picture projects, it would take to so much longer to get where you want to go.

AND THAT’S IT!

I hope that you found this blog post helpful. Even if you just wanted to learn what my work week looks like and how I spend my time.

Or if you’re just trying to figure out what you need to do to really grow your blog.

I’ll see you back here soon with another blog post.

XO, Cathrin

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cathrin (Cath) creates content that encourages bloggers & online entrepreneurs to be themselves, chase their passion, and create their success online. 1 year after started her blog (TheContentBug.com), Cath left her full-time position working in the digital marketing industry to pursue her dreams of being her own boss. In weekly blog posts, sporadic YouTube videos, and constant talking on Instagram stories, Cath hopes to spread her story and be an inspiration to others who desperately want to change their lives.