The common mistake that bloggers do is to go straight to writing after they're done constructing their blogs. This is definitely no problem is you have a clear idea of what you're suppose to write, who are you writing for and how you should write it. Writing content for your blog plays a crucial role to your blog's success and therefore, it requires skills and knowledge to do it.
Today's article focuses on writing good content for your blog readers and in order to do so we have to deal with these three questions:
1. Who are you writing for?
2. What are you suppose to write?
3. How should you write it?
Millions of people surf the Internet everyday to look for some specific information. The information ranges from anarchism to zionism, the latest to the oldest, or from 0 to infinity. Given this case, bloggers have so much to blog about. Unfortunately, not every topic can be possibly covered by a single or a few bloggers. Even wikipedia does not have all the information in its database. Moreover, thousands of blogs or weblogs and websites are created everyday making the competition fiercer. What can we infer from these data? Simple. We need a strategic approach in blogging to secure our blog's survivability and success.
Who are you writing for? Blog Readers
Yes, I know that you are blogging for your blog readers but do you know who are your blog readers?
If you are blogging for everyone who visits the Internet then you lack strategic approach in blogging. If however, you have a specific target reader, then you'll probably be successful.
Because we cannot cater to every netizen, the need to segment them arises. I call it Concentrated Blogging. Concentrated Blogging is the process of segmenting or subdividing blog readers to identify a specific segment or subdivision where you can leverage your blog. Concentrated Blogging allows bloggers to focus writing to a specific group of people. Catering to a specific group of people provides the benefit of being able to understand them better, know what they need, what they want etc.
Let's take the case of bloggingmix.com. For my blog, I have decided to write about blogging for bloggers. But bloggers can still be further subdivided into beginners, intermediate, and experts. I've finally decided to write for beginners and intermediate bloggers because I believe I know them better. I have been in the stage of starting my own blog and developing it so I know the needs and wants of beginners and intermediate bloggers.
What are you suppose to write? Quality Information for Blog Readers
What do you think will happen to bloggingmix.com if I start to write about my favorite color or when I blog about my friend's friend's dog? I'm sure, by the time I know it, my blog readers found a better blog that will provide them information about blogging. This is where the idea of continuity (consistency), one of the 3Cs of blogging, comes in. Details about continuity will be discussed thoroughly in the succeeding articles.
People go on-line to search the Internet for Quality Information, information that they need, relevant and useful to them. If you don't have it, expect that there will be few people who will be visiting your blog. Or you might not have any visitors at all. So what are you suppose to write? The answer is obvious. You should write about something that your readers need and want. It should not be a bunch of useless article but rather informative, relevant and useful to them. Try to do this in your blog and see how amazing quality information can do to it.
I have to say however that writing about your personal experiences, or personal stuffs about yourself is not wrong. This is of course assuming that your target readers are limited to your family, relatives and friends. Otherwise, you need to be very controversial or popular for people to be curious and become interested of your life.
How should you write your blog entries? Consider the Nature of your Blog Readers
If you are blogging for Investors then it's perfectly fine to use terms such as Net Present Value, Internal Rate of Return, Discounted Cash Flow etc. But if your blog is dedicated to the average Joe, there's simply no need of using panoplies of multi-syllabic words and quintessential examples if you can decipher the intricacies of your thoughts into fundamental ideas that everybody can comprehend. In short, your objective as a blogger is to send the message across to your target blog readers. Failure to do so, is failed blogging.
There are several ways that bloggers write. Darren Rowse of Problogger.com writes short articles while Steve Pavlina of StevePavlina.com writes elaborate and long articles. Both of them are successful bloggers but their ways of blogging are different. What does this have to tell you about how to write blog posts? Simple. Writing for your blog should not necessarily be elaborate or short… the bottom line is Quality Information. My advice is write freely and objectively. If your topic calls for an elaborate writing, then elaborate is should be but if you don't need too much words to make yourself clear and send your message across, then say it briefly.
In my succeeding articles, I will be writing about how to write search-engine-friendly blog posts. Your primary priority is to blog for your readers and second on the lists are search engines. I'm sure that you are aware that search engines (i.e. Google, MSN, Allthewebs, Lycos etc.) are great sources of traffic for your blog, hence, you should write your blog entries in such a way that it pleases these search engines. Watch out how in the coming posts.
If you have found this article useful, I hope you take the time to share it with others by Digging it, or bookmarking it. I will also appreciate if you take the time to leave your comments or tell us what you think about this article.
MORE READINGS
1. Cost Free Blogging Services
http://www.bloggingmix.com/2007/06/cost-free-blogging-services.html
2. Blogger: Blogger's Choice for Blogging
http://www.bloggingmix.com/2007/06/blogger-bloggers-choice-for-blogging.html
3. Construct Your Own Cost Free Blog with Blogger
http://www.bloggingmix.com/2007/06/construct-your-own-cost-free-blog-with.html
About The Author
Rocky John Tayaban
I'm just a simple guy who's passionate about blogging. An MBA student at Durham University, UK. I blog at http://www.bloggingmix.com
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