You’re new to blogging and understandably, you are excited to talk about a lot of things that are running on your mind. Do not fall into that trap! If you want to be successful in blogging, you should practice caution when writing your posts.
True, some people do regard their blogs as their online journals where they can rant or rave on issues, depending on how their day went.
And yes it’s also true that reading about people’s rants and raves can be quite entertaining but it gets old over time.
If you want to keep your readers hooked, there’s more to blogging than just talking about how your day went.
5 Building Blocks to Blogging
1. Decide on a Theme
What is your blog all about? You have to have a specific theme for your blog so you can target the right readers.
A smorgasbord of themes could bring in various readers but you will not be cornering the readership audience that you want because they really wouldn’t know what your blog is all about.
They may have read one particular post that was relevant to them but browsing through your blog, they couldn’t find anything similar anymore. Their visit will then most likely be a one-shot deal.
2. Blog Name
Your blog’s identity lies in its name. In marketing, it’s called branding. Your blog name is your branding. It is therefore of vital importance that you be careful about choosing a name for your blog.
When readers come across your blog, just by reading its name, they will already know what your blog talks about – or at least get a pretty close picture of what the blog deals with.
To come up with a name, refer back to your theme.
3. Choose a Relevant Topic
As tempting as it is, talking about nothing and no one else but you and your personal concerns is not a very promising start to a blogging career. Choose topics that will interest your readers.
Choosing topics of course is in relation to your blog theme. What you write about should be in keeping with what your blog promised to give its audience.
4. Write Informed Posts
You may have picked out a uniformed theme, you may have come up with a brilliant blog name and you may have a really good topic that you know will interest lots of online readers but your work isn’t finished, yet.
Writing posts does not mean you just keep striking on your keyboard until you finish a whole paragraph. You have to research for your topic especially if it’s something that you know very little about.
You should know you can’t fool readers. Today’s internet community is composed of really brilliant and smart surfers so don’t try putting one over them. Sooner or later you will be found out.
You also do not want to give wrong information to your readers because this might harm them or put them in danger such as when you talk about health conditions, medicines or losing weight.
5. Advertise
Online, you don’t have to spend anything to be able to advertise whatever you want to promote. There are plenty of tools that you can use and these are available for free.
You want to let your target audience know that you exist online? Utilize social media. Advertise your blog on networking sites. You can provide links to your posts through your personal networking site/s or you can also create a separate account for your blog.
Provide links to your blog on other blogs. Be careful though that you do not step on certain boundaries. Do your advertising within ethical standards.
You don’t want to turn off your potential readers by being crass about your advertising methods.
Jim is a free lancer writer of www.waysto.org and he is doing research on online money making.