CT Biz Blogs

Today I want to revisit Liz’s Successful Blog post about the Blog Review Checklist. This is a great resource not only for reviewing an existing blog, but also for organizing your thoughts if you’re just starting to blog.

You can read the entire article (it’s not long) at the link above. Here are my thoughts about Liz’s first point:

• Audience: What words would your readers use to describe your blog? What do they like best about your site?

One of the first things a new blogger has to think about is: who is your audience? What market segment, profession, role, interest group, are the people who you hope will read your blog. And, how are you going to appeal to that targeted audience? If you want to attract readers, you’ll need to have posts that people will want to read.

For example, with CT Biz Blogs, my idea was that my blog would mostly appeal to newer bloggers and people thinking about blogging. That’s who I’ve set out to attract as readers. Therefore, I try to slant most of my articles towards people who are unfamiliar with blogs, or who haven’t thought much yet about the “how-to” part of blogging. Of course, there’s always something new to learn about blogging, so my hope is that I can bring enough new info to interest even more experienced bloggers.

The way to build traffic is by first, having a destination worth going to. So when you write, think about what your audience needs to know. When you’re a blogger, you’re a publisher, in a sense. Even if you’re blogging as a way of marketing your services, it’s a different sort of marketing than buying ad space in traditional “mainstream media” (MSM, as bloggers call them). It’s marketing by conversation and by reputation, not by yelling “my prices are insane!” or by having a sexy spokesmodel, or by shoving brochures at them.

This is a good thing.

So, if you’re new to blogging, or if you’ve been blogging for a while, take a few moments to jot down somewhere who you’re talking to, when you write.

And then don’t forget it.