Why are you blogging? It’s a question you must ask yourself, and you must know the answer.
I give free consultations with my Blogging for Dollars ebook package, so I see a lot of new blogs. One of the most common problems I see with new blogs is that the bloggers are not clear on why the blog exists.
It’s easy to get lost while blogging. You can find your way out of the blogging woods by asking yourself: WHY?
Here are a couple of examples of bloggers who got lost.
A business blog is not an online journal
Example 1: a blog with ten posts, eight of which are about the blogger’s personal life, two post are about Subject X. Subject X is the reason for the blog’s existence, but you’d never know it, you almost need a crystal ball to work out the blog’s reason for existence.
In this case, the blogger’s taken the “online journal” thing to heart, and is writing a personal diary. This would be fine, but the blogger wants to make money from the blog selling Subject X affiliate products.
Solution: write, or great audio posts (podcasts) or video posts about Subject X, while selling Subject X. Every post doesn’t need to be a sales pitch, but it does need to stay focused on Subject X.
Example 2: a blog clearly about Subject X. Excellent. Unfortunately, there’s no promotion in any of the posts. There are Pay Per Click ads, but no attempt is made to discuss the benefits of any of the products, why you’d want to buy them, or which are the best products.
Solution: SELL! You can write whatever you like on your blog, but to make money, you need to promote. You need to be clear on the WHY. Ask yourself why you’re writing about Subject X, and how you can lead your readers to buy.
Ask for what you want – sell
There’s an excellent book about Web sites’ usability, Don’t Make Me Think. The title sums up the situation online. Your site’s visitors are scanners – they look, they absorb a little something (or not) and they’re gone.
This means you must ask for what you want. The most successful bloggers do this in just about every post. They leave you in no doubt about what they’re selling.
You must do the same. You’ve got to sell on your blog.
As Chris Garrett says:
Even “free†has to be sold. Content, products, services, they all need to be packaged. Don’t be afraid of a little promotion.
“Build it and they will come†you say? Good luck with that.
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