A blog remains one of the best ways to get and keep traffic on the Internet. There are a lot of fancy guides with some neat tricks, but here are 5 common sense blogging tips everyone seems to forget to do.

Tip #1 – Check out someone else’s before you sign up

Before you sign up for an account, find someone else’s blog on the site and look at it from as many different devices as you can. There is a huge difference between a site that is “mobile friendly” and one that offers “responsive themes.” Learn what the differences look like in reality.

Tip #2 – Come up with a schedule

Consistency and reliability are everything in the blogging world. Don’t commit to a blog schedule that you can’t keep, and don’t blog willy-nilly. Do your homework to find out when your audience is online and then post according to when they will be there to read it.

Tip #3 – Get three posts ahead

Always have three posts stored away that are evergreen. This will help you stick to your schedule no matter what happens around it. If you do need to use an evergreen post in a pinch, make sure it is replaced as soon as possible. You want to keep your reputation for reliability at all costs.

Tip #4 – Know your media

You need to know what type of media you are going to include in your posts ahead of time. Photos are great but create a template for how you will credit them and build a library. Video can be good, depending on who you are the audience is and how they are reading your blog. Same with music – you also want to make sure that your blog can handle a device not being able to handle your media too.

Tip #5 – Don’t post to social media until there is something to read

Once you start your blog, don’t post on social media until you have a series of blog posts to read. You want people to be encountering a portfolio when they first arrive. If they come and only see one post, you will have missed an opportunity. Better to wait until you have at least 5 or 8 solid posts on your blog before you start linking individual posts to social media accounts. Don’t do it all at once, on your 9th post, start posting about that post and let the first 5 or 8 be discovered.