When you first begin blogging, you’re pretty much talking to yourself. It takes time and effort for readers to appear. When you talk to yourself, it’s easy to forget that the people you want to talk to have a different context; you tend to make assumptions about what people already know, and what they might want to know.
For example, I started this blog for small businesses getting into blogging — to help newcomers understand why and how a blog could help them, and to serve as a resource. I’m focusing on my home state of Connecticut because I think there’s a great need for blogs in this state. CTBizBlogs can help in many ways, including networking with other blogging businesses.
I began by writing a couple of weeks’ worth of posts and going to some business networking meetings, giving out cards with the blog’s web address (URL).
At one of those meetings someone told me, “I looked at your site…but I still don’t understand. What is a blog?”
Wake-up call! That was exactly what I needed to hear. There was a “hole” in my blog, to use a phrase from this useful article, Blog Review Checklist, from what is fast becoming one of my “must read” blogs, Successful Blog. (Plus, they also use WordPress as their blogging platform, which I use and love.)
You get a hole in your blog when you don’t write for your audience. And this checklist is a great way to review your blog, see if you have any holes, and get ideas on how to fix them.
I’ve started taking steps to better help folks who are completely new to the blogging phenomenon, such as creating a page called “Blogging Basics.”
But I know there’s more I can do, and I’ll start with this checklist and see what happens. Let me know what you think!
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