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.
![email address: ctbizblogs [at] gmail.com](http://www.ctbizblogs.com/wp-images/email.png)
January 24th, 2006 at 6:40 am
So Sabine
I would love to know, in your opinion, do I stay “on target” for my audience, and if you have any suggestions for imporvements or things to do differently, I would love to know
thansk
January 24th, 2006 at 10:34 am
Well, I’d guess that you want to reach people who might need a sign. You do that by posting a lot of pictures and writing about signs, sign projects, and how your team works. That’s great.
But your blog has also always been about you and local events also. You have a nice “voice” on the blog, that comes through very well. You keep it casual, but not unprofessional, and with plenty of humor. And you generally manage to get some signs in — like the posts about Santa’s Village, and taking pictures of the signs you did for the reindeer, not of the actual reindeer. But as much as I personally like those “local color” posts, they shouldn’t be in the majority, unless, as you did with the reindeer, you can somehow add in a bit about signs, or digging holes, or taking signs on vacation, into the post. All of those types of posts tell the reader that you guys are nuts about signs.
Still, it’s a great occasional side-trip into slices of your life. It reminds readers that you’re real, and not just words on the screen.
One trick, and maybe you’ve done this, is to think about terms that prospective customers might search on in Google and other search engines. Try them out and see how you do.
In my humble opinion you’re pretty much on target. There are probably a few things you could tweak. I’ll think about them and write a post.