Here are six tips to help you keep up with your blog and post on a regular basis:

1. Decide from the start WHO you want to attract to your blog. That is, decide who you want your readers to be. The reason this will help you post regularly to your blog is because you’ll always have it clear in your mind WHO you are writing for. And that will make it easier to focus on the content you need for your blog.

2. Decide from the start HOW you will serve your intended readers. Many beginning bloggers set up a blog with no real purpose or intended readership in mind. It’s no wonder they find blogging difficult or they just don’t keep up with it. Their blog posts tend to be rambles, or daily accounts of their activities, which don’t serve readers in any way (unless these accounts are particularly humorous, or also offer something for the reader to consider regarding his or her own life).

So develop a purpose for your blog. What will you post each day that will be of use to your intended readers? For example, my intended readers for this blog are freelance writers or people who want to become freelance writers. My purpose here is to provide articles, tips, and other resources that freelance writers will find useful.

3. Develop a regular weekly schedule for posting. It’s much easier to keep up with your blog if you decide right away that you will post only 3 days a week, for example, and those 3 days will be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. You won’t have to feel guilty the other 4 days of the week when you aren’t blogging either.

4. Develop catagories for your regular blog posts.If you know you’re going to post every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, set up categories for each of those days. For example, if you’re a blogger who wants to help other writers, you might do that by providing reviews of new books about writing on Mondays. On Wednesdays you could post interviews with other authors. On Fridays you could post articles that offers writing tips.

5. Plan ahead whenever possible.Once you have established a regular blogging schedule and developed categories for your posts, you’ll find it easier to plan ahead. You can even enter your articles ahead of time and have them scheduled to post on the days you want. When you do this it makes it much easier to keep up with your blog as well as your other weekly writing assignments. You can post your articles to your blog over the weekend, then not have to worry about blogging again until the next weekend.

6. You don’t have to write every single post for your blog yourself. Your blog should be a resource to serve your readers. However, that doesn’t mean you need to write every bit of the material posted at your blog yourself. As long as you provide helpful information, your readers won’t care who wrote that information. So check out some of the article directories (like www.ezinearticles.com) that offer free articles, and once a week or so select an article that would be helpful to your readers.

You might also have guest bloggers periodically. Invite another writer who writes about your topic of interest to supply a post for your blog. If this writer can post a link to his/her site within the post, he/she will probably be more than happy to provide you with content for a day.

And if you need help setting up a blog, Cathy Perkins, known as the WordPress Wizard has started a teleseminar series on creating and using a WordPress blog.

You can listen to the very first one, and even download the Action Guide and transcript.

This first teleseminar is on important steps to take before you even start your blog.

It’s only takes 30 minutes to listen to the recorded teleseminar, or even less if you skim the transcript. This is a great free resource.

Whether you’re a small business owner, or just a busy freelance writer always on the lookout for new writing assignments, here are five reasons you should be blogging for business right now:

1. Creating an online presence is easy with a blog. Today, everyone expects anyone with a serious business to be visible online. But that doesn’t mean a small business owner has to shell out big bucks on an expensive website right from the start. Instead, start with a blog. A blog can be set up easily and quickly at little or no cost - so no matter how small your company might be, you can be on line blogging for business in (literally) a few minutes. You can also update your blog much easier and quicker than you can a regular website. You don’t have to wait for a webmaster to make changes for you.

2. A blog lets you develop relationships with your customers or clients. If you blog regularly, your readers get to know more about you and your services. They can also leave comments for you on the blog, so you can interact with them through this site. Research shows that people are more likely to do business with someone they know. Post to your blog daily (or at least several times a week) and readers will get to know you, trust you, and feel confident to buy your products and or services.

3. A blog gives you additional opportunities to network with other small businesses. You can provide reciprocal links at your blog. That just means you put a link to another company’s website or blog on your blog and that company puts a link to your blog on theirs. You benefit from these links because your blog attracts additional readers from these other sites.

4. You can use your blog to help build your mailing list. A good way to do this is to offer something free in return for joining your mailing list. Free ebooks related to the products or services offered by your business are perfect “give aways” to use for this purpose. Put a sign-up box on your blog where readers can join your mailing list and automatically receive your free products via email.

5. By regularly posting to your blog, you become an “expert” in your line of work. People always turn to experts when they need help. Establish yourself as an expert in your field and people will turn to you when they need the particular type of products or services that you have to offer.

I usually tell these people that story ideas are all around us - at all times. We just have to become aware of them.

Here’s a blog that will help you with story ideas, inspiration, and creative writing tips. It’s called The Story Ideas Virtuoso published by freelance writer Deb Gallardo.

Deb Gallardo is a published author for children and adults, an educator, and an accomplished performer in concert and on stage. She specializes in helping fiction writers find story ideas for their creative writing endeavors. Currently, Deb is busy hauling two novels out of mothballs: a Baby Boomer class reunion mystery for adults and a middle grade fantasy - and is feverishly working to make them publishable.

This summer she rewrote Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for high school students, simplifying dialogue while still maintaining the flavor of Shakespeare. She also composed, arranged, orchestrated and recorded the soundtrack of two songs for Queen Titania and her fairies, as well as incidental music for King Oberon and Puck.

Deb’s latest musical theatre project is preparing for the role of Mother Superior in a mid-January semi-professional production of “Nunsense II - The Second Coming.” All five actors playing nuns have music degrees! Her most recent credits include Sister Sophia in “The Sound of Music” in 2006, and Mrs. Potts in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” for two theatre companies in two cities in 2005 and 2007.