5 Things To Consider Before You Start Your Blog

If you are going to start a blog there are some things that you need to consider before you take the plunge.

1.) Free blog service or set up your own - that’s the question is it better to use one of the free services like blogger.com or should you set up your own site with it’s own domain name?

If you are planning on using your blog to promote an existing business or if you are planning to use it in any way to make money I recommend that you set up your blog on your own site. If you are just using a blog to tell your friends what is going on or to let out your personal rants with no plans to make money with it you should be fine on the free services.

Having your own domain name and your own site makes it so that you can add features like plugins that will optimize your site for better performance in the search engines which should bring more targeted prospects to your site.

2,) What blogging software should you use - you have the choice of lots of software but I recommend you stay with WordPress because it has the most support, the most plugins and the most themes and almost all of them are free and easy to use.

3.) Stay in your niche - when you create a blog you should know what niche you are going to be working in. Make sure you stay in this niche. If you stray too far you will loose readers because no one wants to go to a blog about fitness and read about the new triple chocolate supreme delight being offered around the corner.

If you keep your blog in one niche the likelihood of getting readers to come back time and time again is greatly improved. This brands you as an expert in your niche and builds loyalty with your prospective customers.

Your niche should be something that you have an interest in. Even if you aren’t the expert you should still be able to tell if a post is good or if it sucks and only put good ones on.

4.) Use keywords that get searched - a lot of the traffic you get to your blog comes from keywords that are searched in the search engines. Do a little research and see if the keywords you are targeting actually get searched.

You can do some quick keyword research using the Google Keyword tool. This will at least tell you if you are working with keywords that get searched.

5.) Make your blog reflect you - this simply means that your blog should be something that reflects your personality or the personality of your business. This can be the tone of voice you use in your posts or it can be something as simple as putting your name and picture on the blog. Let people know who is doing the talking, let them see you, let them put a face to the voice and you will find that you will get a better following than trying to be the anonymous expert.

These steps will get you started with blogging, review them before you start your blog or if you already have a blog going see if they apply to your blog. They are the backbone of almost all successful blogs.