If you are about to start a new blog it is important to spend some up front figuring out what your goals are as that will guide every aspect of how you run your blog. One person running a business blog is likely to do things very differently from somebody writing a political blog for example.
It doesn't matter whether you are just starting out on your blogging career or you've already started. Read through the factors in this article and begin to form the answers in your mind.
Develop a Profile Of Your Target Audience
The first thing to consider is your target audience - the people that will read your blog. Are they men or women? Are they young/old, married? What kind of jobs do they have? How is their income? What are their internet skills like?
The reason this is important is because it helps you figure out how to market your blog. A young man who is heavily into the Internet is more likely to Digg your latest blog post than somebody who still finds email tricky.
How are your readers likely to consume your content? Younger people for example are often very busy, read lots of blogs, and try to consume a lot of information very quickly. They aren't likely to read every word in full but will scan your posts instead. This will effect the kind of content you produce and your writing style.
Your Blog Monetization Strategies
If you intend to generate a revenue from your blog you need to be thinking about how to monetize it from the start. For example, a popular method is to sell private advertising space but you can't do that if the design of your blog does not have prominent ad spots so this is something you need to think about before settling on a design or blog theme.
If you intend to promote some kind of product or service (whether your own or somebody else's) then your monetization will differ as this will work best if you work your promotion efforts seamlessly into all aspects of your blog, including the writing.
There are some easy monetization options such as AdSense can that slot into just about any blog and there are all sorts of sizes and shapes of ads to choose from. The question then becomes, do I place ads from the beginning or wait until I have more traffic?
In my opinion, if you are blogging in order to earn an income then incorporate some ads on your blog straight away. The details don't matter at first as you'll have no traffic anyway but there is a good reason for doing it up-front: As you begin to build your blog readership they will come to expect that you are blogging for money and expect to see your ads. If you suddenly introduce them some time later some of your readers will complain, accuse you of being a sellout and so on!
Also, you will often pick up future advertisers from within your blog audience but if you don't have any ads on your blog they would not even know that your blog would be a suitable place to advertise.
Determine The Brand For Your Blog
One very important thing about branding is that it is very difficult to change later on. Right from the start think about what image you are trying to project. Are you promoting yourself as a person in your blog or are you promoting your blog name as a brand within itself (think Lifehacker, TechCrunch, BoingBoing)? If you are promoting yourself then think about graphics - do you have a standard avatar for yourself that you can use? Make sure you do because when you get social media right that avatar gets *everywhere*!
Moving In A New Direction With An Existing Blog?
It is not unusual to start out a blog and then later on realize that you want to change the direction it is going in. If you have an already established blog think about where it stands currently on the points mentioned above. What kind of audience does it currently attract? Is that the audience you want? What monetization are you using and are you happy with it? Is your audience responding well to it? Finally, what image are you projecting, if any?
If you need to change anything that is ok, it is better to figure it out and then bear those changes in mind as you move forward rather than just blindly continuing on with something you are not happy with.
Pertamax Kang Nice Info smbil Kasih Z Fitrah
Just wake up and directly visiting my dear friend here, to wish thanks and have a great days ahead...:thumbsup:
Comeng Balik Kang...!!
nice info
Keep posting OKay?