Whether you’re blogging for business or writing a personal blog, before starting a blog, there are important questions you need to ask yourself if you really want to build a successful blog.
No, these questions are not just important, they are critical to the success of your blog. And your ability to answer them correctly will set the tone for your blog’s success.
Of course a lot of bloggers are not opportuned to ask these questions before starting their blogs.
And this is one of the reasons we have so many failed blogs out there.
In this post I’ll be sharing with you some of the top questions you have to ask yourself before you get to start a blog.
Why do I Want to Start a Blog?
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One of the first questions you need to ask yourself before starting a blog is to find out the main reason you want to start a blog.
This is very important because people blog for different reasons. And so many times, the reason you start a blog will go a long way in defining whether you’re venturing on a successful journey or not.
So, see this as your most defining goal or put differently, the reason why you want to start a blog. And more importantly, what you want to achieve with the blog.
Again, asking these questions helps you to align your goals accordingly, including why you want to achieve them.
And as soon as you’re able to sort out your goals clearly, it makes it easier to get the template and achievement strategies put in motion.
This too will influence the way you blog as well as other aspects of your blogging.
Who is My Ideal Reader?
Another important question you need to ask yourself before starting a blog is about the identity of your target reader.
So, who exactly is your target reader? You have to figure this out clearly before writing your first blog post.
Failure to do this automatically means you’ll not be able to target the right kind of audience. And if this happens then it’s more like you’re wasting your time and effort blogging.
What you want to do is to know your audience clearly, find out the kind of content that matters to them and how they search for these content online.
Doing this gets you all set to attract the right kind of audience from the ever competitive search engine.
It also gets you to create far better results with your content marketing effort as getting the right kind of audience furthers your ability to achieve your goals set for the website.
What kind of Content will I Blog About?
You might feel that identifying the kind of content you want to create on your blog is not an important question to ask before starting a blog…
But that’s wrong!
This is really a big deal. Starting my blog many years ago, I had no idea about the kind of content I wanted to blog about.
This led me to creating just about any piece of content I felt like. And when I felt like it.
Unfortunately, the outcome was devastating. Oftentimes my post were not able to generate any viable traffic because it wasn’t strategic or targeted at any specific audience.
This is not what you want for your blog.
As a business, you need a clear content marketing plan that’s strategic, targeted at a specific audience and written with your blogging goal in mind.
To get started with answering this question, you have to take the step above to identify your target audience.
Fixing this aspects of your blogging will get you to streamline your content accordingly.
When done successfully, you’ll be able to identify the kind of content that works for your audience, key words that matter to them and also find ways to utilize these in your blog posts.
Overall, this will lead to a far better result for your blog posts.
How do I Promote My Blog?
As a new blog, to create traction fast, one of the important steps you’ll have to take is to promote your blog.
And there are many ways to go about this. So, finding out the platforms or strategies to promote your blog is definitely an important question to ask yourself before starting a blog.
Now, the two major strategies you can use to promote your blog are either the paid or free strategies.
While the paid strategy might be far easier and faster, you will need to spend a decent amount to get this kind of promotion.
So if you’re planning to promote your blog using paid promotion in your early days then you’ll definitely need some budget for this.
If you’re planning to use the free strategies to promote your blog then you’ll need to work harder and wait longer.
With such realities, you’ll now find out what works for you, based on your budget, resources and capacity and then you can get to budget things accordingly so it can all get fitted into your budget as well as goals and expected outcomes.
When Do I Monetize My Blog?
Majority of professional bloggers start blogging with the intention to make money off their blogs as soon as possible.
If you fall within this category then finding out when you can monetize your blog is going to be one of the top questions you have to ask yourself before starting a blog.
Now; before we proceed, you need to realize that there’s no one cap size fits it all for blogging monetizations.
Depending on your niche, traffic and monetization strategy, you can choose your own timeline to monetize your blog.
But it is important you know this so you can estimate when your blog can start making income and when you should expect a returns on investment.
So while coming up with this estimations, remember to put into consideration, your target audience, niche and monetization strategy.
Doing this will give you a clearer picture of what to expect as far as monetization is concerned.
This tutorial contains some monetization strategies to monetize your blog.
Part-time of Full time Blogging?
Blogging is something you can do either on a part time or full time basis.
For some specific niches you’ll be able to create a lot of impact, regardless of whether you’re blogging part time or full time.
On the other hand, some niches might require you blog full time if you need to see some decent result.
With such realities, knowing how much time you need to put into blogging is an important question you need to ask yourself before starting a blog.
Now, your answer to this question will be shaped by your blogging goals.
For example, your niche and the outcomes you expect to achieve with your blog over a specified time will determine how much you’ll have to work. And the duration of time you’ll have to put in the work.
Although secondary, your current employment status will also affect your decisions at this point.
But in any case, be sure you’re making this decisions here based on your blogging goals and other realities like your resources etc.
What do I call my Blog?
The name you call your blog or domain name is an important question you need to ask yourself before starting a blog
Because as soon as you use a specific domain name it gets really difficult to change afterwards.
So you want to consider the right name to use before you settle for a name.
For instance do you want to start and build a personal brand or an exclusive brand that results around your business?
If so, why do you want to do that and do you think that you’ll like to keep this brand in a few more years to come?
Sorting out this is very important! And while at it, watch out for copyright infringement related issues and other factors around branding.
You can use this tutorial to guide you on selecting the perfect brand and domain name that will work for your blog.
Conclusion
Blogging is a full time job. There’s a whole lot of competition going on right here right now and to really carve a niche for yourself as soon as possible, you have to get your home work right.
In this post you just learned about the top secret questions you need to answer before starting a blog.
Answering this questions right here will not only set you on the right footing to build a successful blog, it will set you on a path to building a career you’ll be proud of.
Now the question is, are you ready to take this leap to start and evolve your own blog successfully?
If you’re ready then sign up for our Smart Blogging Masterclass and learn the bolt and nuts of Blogging while we mentor and hold you by the hand until you build an enviable blog, just the way you’ll like it.
Now it’s over to you. When it comes to blogging, what other questions bother you? Drop your answers in the comments section let’s answer it!
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