5. What do you want your readers to DO when they read your blog? This relates to the goals you set for your blog. If your blog is a lead generator, then you must have very clear steps for guiding your reader to subscribe to get blog updates or get your lead generating content.
6. How much time do you have to devote to your blog each week? This is getting to the heart of blogging. If you cannot commit to creating constant, consistent content, you’re doing yourself and your readers a disservice. Be honest. The most effective and successful blogs are those with fresh, new content posted at least two to three times per week. Your posts don’t have to be essays – 200-300 words is fine. Is that reasonable for you to manage? Will you have a team of bloggers? Remember, there are many, many ways to create content. It doesn’t have to be all you all of the time.
Tip – Posting content consistently and constantly, 2 – 3 times per week, will yield more traffic to your blog.
7. What’s your blog’s core message? This relates to the topic of your blog and the niche. What do you want your readers to learn? Why should anyone read your blog and more importantly, why should they subscribe and follow your blog? This is another key piece to get in place before you start your blog. Brian Clark publisher of Copyblogger.com recommends creating “cornerstone content”. This is a collection of posts articulating your core message and providing new readers with an introduction and overview of what they can expect to learn from you.
8. Create an editorial calendar. It’s no secret that content rules on a blog, so it’s helpful to have a content plan going into the game. A key element of a good blog is having a list of 7 to 10 keyword rich categories. Once you determine the categories (or sub-topics) of your blog, you can plan your content calendar. If you plan on posting three times per week, then plot out post ideas for each of your categories. Make a list of five topics for each category. Then, fill in your calendar. Five topics times 10 categories and you’ve got 50 blog posts in the pipeline.
9. Do your homework. Critical to your blog’s success is knowledge of your competition. Who is already blogging in your niche? What are they writing about? If blogs in your niche are scarce this may be a great opportunity to dominate the search engines with your own content. Finding great blogs will take a bit of time and research. Start at Technorati.com and search for blogs using your keywords. Next use Alltop.com and Blogs.com to find the best of the best.
Do your homework. Who else is writing in your niche? Use Technorati.com, Alltop.com and Blogs.com to find relevant blogs in your industry
10. Build your blog. Now that the research is done, you know your message and have content ready to go, it’s time to get down to business and build the blog. This is where the fun part starts.
The preceding content was an excerpt from the upcoming Success Secrets Of The Social Media Marketing Superstars (Entrepreneur Press July 2010) by Mitch Meyerson
Denise Wakeman, Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad. Denise has been using the Internet as a marketing tool since 1996. She is a specialist at helping authors, speakers, service professionals, and small business owners leverage blogs for their business, as well as strategically use social media tools to boost online visibility to get more traffic, leads, clients and opportunities. For more information: www.DeniseWakeman.com
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Nice post with great tips. I especially like creating an editorial calendar so you have an idea about the direction of your content. Once I get the direction I sit and bubble for topics. Remember being creative is the name of the game.
Glad you found them helpful Kirby! Mitch