Should you be writing a blog in 2025?
Should you be writing a blog in 2025?
Here comes Doug, who hasn’t posted on his blog in about six months, to say: “Hey, you! You should write something on your blog!”
*Well, yes...*
But hear me out.
Are Blogs Still Relevant?
Let’s reframe this question: Are websites still relevant?
Of course they are!
So why do we perceive blogs as outdated? This thinking likely stems from the belief that social media reigns supreme, rendering blogs—and long-form content like newspapers—misaligned with how modern society consumes information.
*We scroll through Instagram and mindlessly trawl through stories, all designed for 5-second attention spans or even less.*
But what do you do when you have a question? You Google it.
What do you do when you're considering a purchase? You seek out reviews.
These searches often lead you to highly regarded website content, frequently hosted on blogs.
A blog, much like a website, offers you the opportunity to create, experiment, educate, and entertain within an environment you control—one that reflects your identity. Don’t like how it looks? Change it! The flexibility and personal touch you can bring to your blog simply cannot be achieved through social media.
How Blogs Help You Understand Websites
I’d be remiss if I didn’t share how I personally use my blog: as a platform for experimentation and discovery. It has been the *perfect* testbed for learning the critical components of running a WordPress website. This mindset is why I don't *post* much; because I spend more time experimenting with GA4 reports, building GTM events, and trialling new back-end plugins.
Moreover, having a blog that I want to succeed helps me understand the mindset of potential clients who may also wish to set up their own websites to achieve their goals. By grasping their pain points, I can empathise and provide them with the clarity I once needed.
I can’t overstate how much I’ve learned just by setting up a blog and getting it to function. Here’s a quick list of what I’ve gained from this experience, beyond merely posting content:
The best website hosting providers
How to migrate domains
How to create subdomains
How to host my own WordPress website
How to install and configure WordPress
How to set up Google Analytics 4
How to set up Google Tag Manager
How to set up Google Search Console
How to generate leads using a Lead Capture form with ConvertBox
How to optimise on-page blog content for SEO
How to structure a blog and website for usability
The basics of website HTML
Beyond the technical foundations needed to run a blog, you’ll find it offers a chance to flex your creative muscles and start producing content.
Expressing Your Identity with Blogs
Social media is where most of us attract attention.
But did you design the platform, the interface, or the experience of that network?
Where social media falls short, blogs excel: they are an excellent way to cement your professional and personal identity beyond the content you create. You have complete control over your blog’s domain, fonts, colours, and overall aesthetic.
And this is all without talking about *what* you are writing or posting about, because blogs really are content agnostic. Post about what you want; create as many blog websites as you want; share as much content as you want.
The critical piece here is that a blog is an extension of your identity and an opportunity for you to stand out: I would argue that the majority of the public do not have their own blogs, electing mainly to cultivate their identity through social media posts and comments.
Think of blogs as a way to differentiate yourself, both personally and professionally.
Blogs Are the Whetstone to Our Ideas and Passions
I've always believed that written content requires a more thoughtful, considered approach to a subject.
You can see this when comparing scripted video essays to podcasts—your scripted videos will almost always be more concise, more valuable, and more considered. Perhaps not as raw, but writing your thoughts down will filter and refine your thinking in profound ways that vocalising them typically cannot.
It's one of the reasons that journaling and 'daily gratitude' can be so transformative: we are processing and considering our thoughts.
A blog allows us to extend this to our professional and personal passions.
By blogging, we grant ourselves an avenue to refine our ideas and strengthen our convictions.
But this process is not immediate, which is why I encourage you to start sooner rather than later: writing regularly will hone those muscles and naturally improve our ability to express ourselves.
So if you want to be a thought leader and an authority, then blogging is a way to determine, rationalise, and strengthen your thoughts and ideas.
What About If No One Reads My Blog?
It’s a common fear: what if no one finds my blog?
First, remember that audiences don’t always gravitate toward the loudest or fastest talkers. Focus on developing your content, finding your voice, and sharing it with friends and family.
In the beginning, your blog might feel like a solitary endeavour, but every piece you write contributes to your growth. As you improve, your confidence will grow, and so will your audience.
