The Daily Routine of a Blogger: How I Create My Blog Posts

A lot of people always wonder how I go about creating my blog posts and what tasks I carry out in order to go from draft to the published product. I wrote a post about this quite some time ago, but since then many of my blogging processes have changed and my preparation for each blog post is now more extensive and thorough. I thought it may be helpful to produce this post, either to help anyone who's new to blogging and doesn't know where to begin with writing posts or to simply provide an insight into how I write blog posts, so I hope that it's helpful!

Brainstorm Ideas
The first step of any blog post is to come up with a few ideas of what to include, whether this is the style of post, genre, or simply what to write about. I usually do this by jotting down a few bullet points in a notebook or typing up some ideas, but whichever method I choose I ensure that my brainstorming is as detailed as possible. I also think of possible titles for the blog post, as well as leaving myself any notes about what to remember when actually writing the post.

Create Categories
I take a systematic approach to writing blog posts and prefer to separate my posts into categories or sections, opposed to just rambling on in a free-flowing style. I find it much easier to write each section of the post individually, and then it all comes together at the end, so it's important for me to identify the categories early on. For example, I will often split blog posts using sub-headings to identify the key points or arguments.

Bullet Point Key Ideas
Following on from my previous point, where I outlined how it's important for me to take a methodical approach to writing blog posts, I then go onto bullet point ideas for each category. I find this much easier than writing each section without a basis, as I can organise my thoughts and see which sections have gaps that may need filling, before actually crafting the post.

Wider Research
Although this isn't something I do for every blog post, it's sometimes important for me to do extended research about my blog post topic. Whether this is looking through press releases for information about a new product launch or researching specific details for a book review, I find it important to be informed about the topic. This is often Internet-based research and is quickly conducted, with anything important that I find being added to my bullet points.

First Draft
It's only at this point that I start to actually create the paragraphs of my blog post in the form of a first draft. Taking it a section at a time, I re-read all of my bullet points and start to word them into a paragraph. Due to my extensive preparation, I often find this step to be the easiest and the paragraphs come together quite nicely, with all of the groundwork being previously done.

Proofread and Edit Blog Post
Although the first draft of my blog post may be completed, it still needs a lot of work and editing to get it to the standard of publishing. I proceed to read through the post multiple times to pick out any mistakes or flag up any parts that I want to change. I also run my post through Grammarly, which I'd highly recommend as it's great for picking out grammatical errors and mistakes that I've skipped over, thus ensuring a higher quality of my posts.

Ideas For Photographs
Now that the post is written, all that's left is to add the photographs, so I start to think of possible photos to compliment it. If I'm reviewing some beauty products, for example, then I'll start to think about which props will compliment them nicely and decide on what would be the best way to photograph them. This is probably the step I'm most lazy with if I'm honest, but it definitely helps to improve the quality of photos.

Take Photographs
I'll often take many variations of photos, all with slight alterations and minor differences between them. This ensures that I'll have plenty to choose from when making the final selection, and therefore I don't have to drag everything out again if the one photo I took didn't look right. If it's something people would like to see, then I'd definitely do a more in-depth post about how I take and edit my blog photos, but for this, I rely on natural light and my iPhone 6s camera.

Edit and Upload Photos
As I said earlier, I'll happily write a more detailed post about my blog photography process, but the essence of this step takes place on the app VSCO Cam. I discovered this about a year ago and it has since become an essential to me, and I edit all of my photos using it. I don't drastically change their appearance but instead use this to enhance the photos, altering their brightness, contrast and highlights to the desired effect. Once I'm happy with how the images look, I'll then add them to the blog post for a preview of how the completed post will look, making any minor alterations if necessary.

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At this point, it's finally time to publish my post and promote it on social media, and that's the end of my blog post routine! I know it might seem like a long and laborious process, but these are all of my essential steps for each blog post that I write and upload. I'd love to know if you do anything different when creating blog posts, or if you're a new blogger then hopefully this has been helpful and provided some guidance.

Thank you very much for reading this blog post, and I really hope that it was helpful. I'll be back again next Sunday with another post, so make sure you come back next week for a new read.

Love from Daisy x