If you are about to start a new blog it is important to spend some up front figuring out what your goals are as that will guide every aspect of how you run your blog. One person running a business blog is likely to do things very differently from somebody writing a political blog for example.
It doesn't matter if you are starting a new blog from scratch or if you already have one; it's always a good idea to think about your blog direction periodically.
Develop a Profile Of Your Target Audience
The first step is to figure out who your target audience is. Are they primarily men or women? WHat is their income level? Are they likely to be family-oriented with children? What about their technical / computer skills?
These questions can help you develop a profile which will affect some of your blogging practices. For example, social media works well with young tech-savvy readers but might be lost on an older audience that is not comfortable with the Internet.
How are your readers likely to consume your content? Younger people for example are often very busy, read lots of blogs, and try to consume a lot of information very quickly. They aren't likely to read every word in full but will scan your posts instead. This will effect the kind of content you produce and your writing style.
Your Blog Monetization Strategies
If you intend to generate a revenue from your blog you need to be thinking about how to monetize it from the start. For example, a popular method is to sell private advertising space but you can't do that if the design of your blog does not have prominent ad spots so this is something you need to think about before settling on a design or blog theme.
If you intend to promote some kind of product or service (whether your own or somebody else's) then your monetization will differ as this will work best if you work your promotion efforts seamlessly into all aspects of your blog, including the writing.
Other monetization options such as AdSense are usually easier to slot into just about any theme as there are many shapes and sizes of ads that you can use but then you need to ask yourself the question, do I place ads straight away or should I incorporate them later?
If you know that you are blogging for profit then you may as well start placing ads from the outset. You might not get much income at first as your traffic will be low but it means that when new readers come to your blog they know what to expect. Some readers can become offended when bloggers suddenly introduce advertising at a later date.
Also, you will often pick up future advertisers from within your blog audience but if you don't have any ads on your blog they would not even know that your blog would be a suitable place to advertise.
What Is My Brand Going To Be?
Branding is an important thing to think about because it is very difficult to change later on - especially if your brand is built into the domain name of your blog! Do you want to brand yourself as a person using your name or are you branding some business name or product etc? If you are promoting yourself consider graphics - do you have a suitable image of yourself that you can use as an avatar? You need to get this right because when you start using social media that avatar will get absolutely everywhere!
Moving In A New Direction With An Existing Blog?
It is not unusual to start out a blog and then later on realise that you want to change the direction it is going in. If you have an already established blog think about where it stands currently on the points mentioned above. What kind of audience does it currently attract? Is that the audience you want? What monetization are you using and are you happy with it? Is your audience responding well to it? Finally, what image are you projecting, if any?
If you need to change anything that is ok, it is better to figure it out and then bear those changes in mind as you move forward rather than just blindly continuing on with something you are not happy with.
It doesn't matter if you are starting a new blog from scratch or if you already have one; it's always a good idea to think about your blog direction periodically.
Develop a Profile Of Your Target Audience
The first step is to figure out who your target audience is. Are they primarily men or women? WHat is their income level? Are they likely to be family-oriented with children? What about their technical / computer skills?
These questions can help you develop a profile which will affect some of your blogging practices. For example, social media works well with young tech-savvy readers but might be lost on an older audience that is not comfortable with the Internet.
How are your readers likely to consume your content? Younger people for example are often very busy, read lots of blogs, and try to consume a lot of information very quickly. They aren't likely to read every word in full but will scan your posts instead. This will effect the kind of content you produce and your writing style.
Your Blog Monetization Strategies
If you intend to generate a revenue from your blog you need to be thinking about how to monetize it from the start. For example, a popular method is to sell private advertising space but you can't do that if the design of your blog does not have prominent ad spots so this is something you need to think about before settling on a design or blog theme.
If you intend to promote some kind of product or service (whether your own or somebody else's) then your monetization will differ as this will work best if you work your promotion efforts seamlessly into all aspects of your blog, including the writing.
Other monetization options such as AdSense are usually easier to slot into just about any theme as there are many shapes and sizes of ads that you can use but then you need to ask yourself the question, do I place ads straight away or should I incorporate them later?
If you know that you are blogging for profit then you may as well start placing ads from the outset. You might not get much income at first as your traffic will be low but it means that when new readers come to your blog they know what to expect. Some readers can become offended when bloggers suddenly introduce advertising at a later date.
Also, you will often pick up future advertisers from within your blog audience but if you don't have any ads on your blog they would not even know that your blog would be a suitable place to advertise.
What Is My Brand Going To Be?
Branding is an important thing to think about because it is very difficult to change later on - especially if your brand is built into the domain name of your blog! Do you want to brand yourself as a person using your name or are you branding some business name or product etc? If you are promoting yourself consider graphics - do you have a suitable image of yourself that you can use as an avatar? You need to get this right because when you start using social media that avatar will get absolutely everywhere!
Moving In A New Direction With An Existing Blog?
It is not unusual to start out a blog and then later on realise that you want to change the direction it is going in. If you have an already established blog think about where it stands currently on the points mentioned above. What kind of audience does it currently attract? Is that the audience you want? What monetization are you using and are you happy with it? Is your audience responding well to it? Finally, what image are you projecting, if any?
If you need to change anything that is ok, it is better to figure it out and then bear those changes in mind as you move forward rather than just blindly continuing on with something you are not happy with.
About the Author:
Caroline Middlebrook has been blogging in the Internet marketing niche since August 2007 and her popular blog generates a 4-figure income every month. She teaches people how to make money blogging and offers downloads of her free guides & courses from her website.
No comments:
Post a Comment