Blogging Systems – Input from Crystal Stemberger

As you know, I spoke at  FinCon13 in a work session this year. The session was for advanced bloggers and was called “How to Build Systems for Your blog”.

During the conference I shared input I have already received from others. During and after the conference I hope to highlight some of that information and share it with all of you.

In this post, we hear from  Crystal at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff.

Crystal’s online endeavors have been successful enough to allow both she and her spouse to quit their day jobs. She has authored two books and co-owns 6 other sites as well.

Thanks for your input Crystal!

My questions to her are in bold, followed by her answers.

What blogging tasks do you think are most important to spend time on? How do you stay focused on those?

I prioritize writing my actual posts since I post Monday through Saturday.  Then, I tackle answering all of the comments that I’ve received.  Then I worry about commenting on other people’s posts.  And lastly, I attempt submit guest posts at least once a month to other sites.

As for making sure I stay focused, I have a weekly to-do list.  For my own posts, I won’t let myself go to sleep until I have something scheduled for at least the next day.  I try to have all comments replied to by Thursday.  I comment on other sites and submit guest posts when I feel like it, so that is usually biweekly or when I can guilt myself into it.  So I really only have a solid hold on posting and answering comments.  🙂

What tasks are your blog’s main time suckers?

My weekly roundup takes 2-3 hours to put together.  Commenting on other sites usually takes a few hours too since I get into reading the posts.

How have you worked towards getting those areas under control and organized?

I have decided to allow myself to skip an occasional weekly roundup to keep myself sane.  But I do try to never skip two or more in a row.  I actually enjoy reading other blogs, so I don’t mind spending the time on that when I have it to spend.

What trouble spots have you overcome by defining steps to handle the issue or by automating things and how did you do it, what did you use?

Making a reply template for commercial guest post requests has saved me tons and tons of time.  Email templates are AWESOME time savers in general.

Do you run your blog by yourself or do you enlist others?  If others, what roles do they play and how did you define the roles to them?

I try to have weekly or biweekly guest posts from others, but sometimes I don’t receive submissions for weeks at a time.  I also tried having a staff writer, but I couldn’t justify the extra cost after about 3 months.  In general, it’s just cheaper, easier, and more enjoyable to run my blog myself.

If you were to sell your blog, how would you communicate to the buyer how to run it the same way you do?

I would break down what I do in case they wanted to continue with the same style. Specifically, I would let them know to post Mondays through Fridays and have a roundup post on Saturdays.  But I bet if I sold my site, the buyer would have their own way to do things and wouldn’t really want my suggestions.  :-

Thanks again Crystal.