Congratulations! You've decided to start a blog. Whether you are doing it for personal reasons or for business reasons, you're making a good decision. Blogs and social networks reach about 80 percent of active U.S Internet users, according to Nielsen, so not matter what you decide to blog on, you are sure to find an audience in the U.S if you blog and keep blogging. But, how do you blog? How do you get started? Naturally, the first step to blogging is deciding what to blog about. At a minimum, you need to blog at least once a week in order to generate enough content and page views in order to develop a strong readership for what you have to say. A once a week time frame demonstrates commitment, and also tells your readers that there will be something new for them on a regular basis. No one wants to visit a blog that doesn't have fresh content. But, we'll cover blogging consistency and editorial calendars at a later date.
So, going back to what to blog about and how to blog. The first step in learning how to blog is first figuring out what topic, or topics, you are going to blog about. This may be easy if you're a business, as, obviously, you will blog about things related to your business and to your target customers. If you're doing this for personal reasons, such as enjoyment, or to give yourself a platform for your ideas, it may be a bit tougher to narrow yourself down.
Yes, it's important to narrow yourself. Do not write about everything under the sun. That is not how to blog at all. Think about, people do not go to a website, or a blog, or a magazine, to read about anything and everything. They go to these places because they know that blog covers a certain topic, or that magazine has certain types of articles. If your a clothing boutique, then you have no need to put up posts about cycling and financial management. The people coming to the blog of the clothing boutique aren't looking for information about cycling and financial management. They're looking for information on fashion. The same ideas would apply to a personal blog as well.
To come up with that defined niche, think about who would be your ideal reader or audience. If this ideal reader came to your blog, what would they want to read about? What sort of information are they looking for? What are their interests? Why would they want to come to you versus another blog or website? Also think about what your goals are for the blog. Do you want to be recognized as an expert? Do you want to portray a particular opinion or perspective on something? Do you want to tell your stories on your experience with X, Y, and Z? All of those are good starting places in determining your niche, and also good staring places in coming up with a few post ideas. Blogging with a purpose and with a goal in mind, that is how to blog.