Blogging – 10 points to consider when planning your blog

In my  last post I wrote about steps to start a blog.  But before starting your blog as anything in life we need to plan what we want to get out of that blog. This will give us a better chance of succeeding. I know what you may be thinking, there are lots of people that start their blog and do not plan anything. And I am guilty of this myself. But we all know that the better we plan everything in life the greater the chances of succeeding. We normally do not get in our car and decide to drive without knowing our destination.   The same applies to blogging. Believe me I have been guilty of this, and my blog has not advanced as quickly as I wanted, but I am a firm believer that everything happens at the right time.

So when I say we need to plan our blog there are a couple of things we need to decide on:

1. Is my blog my  business. Is my business blogging, or do I have an actual business and I use the blog to interact with clients and market the business. Generally many people start blogging on something that interests them, like a hobby, a philosophy or just as a way to express themselves. With time the blog becomes successful and then they go onto earning money from  the blog and some become  full time bloggers.   Others, just keep blogging but are not really interested in becoming full time bloggers or they do not even bother with the monetization of the blog.  A third group is the people that have an offline business but want to use blogging to expand their business and interact with their customers.
2. Then you need to decide what type of blogging software you will use (refer to my previous post for this) and our domain name which needs to be strategically chosen.
3. Obviously if it is a new blog and business or if you are blogging for fum you need to decide what you are going  to blog about. If you are doing it for fun is one thing, but if you are planning  to create a business then you need to research the subject and be sure that there is an interest out there. There needs to be a tribe as they call it. Who will be your target market?
4. What is your blog mission and vision?
5. Then we need to think on how often you will blog. The more often you do the faster your traffic will increase. Ideally you should blog daily but if not a minimum of twice a week.
6. What strategies will you use to create traffic, how will you create backlinks?  Are you going to use articles, are you going to visit regularly other blogs where you will leave your comments? How much time will you spend in these activities?
7. Are you going to have guests writers in your blog? Will you contact other bloggers to post in their blogs?
8. Are you going to use social media to increase your traffic? How much time will you spend in social media? What applications will you use: Twitter, Facebook, etc?
9. How are you going to monetize your blog? Are you planning to create products to sell? Maybe interviewing interesting people, or creating a e-course, or maybe selling other products, or recommending other people products.
10. Are you going to let other people advertise in your blog.

The better prepared you are with a plan, and the more focused you are,  the greater the success. Just take teh time to learn about this points and decide what your strategy will be. It may take some time now, but it will save you time later.  In some instances there are bootcamps or courses that help you define all of this. The great thing about these bootcamps is that you are not alone. It is like a Mastermind group where you can interact with lots of people in the same situation and get feedback from them. You also increase your network. I have come to realize that without a network we do not go far. Networking is a subject for another post, but participating of this bootcmaps, gives you a chance of networking which could help expanding your business just as in the offline world. Leo Babauta’s bootcamp is a great place to learn more about blogging and to get in touch with other bloggers. Leo has attracted over 150000 subscribers in just 2 years for his blog Zen Habits and he is opening the doors to his bootcamp called How to make your blog pay the bills, May 16-20. The enrollment opens on Tuesday May 11 at 12:00pm Eastern time and closes on Sunday May 15 at midnight.  So if you were thinking of starting your blog, maybe this is your opportunity to do it, but if not get at least his free report on how he  got over 100000 subscribers in two years.

If you decide to enroll in his bootcamp through my blog, then I will give you one hour free telephonic coaching session for free. Just email me at andrea [ at] coachtoexcellence.com with your name and details.

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