My Essential Daily Blogging Tasks

If you’ve ever wondered what happens behind the scenes of this blog before you get to read the content, I decided to walk you through my daily blogging routine. Since its inception, Wonder Forest has changed quite a bit and expanded its team to provide a more streamlined approach for better productivity. Personally, I am always checking in on things and making sure things are running smoothly technically, which is something that I think every blog owner needs to do frequently, if not daily. Here are my main tasks that I complete on weekdays:

Emails

The first thing I do when I turn on my computer is open up my email.  I won’t lie, my inbox can be a pretty scary place sometimes. I spend a few minutes deleting spam (#annoying) and then organizing mail into appropriate folders. For example, all of my orders from my design shop go into one folder, while all of my notifications for affiliate signups go into another. These are the messages that don’t require replies but still need to be kept for my records. Once that is done, I can reply to the messages needing my attention.

Social Media Promo

Since I normally schedule posts in advance, I then check out this blog and start promoting the latest published post on social media. This is usually just a quick Tweet and Facebook update as they are the platforms I use consistently. Lately, I’ve been trying out Edgar and I like it a lot. It’s used for social media scheduling, much like Buffer and Hootsuite, but it recycles your updates so that you never run out of content. I’ll usually pop on over there to see what it has scheduled for the day and to add some more content to my library for later.

Blog Audit

Next, I’ll spend a few minutes just clicking around the blog and making sure everything is working okay. You never know if something is wonky with your blog unless you check!  For example, this morning while visiting Wonder Forest on my iPhone, I noticed that the mobile view wasn’t displaying properly for some reason. When something like this happens out of the blue, I make a note to check it out later.  This is a good time to make sure your current posts aren’t causing any unwanted conflicts with your template, or that your widgets are all working properly. Sometimes when a feature is automatically updated, issues can arise.

Comments

I love reading comments from visitors, so every day I check out the comments on the latest posts. I’ll also pop on over to my Disqus dashboard and read them there, as many still come in from older posts that I would have missed otherwise. Whenever someone has a question, I do my best to answer it right away.

Review & Schedule Drafts

Since the direction of this blog has changed a lot since I first started, so has my routine. With the addition of contributors (by the way, anyone can submit content!) it cuts down on the time I need to take to write out posts.  My lovely assistant editor, Breanne, helps gather submitted content and creates draft posts in my dashboard.  I spend a little time going through the drafts and making sure everything is ready for publishing before scheduling them to post.  I also make note of the scheduled posts in my daily planner so I can easily check what is being posted on each day.

Updating

Although I don’t do this every single day, I do update the blog often.  I change out the featured posts in the slider and in the drop down menu, and tweak existing pages. For example, I recently added an author plugin to the contribute page so you can see all of the lovely current Wonder Forest writers. Little things like this add up and just make the visitor’s experience a little more enjoyable.

Social Media Check-In

Every morning and throughout the day you’ll find me scrolling through Instagram and Snapchat (find me: wonderforest) and connecting with followers.  This is probably one of my favourite things to do because it can be done anywhere and creates a lot of inspiration for future posts and ideas. My Instagram feed is filled with people who inspire me and create lovely photos, so it’s somewhat of an escape for a few minutes.  I also love to connect with my followers on Snapchat and send inspiring quotes or images to randomly selected people just to hopefully brighten up their day.

Writing

Finally, a blog isn’t complete with posts, obviously. Every few days I write out my own posts and schedule them among the contributed ones.  I keep a growing list of blog topic ideas and choose one from that list, depending on the amount of time I have to complete it.  Longer posts with lots of photos require more time and are best suited for days when I have a free afternoon or a weekend to shoot pics.  Working your posts around your own schedule is key, I’ve found!  No use stressing over an in-depth idea if you simply don’t have the time at the moment.

Tasks That You Can Do Too

If you’ve ever seen my blog review videos, you know that I love to share advice with other bloggers about improving the functionality and design of their online spaces. I’m happy to announce that I’ve packaged up a whole whack of tasks that any blogger can complete into this cute little book called The Ultimate Blogger To-Do List!  This book is like a giant sticky note filled with reminders and things you probably haven’t thought to do to propel your blog and improve the appearance all while keeping your visitors in mind. 

I’ll be opening up a limited number of pre-orders very soon, so if you’d like to be notified and get more information about the book, subscribe below!  Subscribers will be the first to know when pre-orders open:

I’d love to know what your daily blogging schedule looks like! Is it similar to this?

Last Updated on February 27, 2024