Q+A: When to promote your blog

Meghan writes:

I have been working on my blog for awhile now, but not ready to promote it yet. How did you decide when you were ready to start showing people your blog?

The right time to put your blog out there is — yesterday!

I get it, I’m a recovering perfectionist. You want everything to be just right when you promote your blog. But here’s the thing: you’re missing out on the opportunity to make it even better! Here are a few reasons to get your blog out there now, even if it’s not perfect:

1. Readers give you a reason to write.

The best way to improve your blog is to keep blogging, and readers hold you accountable to a schedule. You’re much more likely to follow through on a goal when you make it public (even if it’s an unspoken goal like blogging on a certain schedule that your readers come to expect). Plus, it takes time to grow your readership. What’s the point in posting perfect content if there’s no one there to read it? People love a good story, and they want to know you started as a beginner just like everyone else. No one expects to see a blog with beautifully styled and written posts out of the gate — and in fact, some people are more suspicious when that happens.

2. Discussion leads to new ideas.

Though sometimes you may feel like it, you are never an endless fount of ideas 100% of the time. Inspiration comes from exposing yourself to the outside world. Part of that is sharing your ideas with others and listening to their ideas, or just exploring what other people are doing and thinking! I’m not just talking about comments, though they can definitely be a source of inspiration and help you see topics in different ways. Consider this: you create a post, someone pins it, and later you discover that pin. So you start checking out other things that person has pinned, and suddenly you have a new idea for a post. You have to put your work out there for others to be able to interact with it in the first place.

3. Waste less time on the not-so-great ideas.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you think you’ve just had the most amazing idea ever, then someone points out something so obvious you can’t believe you missed it? Blogging is a great way to test your ideas because of its of-the-moment nature. Wrote a stinker? People will quickly forget, and you can file it away like it never happened (true, it will live in your archives — but that just shows people you’re human). Have an idea for an ebook? Write a post on the topic, and if you don’t get the response you hope for, you can go back to the drawing board — without wasting time writing the full book.

If you’re blogging and holding back on sharing, get started today! Tweet out a link to your latest blog post. Comment on another blog. Write a response to someone’s post on your own blog and share it with them.

The right time to put your blog out there is — yesterday!
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Bloggers: were you/are you scared to share your work with others? How do you push through and share anyway? When do you think is the right time to promote your blog?