How to set your new blog up for success
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Are you thinking about starting a blog? I’m excited for you!
But although it’s rewarding, blogging takes a lot of time and commitment, and you want to be sure all your hard work is worth it.
To find out whether you’re ready for that commitment and get you started on the right foot, I’ve developed a list of things to consider before you even create your blog.
1. What are you trying to achieve with your blog?
You’ll find it easier to stay committed to your blog if you have specific goals in mind. Ask yourself exactly what you’re trying to achieve.
Some of the benefits I’ve experienced since I started blogging in 2006 include:
- Speaking and media opportunities
- Building relationships with readers who became clients
- Growing my audience through email and social media
Your goals may be different. Perhaps you want to attract more of your ideal clients, increase traffic to your website, sell digital products, or simply become a trusted resource in your niche. Whatever your objectives, defining them from the start will help you measure your progress.
In fact, if you just start blogging without a goal in mind, you probably won’t see any results.
Setting goals is therefore a very important first step.
2. Who is your intended audience?
The foundation of a blog today is to know who your readers are, what they need, and what they expect from you.
Effective content marketing is all about creating and delivering content that will appeal to the right people, in the right places, at the right times. To create content that will appeal to the person who is likely to purchase your services, you need to know precisely who that is. For help with this step, read 20 Essential Questions to Identify Your Ideal Customer by Florentina at Moonshot Pirates.
3. What are you going to blog about?
With a clear idea of your target audience and their interests, you can begin to brainstorm topics. Think about the questions your audience asks repeatedly. Those questions often become your best blog posts.
I highly recommend that you come up with a list of broad categories. Sticking to this list will help you to stay focused.
While you’re coming up with topic ideas, start planning the type of content you’ll post, such as full-length articles, list posts, quick tips, videos, and so on.
4. When will you carry out your blogging activities?
You can’t just sit down and crank out a post when you have a break in your schedule. To create the type of content that’s going to bring results, you need to schedule time for the following activities.
- Planning
- Writing
- Adding images and formatting
- Optimizing for search and readability
- Publishing
- Promoting
I’ll describe these in more detail in my next post.
The amount of time you can devote to blogging will directly influence how many posts you can consistently create, based on your schedule. It’s far better to publish one helpful post every month than to publish every week for a month and then disappear for six months.
5. Where will your blog “live?”
If you can incorporate a blog into your existing website, that’s ideal. If you don’t yet have a website, you can choose from a variety of website platforms, with WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix among the most popular.
I usually write about WordPress because it’s incredibly flexible. It can be used for everything from a simple one-page website to a full e-learning platform and just about anything in between. That’s one reason it powers a large percentage of websites around the world, and it’s the only platform I’ve worked with for many years.
WordPress offers tremendous flexibility, but it also has a steeper learning curve than Squarespace or Wix. Like any website, it requires ongoing maintenance, including updates, backups, and security monitoring.
If your priority is getting a professional-looking website online quickly with minimal technical work, Squarespace or Wix may be a better fit. If you expect your website to grow and want greater flexibility and customization, WordPress is worth considering.
Before making your decision, think about your short- and long-term goals. The best platform is the one that fits your business, your comfort level with technology, and the amount of time you’re willing to invest in managing your website.
Want more blogging tips?
Join Blogging Organizers on Facebook, where professional organizers share ideas, ask questions, and encourage one another. It’s a welcoming place to learn and grow as a blogger.
Blogging isn’t about publishing as much content as possible. It’s about consistently creating helpful content that answers your audience’s questions and builds trust over time. Start with a solid plan, stay consistent, and your blog can become one of your most valuable business assets.
Photo © Kayla Butler / Ivorymix
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This is so helpful to those getting started on their blogging journey. I wish I had read this before I began mine. I went in sort of “blind,” without a good awareness of what it was going to require. I also was sort of fuzzy about my goals and my target market.
Over my years of blogging, I’ve seen how important it is to have answers to all the questions you ask. The clearer you are at the outset, the easier (and more fun!) the blogging process will be. 🙂
I, too, learned the hard way! This wasn’t my first blog, so I knew more when I created it, but I’ve still learned a lot along the way. And some things are easier to rectify than others!
I created my best content after my virtual and on-site consultations. =) It is so much more motivating. Great tips for new bloggers and for those who haven’t updated in a while. I have helped clients on Squarespace, and it is pretty easy to keep updated and still look professional. Thanks for sharing these useful tips, Janet.
Thanks for your comment! It’s great how speaking with clients heightens our awareness of the type of information others will find valuable.
Thanks for the reminders. I really need to go back to the top 4 or 5 broad categories and work from that. Usually, I get my best blogs from working with clients and their problems.
It can be a challenge sometimes! Part of us wants to mix things up, both for variety and to show the scope of our expertise, but being focused really does give readers (and search engines) a clearer picture of what your blog is about.
This is a great primer for anyone just getting into blogging. When I started my blog in 2007, I’d read a handful of blogs regularly, but hadn’t seen any in the organizing and productivity field that excited me yet. All I knew was from reading the ProBlogger blog, and most of the issues he covered didn’t apply to my itty-bitty blog.
This was before social media was really a thing, so most, I just wanted to build a blog to share my expertise. I knew some of the reasons I wanted to blog (to provide education to people who couldn’t become my clients, to interest people who might actually become clients) but there were reasons I had yet to discover (like using the material as the basis for what would become my book).
Back then, I knew my audience and had a fairly clear idea about the content, but the concepts of adding images, optimizing, and promoting didn’t come until later. I started on WordPress because it was the only thing my web designer made available to me when I transferred content from Ramona’s OnlineOrganizing.com group blog to my website. Perhaps if I’d know about other platforms (if they even existed back then), I’d have tried something different. But after almost 19 years, the last thing I want to do know is learn a new platform; I barely want to learn everything I need to do to keep up with WordPress!
I definitely wish that I’d had you holding my hand on all things bloggy back when I started my blog.
Ha! 19 years ago, I’m not sure how much help I’d have been! We’ve both learned a lot – and seen a lot of changes – along the way.
I’m not sure there were other blogging platforms back then, except maybe Blogger, but it didn’t have nearly the number of features we enjoy with WordPress.