5 questions to ask about your blog strategy
5 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU PUBLISH ANOTHER BLOG POST
1. Why are you writing a blog?
The answer should capture the overall purpose you have for writing a blog. So, why do you write online instead of in a journal? Do you want share you experiences or expertise in some area? Do you want to build a community around some cause? Do you just love to write and want people to read it? Do you want to make money by blogging? Do you want to sell your e-book?
In 2010, I started a travel blog. My purpose was to document my travels abroad online for my friends and family and so I could look back on my posts many years later. A few years later, I started a health and fitness blog because I liked writing about the subject and I wanted to try to make money by blogging. With paigepoutiainen.com, I wanted to establish myself as a blogging guru. (I’m still working on the last one!)
Whatever your purpose is now may change over time. That’s okay. The important thing is that you always know why you are blogging because this purpose should guide all the other decisions.
2. What do you want to achieve with your blog?
This answer should go together with the answer to question #1. If you’re building a community around a cause, maybe you want to increase donations. If you’re blogging to make money (with ads), maybe you want to increase your blog traffic. If you’re blogging for fun, maybe you just want people to read your blog.
With my travel blog, Small Town Girl, I only wanted to satisfy the requirements of my scholarship to keep a blog. (Of course, I had fun writing and enjoyed when friends and family commented and shared.) With my health and fitness blog, I wanted visitors to click on my Google ads, so I needed to attract a lot of traffic. With paigepoutiainen.com, I want to build a strong base of loyal readers.
3. Who are you writing for?
This is the point where I faltered in all my past blogging projects. I didn’t think about the reader. I only wrote for myself. Changing my focus from me to the reader (that means you!) has made the biggest impact in paigepoutiainen.com.
Imagine as clearly as possible who your ideal reader is. Is gender, age, location important? What activities might they be involved in? Do they have a family? What kind of work will they do? What motivates them to read your blog?
Not all questions will be relevant for all blogs. For example, a cooking blog might have primarily female readers. But my blogging blog could be interesting for men and women equally.
Henri Juttila, author of Write Blog Posts Readers Love, recommends to write to someone – whether this person is real or imaginary. He even says you can write to a younger, less experienced version of yourself.
Try to be specific here. “Everyone” is not a good answer to this question. According to Jay Baer, “It’s not just about getting more traffic; it’s about getting more traffic that gives a shit.”
4. What do you offer your readers?
Joe Pulizzi, author of Epic Content Marketing, writes that content creators only have two choices if we want to create epic content. We can either
