BLOGS: MAINTENANCE

Maintaining a blog on Blogspot (Blogger) like TheeMotswana takes far more than just writing occasional posts. Here's a breakdown of what it really involves:

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📅 Time Commitment

Posting consistently: Even a modest schedule of 1 post/week requires around 45 minutes per post for drafting, images, formatting, and publishing .

Ongoing interaction: Replying to comments, moderating potential spam, and sharing posts on social platforms add several hours monthly—especially if you want engagement over vanity metrics.

Performance tracking: Moving beyond Blogger Stats to Google Analytics takes setup effort and weekly review time to understand real visitor behavior and refine your strategy .

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💸 Financial Resources

Platform cost: Blogspot is free, including hosting and subdomain.

Visuals & Tools: Unless you supply your own images, resource costs can include free stock (Pixabay, Pexels) or paid options. Tools like social schedulers (CoSchedule ~$19/mo, Tailwind ~$9.99/mo) can save hours but are optional .

Domains & upgrades: Establishing credibility may mean registering a custom domain (~$10–15/year) .

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🛠️ Effort & Technical Needs

Moderation & spam handling: Vigilance is needed—whether manually or with tools—to keep the blog clean and trustworthy.

Design maintenance: Even Blogspot themes occasionally break; tweaks to layout, widgets, and mobile view demand technical upkeep.

Analytics integration: Adding Google Analytics tracks real users, but requires correctly embedding tracking code .

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📝 Real-World Snapshot on TheeMotswana

Let's use the "Tribes in Botswana – Bakgatla" page as an example:

~500+ words of researched content, formatted across sections.

Links to related posts like "Tswana Peoples" or "Bangwaketse Tribe"—internal linking demands editing time.

Image formatting: photos, captions, centering, credit; resizing for readability on devices.

SEO details: customizing title, meta description, labels (e.g. Botswana, culture, tribes).

Estimated effort per post:

Drafting: 1–2 hrs • Formatting + images: 30–60 min • Linking & SEO: 30 min • Sharing across networks: 15–30 min = 2–4 hours total

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⚖️ Hidden Costs & Trade-offs

Social & emotional bandwidth: Blogging can feel like a time-suck if it doesn’t bring direct benefit .

Opportunity cost: Hours spent blogging could serve book-writing, freelance work, or deeper research instead.

Skill upkeep: To stay relevant, you need to brush up on SEO, analytics trends, and content strategy.

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🧭 Summary Table

Area Time Estimate Cost Estimate

Writing (per post) 1–2 hrs $0

Formatting & images 0.5–1 hr $0–$100/year (images/tools)

SEO & linking 0.5 hr $0

Promotion 0.25–0.5 hr $0–$240/year (schedulers)

Domain — $10–15/year

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🔗 Internal Blog Links

Linking within TheeMotswana enhances reader engagement. For example, in the Bakgatla post you’ll see links like:

The Bangwaketse Tribe

The Tswana Peoples

These aren’t just text—they link to detailed posts, which helps with SEO and encourages deeper site exploration.

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🎯 Final Takeaway

Running a Blogspot blog is deceptively demanding. It requires

2–4 hours per quality post,

monthly tool subscriptions or one-time image costs, and

ongoing technical maintenance.

If you're passionate about sharing knowledge—like your in-depth post on Bakgatla culture—it’s certainly worth it. But it's important to approach it with intentional time management and awareness of the resource investment 

required.

Keep writing, linking, and refining—and remember: every post tells a story worth the effort!

:

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⚖️ Hidden Costs & Trade-offs

• .
• Opportunity cost: Hours spent blogging could serve book-writing, freelance work, or deeper research instead.
• Skill upkeep: To stay relevant, you need to brush up on SEO, analytics trends, and content strategy.

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🧭 Summary Table

Area	Time Estimate	Cost Estimate
Writing (per post)	1–2 hrs	$0
Formatting & images	0.5–1 hr	$0–$100/year (images/tools)
SEO & linking	0.5 hr	$0
Promotion	0.25–0.5 hr	$0–$240/year (schedulers)
Domain	—	$10–15/year

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🔗 Internal Blog Links

Linking within TheeMotswana enhances reader engagement. For example, in the Bakgatla post you’ll see links like:

• The Bangwaketse Tribe
• The Tswana Peoples
  These aren’t just text—they link to detailed posts, which helps with SEO and encourages deeper site exploration.

---

🎯 Final Takeaway

Running a Blogspot blog is deceptively demanding. It requires

• 2–4 hours per quality post,
• monthly tool subscriptions or one-time image costs, and
• ongoing technical maintenance.

If you're passionate about sharing knowledge—like your in-depth post on Bakgatla culture—it’s certainly worth it. But it's important to approach it with intentional time management and awareness of the resource investment required.

Keep writing, linking, and refining—and remember: every post tells a story worth the effort!