Engage with others in your niche, comment on their blogs, and share your insights on social media. Building a community takes time, but it can lead to meaningful connections and increased visibility for your work.
Ultimately, the act of writing itself is valuable, regardless of immediate readership. Each post helps clarify your thoughts and refine your skills, paving the way for future success.
What About AI Searching?
There’s a growing theory that AI will soon surpass Google Search results; AI can consume dozens of web articles and resources in seconds, synthesising them into concise packages. So why should I even bother with a website if I can just ask AI to provide me with the information I need?
The truth is that society is still hesitant to embrace AI's web browsing capabilities. We're comfortable letting AI write our blogs, emails, and presentations, but when it comes to browsing the web for us? That’s a realm we still want firmly under our control.
However, when AI-driven searching becomes mainstream, we may need to reevaluate our website content strategies.
I'm seeing an growing number of SaaS companies use a 'cost per day' breakdown when promoting their product to create a sense of affordability.
For example, "just $1 a day".
So that's $30 per month (usually if paid annually).
--
Have you seen this in the wild? What pricing trends are you noticing?
What is the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar?
For marketers and business owners, the difference between an editorial calendar and a content calendar is *essential*.
To help you understand the differences, let’s break down each piece to establish what is an editorial calendar and what is a content calendar.
To start, let’s first take a look why you need an editorial calendar. Often, this is the piece of the content marketing strategy that is either left out or cannibalised into something else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5_LQzZFW28
What is an editorial calendar?
An editorial calendar is a document, typically a branded PDF or slide deck, that presents an annualised overview of topics, themes and campaigns that a content team will be covering month-by-month. This document is then distributed to both internal and external stakeholders.
An editorial calendar is usually presented as a one-page document with each month clearly communicating through colours, bullet-points or short sentences, the key deliverables, concepts, topics, themes, campaigns and values that a content team will be focused on for that month.
The value of this document is two fold. Firstly, the editorial calendar presents a clear overarching set of themes, values and core messages that your content team can plan and strategise for, thereby giving writers and creators greater lead times, clearer pegs on which to conceive of fresh content ideas and a way to keep concerns about lack of direction at bay. This same ethos can apply cross-department, enabling internal company stakeholders the opportunity to understand what the marketing department or content team is working on and — if you have been producing this calendar collaboratively with these stakeholders — allows them to work with you on planning and preparing content, knowing that your calendar demonstrates foresight and
The second value of an editorial calendar is in procuring buy-in from external stakeholders. For instance, you may be running an editorial news website and in the month of November, your editorial calendar notes that you will be focusing primarily on Diversity and Inclusion (D&I); this insight may align with a local business that is also working on D&I programmes, which presents an opportunity for brand partnerships and collaborations. And having a document that is branded, in a format that is lends itself to presenting or handing out — such as a PDF or slide deck — builds credibility and authority.
In summary, an editorial calendar is an excellent asset to empower your content teams and invite collaboration internally; the editorial calendar also provides a clear, digestible roadmap of events for potential brand partnerships.
These functions necessitate a document that is *NOT* constantly being updated on the fly and one that also isn’t stuffed with dense information that is not digestible. An editorial calendar *is not* a working document but rather a pamphlet of headlines for each month.
What is a content calendar?
A content calendar is a document, spreadsheet or online tool that illustrates what a content team is working on currently, what the team will be working on and what has recently been completed.
A content calendar should be a working document that is rich with information about past, present and future content in the production pipeline. It is the *’content machine’*, it is the *’content production line’*, and should be used on a daily or intra-day basis in order to ensure that content is delivered to deadlines.
Because a content calendar is a tool to monitor your team’s progress, it should be structured in such a way that it achieves two things quickly and easily;
Identify where in the production pipeline a piece of content is, and;
Identify all collateral both in draft and approved by your stakeholders
For the first requirement, a good content calendar is typically structured with columns signifying your production process. For example, I typically follow:
Planning
Copywriting
Editorial Review
Graphic Design
Promotional Copy
Final Sign-off
You would then colour-code or tick off each column of your production process as the content passes each respective stage, enabling you to see at a glance where your content is currently sitting.
