Most successful blogs concentrate on one large topic area, which is then broken down into smaller sections. Of course, there are varying degrees of this method, but for the most part it is a good outline to follow.
When I started this blog, I decided on three large topics: freelance writing, blogging, and internet marketing. As you can probably imagine, these are three topics that I have a lot of experience with. The biggest key to blogging success is to choose a topic that you love. When you do this, you can be rest assured that you will never get bored. Although there are days when I have to make time to write posts, it is always fine because I love my subject matter.
Within the three larger topics, my goal is to touch on anything and everything that I think my readers will enjoy. For instance, there is much more to freelance writing than what you see on the surface. Subtopics include everything from finding clients to getting paid to writing techniques. As I move forward with this blog, all of these subtopics, and many more, will be detailed time after time.
One of the most difficult tasks for some bloggers is to stay on track with their content. There are times when I have 100 other things on my mind, and many of them are of great interest to me, but unfortunately readers do not come here for that information. For me, the best way to stay on track is to always have a good backlog of article topics. This allows me to research the information that I want to offer, and then put together a quality post. As you can imagine, this is a much better idea than simply thinking of a topic on the spot, and then starting to write with no direction whatsoever.
These are all things that you should think about before you start a blog as well as when you are moving forward. There is nothing worse than building a readership, just to decide that you want to move in a different direction. If this happens, you are more or less undoing and throwing out all of the hard work that you put into the project.
Remember this: you can blog about whatever you want. Just make sure that you love your topic, and that it is large enough to encompass several subtopics. This will help you immensely from post number one. Â
A blog can be whatever you want it to be. It can be a place where you write down your thoughts and feelings, a place to share your work, and of course, a place to make money. When I started this blog I was a bit unsure of the direction that I was going in. Sure, I had some goals, but as you probably know, things never stay the same for long.
Although these are bound to change sometime in the future, here are three goals that I would like to accomplish as this blog moves forward.
1. My number one goal is to supply my readers with content and resources that are going to help them succeed as a blogger, freelance writer, or internet entrepreneur. All in all, if my readers are not happy, I am not doing my job. To go along with this, increasing the amount of comments that I receive is also a long term goal of mine.
2. As you may have heard in the past, many feel that a blog is not worth monetizing until traffic reaches a high, sustainable level. Of course, it is up to you to determine what constitutes high and sustainable. For me, my goal is to increase traffic month after month. If I can continue to move in the right direction, I will then begin to look for ways to begin the monetization phase.
3. Although money is not my primary goal, as mentioned above, an income from this blog is something that I would like to achieve sooner or later. Instead of setting a lofty goal, such as $3,000 per month, I am going to start on a smaller scale. Once traffic is at a solid level, I am going to attempt to reach the goal of earning $100/month. This is far from being a large goal, but in my opinion, it is always better to start with small goals and then work from there.
Overall, I guess you could say that these are my three primary goals for this blog. They will undoubtedly change from time to time, but hopefully they will help me to continue to move in a positive direction.
What goals do you have for your blog? Are they similar to mine?
There is a great article in BusinessWeek about blogging, how to make money from your blog, and of course, a list of some of the best. If you are looking for a way to get motivated, this is the article for you.
The thing that I liked most about this article was the wide range of blogs that they detailed. Most articles like this only talk about the biggest blogs that make the most money. And this one does a bit of that as well. For instance, boingboing.net is featured, and they earn more than $1 million/year through ad sales. But on the other side of things, blogs such as icanhascheezburger.com are discussed, and they earn a more attainable $5,600/month.
If you get the chance, check out this article. It is not long, and there is also a short slideshow that features 13 blogs.
If nothing else, it will definitely get you motivated!
