A Beginner’s Guide to Blogging
I get a lot of emails and tweets from new bloggers asking for advice about various aspects of blogging. I resent it, because it makes me feel old. I kid, I kid. Anyblog, I figured I’d put together a handy guide to answer some of the most frequently asked questions – I’m a giver like that. If there’s something you want to know that I don’t address here, feel free to ask it in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer it.
Getting Started
What will your blog be about and what do you want to say? Sounds obvious, but from the number of blogs that are started and abandoned soon after, you know it’s a toughy. When I came up with the idea for this blog, I bought the .com, then spent two months planning. I researched other blogs. What made the ones I enjoyed good to read? Why were some successful and others not? I then wrote content, rewrote it and wrote it again. I wrote (the old school way, pen and paper stylee) enough posts for 5 posts a week for 5 weeks, so that when my site went live, I had a bit of time to play with to write new content. Don’t be afraid to experiment with style in the early stages. You most likely won’t have a huge audience at that point so it’s a perfect opportunity to make mistakes and play around with tone and content.
Creating Content
The only time I’m not in blogging mode is when I’m asleep. Inspiration comes from everywhere, so during my waking hours, I’m absorbing everything; news, conversations, adverts, buildings, literally everything and thinking about how I can put a Bangs spin on it. Whatever it is you blog about, know that subject and constantly strive to learn more about it. Think about how you can adapt and use a subject for your blog. It’s essential that you develop your own style and your own voice – with blogs and twitter being so interlinked and audiences for so many overlapping, people can and do notice when you’re clearly being, shall we say, ‘overly inspired’ by someone else’s blog. Think about how you can make your blog different from the others and remember, that lightning bolt of inspiration can hit at any time – you just have to be open to receiving it.
Patience
When it comes to building an audience and getting a following, patience is key. With over 6 million blogs out there, you’re not going to be discovered overnight. I’ve been blogging for three years and for the first two, no one paid any attention! But within the last year, I’ve really got into my groove and honed the style and tone I was aiming for, which I feel is unique and hopefully keeps people coming back for more. Once I’d sorted that and knew what I wanted from my blog, the rest fell into place. Obviously, Twitter is a huge tool and for me, blogging and Twitter go hand in hand and my audiences on both are rather connected. But your audience may prefer Facebook or carrier pigeon so you’ve gotta jump on whatever social medium available to you and promote your shiznit. You can’t just whack a blog post up and hope people look at it. Toot your own horn!
Consistency
A blog cannot survive on one post a week. To draw an audience in, you need to be posting daily. Sporadic posting means people won’t remember/bother to check your blog. People are creatures of habit – make them want to come back to get a hit of your blog every day like a junkie.
You Get Out What You Put In
People often ask me how I balance a 9-5 with blogging. You want to know how? Well, evenings, weekends, free time – what are those? I wouldn’t know because I don’t have them – I pour every spare second into this. I approach my blog like a business and you have to invest time and money into a business. If you’re serious about blogging and want to reach a certain level, you have to commit. You’re building a brand and that takes time. I was just as committed on day one of my blog when I had no readers as I am now. So, if you’re blogging once a week and wondering why you don’t have an audience, there’s your answer right there. If you start blogging with the sole intention of making money or getting freebies, you’re doing it all wrong. Your first concern should be content – all that other stuff will come in time, but if your content is crappy, it won’t matter. Trust me, I worked at this thing for two years and no one gave two shits. It was frustrating as hell – I was over in my corner of the internet getting all pissed off about why people weren’t paying attention, but when I stopped worrying about that, got my head out of my ass and honed in on creating good quality content, everything changed. You get out what you put in – I can’t stress that enough.
Whew! Alright, that was a big read. My other bit of advice is don’t write blog posts this long! If I didn’t manage to cover your question, like I said, ask it in the comments and I’ll give it my best shot.
Hope this helps. Happy blogging!
