Before You Start Blogging Find Out if it’s Right For You
You can find many people online telling you that blogging is the best thing since website creation software was developed. Blogs, unlike websites are much easier to set-up and maintain. They allow community to post comments unlike web sites. Blogs even have special directories where you can submit them and instantly gain additional traffic to your very own blog. However, before you jump into the online craze and start creating blogs, you have to realize if it’s really what you want.
Blogs require additional work on your part. While nobody forces you to post new content regularly, your blog community will expect that. That’s why blogs are popular. People expect to see new information, updated quite often, sometimes as often as everyday. So before you blog, think about your audience and what they need and want first. Secondly, think about yourself. Will you able to deliver them what they expect or not?
- Writing for Blog – Ask yourself if you enjoy writing. As a matter of fact, many people hate writing. Even copywriters and journalists. But if you want to build a great blog and keep your audience starving for new information, you have to start writing. You have to devote some time (few hours a day) and write content. But not just anything. Think about your blog. What it’s about and why it exists? Who is your target market? Write useful and valuable content for your readers. If you spend some time everyday tracking the news in your industry and writing about that, your readers will appreciate that and much more likely you’re going to build a sticky blog with responsive community.
- Learning for Blog – Just as it’s important to write for your blog (it’s actually a core of it all), it’s also very important to read and learn some new information everyday. If you have a website, then people come to it from time to time to see what’s new. So updating information once a week or a month is fine. However, as mentioned earlier, blog readers expect information to be posted much more often. In that case, you need to devote some time to learn. You need to read and learn new things everyday, otherwise you won’t have anything to write about. You need to be like radar and track everything that’s going on in your industry. Read news that would benefit your readers and write about that. You should probably spend more time reading that writing.
- Having a Thick Skin – If you are planning to have a blog and allow your readers to post comments about your articles, then you have to have what’s called a “thick skin”. It simply means that you have to be open to critics and negative opinion. Imaging that you have posted a comment on your blog and you receive some negative comments about your post and even about yourself. Some people simply break down. Yes, you can simply turn-off comments on your blog, but it won’t be a community blog anymore. If you really want to have a blog and loyal readers, you have to be open to criticism, rational and irrational. You should take rational critic well and consider it, while simply learn not to pay attention to people who just want to offend you.
- Thinking Long-Term – If you want to have a blog that is visited often, has high Alexa ranking, has loyal readers and is being mentioned on other (maybe well known) sources, then you have to think about a long-term strategy of your blog. Keep in mind that your blog is open for public, just like a forum. If your blog becomes popular, people will talk about it and also about you. Some will want to interview you, some might want to meet you. You have to realize that if your blog is successful then you, as the author, will become a local online “star” and your private life might change. You have to be ready for that.
As you see, having a blog is much broader than just popping up a few paragraphs of non-useful material and trying to monetize on that. Successful blog requires a lot of time and energy. But having a very popular blog can bring you lots of money without a doubt.
If your content is being cited on popular websites and newsletters, your readers are starving for every new post you gonna make, then you can bet that people will purchase the products you’re going to endorse to them. People will know you and trust you, therefore any quality product or service promotion could bring you lots of income and you could have a real and successful internet business with just one blog. And if you treat your blog seriously, then sooner or later you’re going to reach the level you dream about.
In Conclusion
A blog is a great way of connecting with your target audience. You can build an online community that will be responsive and follow your advice and endorsement. However, in order to accomplish that, you need to think about a long term strategy of your blog. If you are planning to get a blog just for a couple of months so you could make few bucks with Google Adsense or Chitika Ads, then save yourself from blogging.
If you want to have a long lasting and successful blog, don’t think only about money. Think about your readers first. Find about what they want and give them what they need. If you want to build strong relationship with your online community, you are ready to spend some time everyday reading, learning and writing for your readers, then having a blog might be ideal solution for you.