And to the second function, you should ensure that each content piece has its assets easily accessible — either via a link to a shared drive or contained within the task itself if your content calendar has a ‘card’-style system that can host attachments. And crucially, this *must* be the source of truth. Colleagues should make it essential practice that any assets linked to these content pieces are the latest versions. Sending outdated collateral for review is bad practice, but this can be easily resolved if all key stakeholders understand the importance of keeping their areas of the production process updated.
Now, it’s time to stress one thing that may or may not be obvious at this point: a content calendar is *not* intended for external distribution, and I’d often hesitate about making it widely accessible to internal stakeholders too (too many chefs). Unlike the editorial calendar, a content calendar is a workhorse that is not intended for outside glances. *Don’t forget this!*
Differences between an editorial calendar and a content calendar
We’ve now established what is an editorial calendar and what is a content calendar; and by now, some of those distinctions are already becoming clear.
External publication
One difference between the two is that an editorial calendar can and often *should* be shared externally; distributing this branded document externally can provide partnership opportunities, create customer and client expectations for you to deliver on and it can also demonstrate your position as a transparent, strategic thought-leader.
In contrast, the content calendar should *not* be shared internally. It is often a very dense document with lots of information that can be overwhelming to external audiences. It is also typically not branded, and having externally visible deadlines (which shift and change internally) could hamper team morale and establish unreasonable demands upon the content team. And most crucially, the document will largely contain unfinished content that has not been approved; having such a sensitive document available externally could pose a PR nightmare while also granting your competitors powerful insights into both your specific content campaigns and your production processes.
Content formats
Mirroring their functions, the content calendar and editorial calendar each has its own ideal format.
A content calendar is best suited to a spreadsheet or an online project management solution. Many popular content calendar platforms for marketers include Trello, Asana, Monday.com, Notion and CoSchedule.com. Whether you decide to use one of these, or something else, they will typically enable you to organise your content, establish a clear production pipeline, facilitate collaboration and you can ideally attach collateral for easy access. Because these are not intended to be shared externally, there is no need for an on-brand document and so third-party, non-white label solutions will serve you perfectly.
Meanwhile, an editorial calendar must instead be branded if it is to deliver the best impression. Therefore, third-party tools are a big no-no. For best results, you’ll want something that is orientated towards presenting branded information in a sleek and stylish package. I’d suggest the ol’ faithful Powerpoint or Google Slides, or a professionally designed PDF graphic that can be both printed out and downloaded. You want your editorial calendar to ooze style and confidence; this is your roadmap. Design something that you would be proud to hand out to potential clients to secure you a new contract, and something that will succinctly address their questions about what key things you will be addressing in the next year of content.
Summary
For any digital marketing teams and content creators, having both a fleshed-out editorial calendar and a comprehensive, well-maintained content calendar is a key result that can substantially elevate you above the competition. While it is not essential, and some out there do try to create one amalgamation of the two, I hope that I’ve being able to illustrate the potential for having these two calendars as distinct entities.
If you have any questions about either calendar, or you would like to know what resources I would recommend for your use case, be sure to leave a comment below.
In the meantime, don’t forget to follow me on social media and — ta-ra!
https://doug-digital.com/what-is-the-difference-between-an-editorial-calendar-and-a-content-calendar/
Jermaine.
(My first FreeWriting post)
**Three Nouns:** Peace Wheelbarrow Cemetery
**Timer set:** 20 minutes
--
Jermaine's eyes creaked open. Sunset. He could feel the deep wrinkles on his weather-worn face creek and crack. He was used to it. A warming gaze from the sun, as it settled behind a horizon of tall cedar trees, caressed his cheeks and gave a gentle auburn hue to his usually black trousers and shirt. Standard grave digger attire. Patched, soiled and stiff with dry mud.
The wrinkles, the scars, the muddied fingers, the calluses. Jermaine's body was much like a gravestone, carved with stories about his life. And though he went to great lengths to conceal such a fact, carved on his body were also stories about his death.
--
Jermaine rose from his usual seat on a small bench placed adjacent to the Lammens Cemetery's church. From his perch, he would sometimes overhear the hymns and readings from the church behind him. While he knew that God was never coming for him, he nonetheless felt hope. He could sense the joy and compassion radiating from the holy walls, which never failed to turn his pale, thin lips into a smile.
