Important blogging tasks that are nothing to do with creating content

When you think of blogging, you might imagine yourself being sat in a coffee shop, sipping on a latte with your laptop open, tapping away at the keys.

Mais non, there’s more to blogging than that. There’s more that goes into running a website than just writing. Much more. I think people often forget that when they think of blogging and don’t give credit where credit is due, so thought I’d write a post about all the things we do as bloggers that people may not realise.

Website maintenance.

Most of us probably can’t afford to employ someone to sort out the maintenance of our website, so we have to do it ourselves. Most of the time it’s easy enough – just updating plugins – but there are times when things get a bit complicated and we have to find out how to solve any problems ourselves.

Emails and communication.

Sorting out emails and replying to them can be a big task. I get hundreds of emails a week and I have to go through and decide which ones are junk and which ones to reply to. I’m on so many random press lists that are nothing to do with any of my interests!

The number of emails that sound promising but end up just .a pitch asking for free coverage and links to their site is frustrating and a waste of time.

To keep on top of emails, you need to make sure you go through them daily to stop it becoming a massive task!

Website designer.

Most of us probably won’t class ourselves as web designers, but I’m sure a lot of us have learnt bits of code to change a theme slightly or add bits of code into the header.

It’s actually a terrifying process. I always think that looking at my blogs HTML or CSS is like performing an operation. Just one slip and you can cause great damage!

Photographer.

How much did you know about photography before you started blogging? I didn’t know anything. I just used my iPhone 5 and didn’t even bother to edit.

Over the years I’ve educated myself on how to use a DSLR, how to shoot in manual and I’ve learnt all about lighting and composition.

Editor.

We edit our own photos. The struggle is real at first when you have no idea what you’re really doing and you realise the cost of photoshop.

Most of us invest a lot of time in understanding how to edit photos and how to use the programs we decide to use.

Social media manager.

We are in charge of scheduling, promoting, growing, engaging and creating content for social media. Yikes!

Proofreader.

Probably the job I like the least – proofreading. That boring task of reading everything you’ve just written to find mistakes.

Then read it again to find more mistakes.

Then read it backwards to find more mistakes and then publish it and realise you didn’t find all the mistakes.

Graphic designer.

Most bloggers make graphics for their blog and Pinterest. It’s another skill that you get better at the more experience you have. Luckily there are many tools out there to help us so you don’t need the latest software to make graphics!

Accountant.

If you make money on your blog, you have to do taxes. Legally, you must register as self-employed and submit your tax form by the end of January every year. It’s a painful process if you don’t plan and track your income and expenses.

I’ve found the best thing to do is track everything monthly. Then when the window opens in April, submit it. This gives you the change to then pay your tax money from April until Jan. If you leave it right until the deadline, you have to pay up straight away!

Is there anything I’ve missed?