Finding Your Blogging Motivation After a Hiatus

Have you found yourself coming back to blogging after a long break? Maybe your business exploded, and you haven’t had the time to blog.

Or you got burned out, and life changed, so you quit?

Or you realized your old content strategy wasn’t working and you needed to take a step back and reevaluate?

It happens to the best of us.

But now, your blogging motivation is renewed, and you’re ready to get back into it.

Use your return to blogging as an opportunity to evaluate what worked, clean up what didn’t, and create a sustainable strategy moving forward.

Taking a Break Doesn’t Mean You’ve Ruined Your SEO

So let me just start here. It IS worth coming back to blogging if it feels aligned with your business strategy and goals.

You haven’t ruined anything. You aren’t starting from scratch. 

Your old blogs are still working for you in the background. SEO is cumulative, so the work you’ve already done isn’t lost just because you stepped away.

Your hiatus may actually give you useful perspective. A break can make it easier to see which parts of your strategy weren’t working:

• Writing topics that didn’t attract your ideal clients.
• Spending hours writing posts that generated traffic but no leads.
• Your publishing schedule was unsustainable.

Use the hiatus as a reset. You don’t need to feel bad about stepping back!

Follow these steps as you reintroduce blogging to your routine.

Step 1: Figure Out What Happened While You Were Gone

Before publishing anything new, take a look at what happened during your break.

Review your website traffic and look at:

• Clicks
• Impressions
• Average position
• Queries bringing people to your site
• Pages that gained or lost visibility
• New keywords you started appearing for

Your best posts also may have changed while you were away. Double-check which blogs are:

• Bringing in the most organic traffic
• Ranking for multiple keywords
• Generating leads
• Driving strong engagement
• Earning backlinks

Let the data help you determine where your blog is currently getting traction and what areas need support.

Step 2: Audit Your Existing Blog Before Writing Anything New 

Maybe you have a lot of blogging motivation right now and are ready to hop right into a new post. But actually, you should do a lil audit before you start anything new.

Categorize your existing posts into:

• Keep: Still accurate/relevant, performing well, aligned with your current offers.
• Update: Good topic but outdated information, ranking potential, existing traffic or backlinks, needs better examples, formatting, or optimization.
• Consolidate: Multiple posts targeting the same search intent, thin or overlapping content, several posts that could become one stronger resource.
• Redirect/remove: No longer relevant, no meaningful traffic or backlinks, outdated topic that doesn’t fit your business anymore, content that could hurt rather than help the overall quality of the site.

Then, prioritize what blogs to update first.

Step 3: Prioritize Blog Updates Before Creating New Content

You don’t need as many new posts as you think. It’s actually smarter to update old content first.

Here’s why:

• The post already has history and authority with search engines.
• It may already have backlinks.
• It may already rank for relevant keywords.
• Updating it can be faster than creating an entirely new blog.
• You can improve the post based on what you know now.

Look specifically for easy wins to get some traction back to your blog.

Prioritize updating posts that:

• Already rank on page two
• Have lots of impressions but relatively few clicks
• Are ranking for relevant secondary keywords
• Have existing backlinks
• Used to perform well but have declined
• Are highly relevant to a service you currently sell

And here’s everything you need to know about updating old blog posts!

Step 4: Revisit Your Keyword Strategy

Your business may have changed significantly since you last blogged, so your keyword strategy should change with it.

Are your old topics still attracting the right audience? Maybe you were a virtual assistant, and now you specialize in offering web design. Those are very different blog topics. 

Do some keyword research for what you want to talk about going forward. Prioritize relevance and business value, not just search volume.

Step 5: Realign Your Blog to Your Current Business Goals

What do you actually want your blog to accomplish? What about blogging makes it worth your time?

Your goals might include:

• Increasing organic traffic
• Generating leads
• Supporting service pages
• Building authority
• Answering sales objections
• Educating prospective clients
• Supporting a product launch
• Increasing visibility for a specific service

Then, begin to brainstorm topic ideas around your current offers. This helps your blog become a marketing tool rather than another item on your content checklist.

Step 6: Create a Realistic Publishing Schedule

Don’t come back from a six-month hiatus and decide you’re suddenly going to publish three times a week. That’s how you end up taking another break. It’s not realistic (for anyone, really) and you won’t be able to maintain that schedule.

Long-term consistency matters more than quantity. Think about what you can actually commit to. 

Examples:

• One post per month
• Two posts per month
• One new post + one update per month
• Two new posts + one update per quarter

There isn’t a universally “correct” blogging frequency. Pick something that feels easy and grow from there if it feels right.

And don’t forget to consider your entire marketing workload. If you’re already posting on Instagram every day on top of your client work, a weekly blog might feel like too much, but a monthly blog might feel doable.

A manageable publishing schedule you maintain for a year is far more valuable than an ambitious schedule you ditch after six weeks.

Take this quiz to figure out how often you should be blogging to meet your goals.

Step 7: Plan Your First 90 Days Back

Rather than thinking about your entire content calendar, focus on your first three months.

• Which old blogs will you update?
• What topics do you want to write and publish?
• How will you promote your blogs after you write them?

You’re easing back into it and taking advantage of the blogging motivation you have.

Step 8: Reintroduce Your Blog to Your Audience

You don’t necessarily need a dramatic “I’m back!” announcement, but you should make it easy for your audience to discover your new content.

Share new posts with your email list or on your social media. You can link to specific posts in sales conversations or after inquiries.

Not only will this give you a little SEO boost, but you’ll be providing value to your audience.

And you can start to repurpose blog content, too. One blog post can become:

• Social posts
• Email content
• Pinterest pins
• Short-form videos
• FAQs
• Sales enablement content
• Podcasts

This can make blogging feel worth your effort because you’re not creating something that only lives on your website.

Step 9: Track the Right Metrics After You Return

In these first 90 days, you’ll want to monitor:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Rankings
• Number of keywords ranking
• Organic landing pages

But blogging isn’t always about traffic. You’ll also want to track:

• Leads
• Contact form submissions
• Sales calls
• Email signups
• Product purchases
• Service inquiries

And sometimes it’s enough to know you’re helping your audience and priming them to work with you someday.

The most important thing about analytics is to look at trends rather than expecting immediate results. Look at year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter, or month-to-month. 

SEO takes time, especially when you’re rebuilding momentum.

You Don’t Have to Start From Scratch

A break from blogging doesn’t mean you have to rebuild your blog from the ground up. Build a blog strategy for your business going forward.

Here’s how I can help you stick with your blogging motivation!

• Free Content Calendar: Keep a list of your topic ideas and publishing schedule in an organized calendar.
• Blog Updates: I’ll help you bring old blogs back to life. If your audit shows a lot of updates are needed, this is for you!
• Blog Writing: Don’t want to deal with blog writing? I’ll handle everything from topic ideation, researching, writing, and publishing.