For the longest time, I’ve wanted to fix CrossingColorado.com and get it to where it used to be in terms of traffic. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to put a lot of work in on the site this year. But, that’s mostly because of the way I create content.
And in many cases, my current schedule has put a lot of things on the backburner almost indefinitely. However, I’ve decided to make a few changes throughout my week that will help me prioritize.
What’s Wrong with How I Create Content Today?
In reality, I have four major blog categories. Freelance writing, fitness, gaming, and sustainability. And in the grand scheme of things, fitness is the most prominent in Google trends.
What does this mean?
It means that I should change my focus and how I create content to make a more profitable impact. Especially if I want to turn any of them into a business and afford to hire help.
How I have my schedule set up right now, WriterSanctuary gets the vast majority of my attention. Its blog posts are always primary, the videos take precedent over others, and most of my day is spent with its social media accounts.
Unfortunately, this means the blogs I want to build are getting very little in terms of effort.
For example, I’ve been wanting to get two or three blog posts out for CrossingColorado.com for about three weeks now. But, everything else of WriterSanctuary has taken all of my time.
Aside from needing to fix the theme and address the LCP issue, which I’m doing soon, WriterSanctuary can be put into maintenance mode.
This means that I simply make sure it gets a flow of content in some form.
By making a shift in how I address the other blogs, I can start getting them to grow in much the same way. And CrossingColorado.com needs a lot of TLC.
How Do I Plan to Change How I Create Content?
Because I have so much on my plate, I need to reorganize what I’m doing. It’s like playing musical chairs with blogs and YouTube channels.
But since I’ve been putting everything into Asana and keeping track of the workload, it should be easy enough to handle.
Moving CrossingColorado.com to the Forefront
Aside from PracticallyLivingGreen.com, CrossingColorado has the lowest traffic. It also hasn’t had a good article on it for quite some time. And, it’s been a while since I updated some of the older posts.
By moving CC to my Monday content schedule, I can guarantee myself that I will have at least three blog posts ready and scheduled each week.
It also means that I can start pushing out more regular videos on its YouTube channel.
This is because I tackle each thing throughout the week on a day-to-day basis. What I don’t get done today is moved to tomorrow, and so on and so forth.
Since CrossingColorado is usually scheduled for Thursday or Friday, this means it often gets pushed off as I’m playing catch-up with other things earlier in the week.
If CrossingColorado is what I focus on at the very beginning, then it starts getting the market share of my time.
Reducing Blog Posts on WriterSanctuary.com
Getting more content up on CrossingColorado.com may mean having to reduce the blog content on WriterSanctuary.com. And in reality, this just might give me a bit of extra time to create better and longer posts.
I’m, by no means, throwing in the towel for WriterSanctuary. But right now, it has a good flow of traffic. It’s set to break its annual record for visitors and page views.
This means I can let up the reigns a little bit. Plus, I’ve had a few inquiries about guest blogging. So, I might not have to spend so much time writing content if others are willing to do so.
Changing Video Production of the Blogs
Ideally, I wanted to upload three videos per week to YouTube on WriterSanctuary. Lately, I’m lucky to get one. I have the live stream on Mondays and now the podcast on Fridays.
By shifting time to only uploading one video per week on WriterSanctuary, I can start building CrossingColorado’s channel.
And thanks to everything I’ve learned maintaining WriterSanctuary’s YouTube, I feel that I can do a much better job today.
In fact, I just uploaded a short video before writing this blog post. And, it took about a fraction of the time as it does for WriterSanctuary.
To be fair, though, the video is only 19 seconds long.
How Will This Change Affect What I Do Today?
When all is said and done, the idea behind changing how I create content is nothing more than streamlining what I have and my goals.
One thing I wanted to do in 2021 was to get CrossingColorado back up to 200 visitors per day. That means writing some great content and fixing the issues with YMYL.
I can’t really do that if I am putting it last in priority throughout the week.
Changing Focus to Build Up the Site
As I said, making CrossingColorado my Monday focus will vastly improve how much the site develops. This means putting in the time to work on the theme, improve performance, add some awesome content, and more.
In fact, I’ve already been researching articles to write that should perform fairly well.
The point, though, is to make sure the weakest link gets the most attention. And right now, that is CrossingColorado.
If I can get it to bring in more than the other blogs, then I might shift the primary focus again to create content for the next in line.
WriterSanctuary Is Still My Flagship
WriterSanctuary is still my number one blog. I’ll still work to help others and to do what I can to walk people through freelance writing, blogging, WordPress, or self-publishing.
I’m still working on the eBook, getting the videos for Despair moved so I can start making those again, and setting up the podcast.
The only real thing you might notice is how WriterSanctuary.com might get two blog posts per week instead of three. I mean, right now, I’ve only been able to upload one video per week anyway.
So, no worries. WriterSanctuary.com is still my flagship blog.
Prioritize What Needs Work the Most
Making this shift will help me prioritize work that needs to be done on my sites. As I said earlier, CrossingColorado keeps getting put off. This way, it’ll have a regular flow of content again.
And in many regards, it’s much easier to handle the blogs and videos for CC. I don’t try so hard to make every aspect perfect, as I do with WriterSanctuary.
Who knows, I still might be able to squeeze in the same amount of content for WS as I have before.
Easier to Monetize than Anything Else
It would be nice if I could generate some money from the blogs. Well, at least more than $2 to $4 per day.
I would love to hire some writers, a social media manager, a promoter, etc.
Health and fitness is a lot easier to monetize than freelance writing. The market is just much larger and brands toss money around left and right.
Though, I’m still going to be just as anal about sponsorships and promotions. I’m not going to hawk your wares if I think they suck.
At any rate, I might be able to bring in enough money to hire more help. And that’s one of my overall endgames…to turn WriterSanctuary into a business platform.
Motivate Me to Lose the Last 40 Damn Pounds
Like my friend, Sam pointed out, I was doing far better from the perspective of health and fitness when I was focusing on CrossingColorado. As soon as Google torpedoed the site, I kind of lost my way.
It’s my hope to get back to doing what the website was built for in the first place: keeping me motivated to do better. Especially after this past year.
I gained 20 pounds since moving into the new house!
The more I blog and vlog, the better I am when it comes to managing intake and exercise. And since I haven’t been doing a lot of either over the last couple of years, I’ve kind of hit a rut.
But, I think I am getting back into the groove of things.
Always in a Constant State of Evolution
When you have your fingers in as many pies as I do, you need to be in a constant state of evolution. This means things need to keep in motion to prevent burnout and the feeling of being overwhelmed.
Part of this includes coming up with a plan to create content for all of my blogs and channels.
Strategies and schedules will change as time marches on. The important thing is to not lose sight of why I started all of this in the first place.