He patted the bench's faded gold plaque as he stood -- "For our dearest Mr Rose, whose services to Lammens we could never be more thankful" -- and walked towards his trusted wheelbarrow and shovel, nestled under the shade of one of the stone walls marking the church's courtyard perimeter. One or two mourners, observing some gravestones, turned their heads at the sounds of steel clattering against stone but Jermaine was gone before they could see what made the noise.
As the sunsets, Jermaine's life -- now and forever -- was to meet those who had been laid to rest at Lammens Cemetery. Through his wirey smile, they could feel his aged, genteel presence: welcoming, understanding and kind. They could still feel the warmth of the sun against his black shirt and trousers.
And they knew they'd be okay.
--
By Douglas Adams (I know, it's a blessing and a curse)
Hey, my name is Doug Adams, I go by Doug Digital 👋
Douglas Adams by day, Doug Digital by night(or browsing online)
So last week, I took my web browsing habits by the scruff of the neck.
I dusted off the Twitter doom-scrolling, the syndicated news sites, the aimless YouTube browsing and idle chit-chat on strange reddit Forums.
*I was ready for something* ***different***.
Inspired by several videos from **@scottcbusiness** that transformed my awareness of social networks and web-browsing, I wanted to hop into the world of decentralised, crypto-positive sites that encouraged creators, expanded dialogue and made online communities fun again. https://ecency.com/@scottcbusiness
Armed with a few back-to-basics videos that I'd recorded on my YouTube channel for inspiration, I set about writing my first blog post in years: How to perform a disk defrag. This was a rough-and-ready guide for those of us who struggle with getting clarity on their thoughts https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqQZu6V_uwTXK-t9FTv9zNA
But who am I? What do I have to share? And what could I contribute to discussions?
By trade, I'm a digital marketing professional with eight years of sector experience and formal training as a multimedia journalist. I help clients and businesses improve seven critical areas of their marketing: Search Engine Optimisation, Pay-Per-Click/Paid ads, Social Media, Email Campaigns, Marketing Automation, Copywriting, and Marketing Strategy. Plus a few more...
*And because marketers love giving things fancy names, I call these topics:* ***The Seven Digital Pillars***. Let me know in the comments just how cheesy that is!
So from a professional perspective, I'll be on the hunt for content that I can learn from, topics that I can share my experiences on and, hopefully, share advice that can really help individuals to navigate the vast ocean that is digital marketing.
Gizmo geek
When I'm not fussing over marketing, and I'm fussing over the latest tech.
Whether the tech is a new pair of headphones -- like this Sentien bone-conducting pair on kickstarter -- or an app like Notion to help you to create a digital brain, I'm heavily invested in watching the human race strive for the next big technological advancement. https://sentienhq.com/
And my big fascination is always with tech that enhances our daily lives. Tech that helps us sleep; tech that helps us track our body health; tech that helps us to unwind and meditate; tech that helps us structure and organise our lives. And so, unsurprisingly, here I am, writing this blog on a decentralised network -- a technological marvel whose blockchain foundations could transform and mould the future into a much more equitable, much more transparent, much more accessible digital world.
And I'm so excited to be on this journey with you as you read this. 🚀
*If you've enjoyed this, and want to hear more, why not follow and let me know wha you think. I can't wait to hear from you.*
- Doug Digital
How to run a 4-step disk defrag on your brain and master your productivity
Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Have you ever felt like you were unable to get your head around what to do next with your life, or with the projects that matter to you? Then you need to run a disk defrag on your brain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHIQReu2Icc&feature=emb_title
I'll start by introducing what a disk defrag is and why you need one, but it's very important to stress from the outset: this is a practical process and it is not to be approached in the same manner as the practice of meditation and mindfulness. I practice a Brain Defrag because you will be rewarded with more clarity, when you put in more effort. This is not a process of gentle relaxation for ten minutes in the mornings and can in fact be -- much like a disk defrag -- resource intensive. But it gets easier.
