5 Excuses Not to Blog

The virtues of blogging range from marketing your practice to personal enrichment. And people are listening as thousands of new blogs are created every day. But you haven’t. Why not? Here are some of the more common reasons:

1. I don’t have the time – I’m starting with the most obvious reason, and frankly, the most legitimate. Creating meaningful blog posts takes time. Some of the bloggerati can crank out quick posts while many of us take at least an hour or two (or more) per post. Posts don’t have to go on for thousands of words. In today’s hyperactive world, they probably won’t get read all the way through anyway. A concise, helpful 500 word post will likely get more eyes, and of course, take less time to write. And remember that you don’t have to publish a post every day or even every week. Frequency helps if you’re trying to build traffic and exposure, but put that thought on the back burner when starting out.

2. I don’t know what to blog about – We all struggle with this, especially those of us that blog frequently. How many times can I blog about Evernote, for crying out loud? A lot, actually. There’s so much about the terrific application that’s useful, with new or enhanced features to write about or posts on the many different ways to use it. It’s also okay to branch out into less familiar territory. A blog post doesn’t have to be the last word on a particular topic, it can be a discussion. It’s perfectly okay to write a post with questions and engage the community in the comments section about possible solutions. Expand on a status update that resonated on Facebook or Twitter.

3. I’m not a techie – In today’s world we’re all techies to some degree and the barrier to entry for blogging is almost non-existent with a range of platforms that require little or no coding or technology knowledge. From the quick and easy Posterous and Tumblr to Blogger, and my favorite, WordPress. Start with the one you prefer, like Blogger or Tumblr, and migrate to WordPress later when you’re more comfortable with the software and want more functionality

4. I’m not a good writer – We all have some degree of writing competence, and writing blog posts does involve some skill. The only way to gain confidence is to start writing. The web has many writing resources to access like thesaurus.com (a favorite) and Grammar Girl.

5. I spend all this time blogging but no one’s listening – Don’t worry about the traffic. It will come if you’re consistent and relevant. You can help the process along by promoting your posts on the social networks. Twitter and Facebook are consistently in the top-five traffics sources for blogs that I’ve been associated with.

Happy blogging!

Update: A great resource for blogging lawyers is Kevin O’keefe’s Blog Essentials.

(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrabbit/2757883697/)