Hello Reader,

Over the years, a lot of business owners have "confessed" to me that when they first started their website, they wrote a few blog posts in their excitement about having a a real, legit home online.

And then... life lifed and they never kept it up. And... never saw the benefits.

This is such a common story and it's one that can feel a bit daunting. If this is you, you may be wondering:

• Will I look silly if I start blogging again after two, three, five years or more?
• What do I write about?
• What do I do with that old stuff?
• How do I get started again?

Here's the deal: These are all completely answerable questions. But they're not actually the most important things to keep in mind if you're thinking of slowing down that social media hamster wheel and adding something a bit more sustainable to your marketing mix.

Here's what I'd love for you to keep in mind if you see yourself in this story:

1. No one noticed you ghosted your blog.

I promise, as much as it seems like a big, glaring, outdated thing sitting there on your website, and it seems BIG to you. Your audience has not noticed—promise. You're not going to look weird or disorganized when you hit refresh on that blog.

2. There's no need to make a big announcement that your blog is back.

Again, it's highly unlikely that anyone noticed it was gone. (I'm sorry! I wish this wasn't true.) Just do it and tell people about whatever it is that you posted—and keep telling them. I'm a big fan of keeping things as easy as possible, so my redistribution is handled by a tool called MissingLettr (that's an affiliate link) so I don't have to think about it, but you can also manually handle that as well. Since your content on your blog should be evergreen in nature (meaning that it's unlikely to be time-sensitive), share that a month, a year, two years from now. (Pro tip: Don't forget to share blog content on your Google Business Profile.)

3. Set achievable goals for your refreshed blog.

Okay, it's time for some real talk.

Your publishing schedule needs to be doable. Whatever you're thinking you should be publishing volume-wise, half that right now. Every single person I've worked with except ONE (remember: I've worked with a lot of people over the last sixteen years of business) has initially set themselves to struggle by setting too aggressive of goals for blogging.

If you can publish one piece a month, that is one hundred percent awesome.

If you can publish two pieces a month, that is one hundred percent awesome.

If you can publish once piece every two months, that is also one hundred percent awesome.

Your schedule is not my schedule, and I'd rather you publish something, consistently, than set too aggressive of schedule, get frustrated and ghost your business blog again.

I see far too many marketing consultants recommend content calendars that aren't grounded in the realities of small business. Most folks don't have hours and hours each day to devote to content creation, nor do they have the resources to hire a content agency to do it all (and when they do, it often proves frustrating if they don't have a well-documented brand voice that's communicated to that agency).

Start small and build, brick by brick.

Talk soon,

Sarah