**What is a disk defragmentation?**
First, let's quickly establish what is a disk defragmentation (defrag). At its core, disk defragmentation is a process that would be run on a computer's hard disk drive or HDD in order to identify, validate and organise the data that is stored on the computer. You would know that a computer needed to run a disk defrag when, among other symptoms, it was becoming slow to open files, slow to open folders and slow to copy data.
The disk defrag would run for several minutes, often up to several hours, and would begin to sort and file the data into a far more manageable and easy-to-search repository. This is the equivalent in the home of pulling out all your clothing draws and reorganising them so that all your t-shirts were neatly organised and you knew where everything was so that you could grab the right item just before you headed out for the big day.
*Full disclosure: I'm not a computer technician, so this is my summary of the process as it's been explained to me over the years. Anyone from IT, please feel free to correct me!*
Much like a computer hard drive, your brain gets filled with data. And much like that computer, your brain can become overwhelmed. Rather than being slow to open folders, it becomes hard for you to collect your thoughts; you get easily distracted and find it hard to figure out what needs to be done.
**Why do you need to run a disk defragmentation?**
Picture the scene: it's late at night. You're struggling to fall asleep.
*It sucks.*
You close your eyes and try to think of a happy place that makes you feel cosy and comfortable and -- wait, that's Derek from the office. Oh that's right, Derek wanted you to provide an update on that project on Thursday. You still need to figure out what to send to him.
*You feel a crack in your back.*
Oh, you keep forgetting that you're getting old and you haven't done those daily stretches that you keep seeing on social media by those influencers. But what stretches do you do? How often you do them? What should you wear to do them? Where should you do them?
*You're wide awake now.*
Every little thought like these are what David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, refers to as an 'open loop'. An open loop is essentially a thought that goes around in circles, with no definitive journey onwards. It's like a car, trapped in a roundabout - there's lots of exists but you don't know which one leads you to your destination. And for most people, there are dozens of roundabouts that your mind is perpetually trapped in. And when that mental car of yours begins to run out of gas, going around all of these open loops with no straight path home, you'll start noticing more of these late nights. They'll creep into your day and start disturbing your thinking.
But now it's time to look at a process to help address these open loops.
**How do you run a disk defrag on your brain?**
*Meditation is cleaning your cache; weekly reviews are your disk defragmentation*
In order to perform a disk defrag, we must complete the following four steps every week:
Conduct a MindSweep to identify your open loops
Clarify your open loops
Identify a Next Action for each open loop
Perform a Weekly Review
It's worth reminding you at this point that you will get out as much as you put in here. These four steps are crucial to conducting your disk defrag and, unlike a meditation session, it will require mental exertion and -- when it comes to physical inboxes -- perhaps even some physical exertion. The first defrag could take you several hours.
**1. Conduct a MindSweep to identify open loops**
We know that an open loop is an unresolved thought, chasing its own tail. The first step then is to simply identify all of your open loops. These are unique to you, and what matter most to you. To get started, first find yourself a notepad, a note-taking app or anything that allows you to take notes.
From there, you are going to systematically run through every key area of your life and jot down each and every open loop as it comes to you. Keep in mind, stage 2 is for really unpicking what you write in stage 1. So with this in mind, you need only write a line a phrase or perhaps even just a word. To help you at this stage, I have below a trigger list of topics for you to go through.
Access the Trigger List https://www.notion.so/dougdigital/Mindsweep-1e38cff082fc47929a54f0debc04e2c7
For example, here are some open loops that I noticed when I began to think about health:
Lose weight
Decide on vitamins
Read article on stretching
Daily run
File report
Ryan’s birthday
As you’re reviewing your open loops, keep one important tenant of Getting Things Done in mind: *complete any tasks if they can be completed within two minutes.* Send a text to a loved one? Do it when the thought comes to your mind. Take your vitamins? Grab a drink and tick off the task in seconds.
These open loops can be simple tasks or larger projects, and you can express them simply as a word. The critical purpose of this process is to clear your head of all the open loops, no matter how small, so that we can collect and organise them as we move to the next stage.
**2. Clarify your open loops**
You've trawled through your thoughts. You’ve ticked off a handful of small tasks. Now is the time where we begin to understand what you’ve written, and how we’re going to progress these thoughts. To do this, you need to formalise a process of migrating these thoughts from concept to either an action, a project, a note to remember or perhaps something that you can consciously and deliberately discard.
Let’s take the example list we produced in the previous step.
**Lose Weight** This loop is a nebulous concept at the moment. How much weight? When do we want to lose this weight by? Why are we losing this weight? It clearly requires several sub-tasks and perhaps even a few projects along the way. So what I would do is, in your note-taking app or project management app of choice, log this with some more specificity as a goal. For me, I would like to lose 10kg in weight by the end of 2021.
I then determine what the projects are that will help me achieve this goal (these may not be immediately apparent). For example: Sign Up For Yoga Class, Create New Diet Plan, Meet with a Personal Trainer. Then I simply determine one single next step for each of these projects, which may be: ‘Call Yoga studio’, ‘Read article on calorie intake for diet plan’, ‘Call Josh’. Now, I have identified the goal from my open loop, I have clarified what I wish to achieve, and I have distilled this into three separate projects that each have one action to move me one step closer to my goal.
**Decide on Vitamins** I’m always chasing the new vitamins, but on this occasion I’ve determined that vitamins are not immediately relevant to me. In fact, it’s a Someday/Maybe item because I want to direct my attention to weight loss. So in this case, I add my Decide on Vitamins loop to a list- which can literally just be a row within a note, captured within an Evernote Notebook - called ‘Someday/ Maybe’. I’ll review this notebook once a week to determine if the items in this note are now more relevant, and something I could turn into a goal or project. So when my mind thinks again about decide on vitamins, I know that it’s in my Someday/Maybe list as something of lower importance that I can review later. It’s not keeping me up at night.
**Read article on stretching** It’s a short one. I can just read it now. Takes less than two minutes. Or if it takes longer, I can just schedule it for tonight with a link to the post for easy access. On to the next task…
**Daily Run** This is reminding me now of my weight-loss goal. Great, this means that my tasks are in alignment. But Daily Run is vague. Lets create a new project, since this could require tasks like buying running gear or determining routes, and we’ll call it: ‘Start Running Programme’. I’ll then determine my next action, which is to ‘Call Martin for advice about running’. This will inform me of the other actions I’ll need to do, but it’s going to take a few minutes so I won’t be doing this right now.
**File Report** This is a task that needs to be done by someone else that is more senior or is better qualified; this will free me up to do other tasks and ensure that it’s not sitting in my mind as an open loop when I can’t do anything about it. In this instance, I’ve decided that my colleague Bianca is better suited. So I shall delegate this. I can email Bianca now with a request for support, since this will take less than two minutes.
**Ryan’s Birthday** Oh! It’s nearly Ryan’s birthday and I’ll be visiting his house for the day. I’ll need to remember this, so I will set a reminder in my calendar to fire on the day, reminding me about my friend’s special day and that I will be visiting.
3. Identify a Next Action for each open loop
You’ll notice that we’ve already been doing this as a process of clarifying our loops. But in case you haven’t been doing this, the step here is simple: once you’ve determined exactly what your open loops mean, you need to identify one single action that will move your project or goal further. Whether this be making a call, filing a report, conducting research or buying an item, this needs only be one simple item.
4. Perform a Weekly Review
*The final piece of the puzzle.*
Once per week, you examine all of the projects that you’ve created; all of your collected notes; all of your open loops; all of your unresolved emails and texts. You then repeat stages two and three (you may also want to perform stage one when you are getting started with this) and ensure that every project has a next action, that every task has a clear direction and tangible action. This process eliminates the confusion that keeps us up at night.
Your brain disk defrag is pretty much complete. You’ve eliminated tasks that don’t need to be done; you’ve moved unimportant tasks to your someday/maybe list; you’ve taken that vague open loop and converted it into an actionable goal and project with clear next steps to move it forward.
Now you can free up your mind for what it’s made for: being creative, exploring ideas and transforming the world around you. Your thoughts are neatly compartmentalised. And like a disk defrag, this will get quicker over time as your mental files become steadily more organised.
@DougDigital