Initial Planning For a New Blog

When embarking on a new blogging project there are a few things that you’ll need to think about early on. What are you going to name your blog? What topics will you blog about? How often will you publish posts? What kind of writing style will you use? In the remainder of this article I’ll look at these questions more fully.

What Will Your Blog Be Called

When writing a blog, the first question you need to consider is whether the blog is primarily centered around your own writing or a specific topic. Many bloggers name their blogs after themselves such as ‘Betty Boop’ and others will name their blog based on the topic such as ‘Cat Grooming World’.

Your choice here will depend on the aims of your blog. If you intend to use it to promote some kind of personal service then using your name can be a good idea because it will always remain relevant even if your services differ over time. If you’re blogging about a specifc topic and you intend to monetize it via external methods then it can be better to use a name that is related to the topic.

What Topics Will You Blog About?

Many new bloggers start their first blog by just blogging about anything that comes into their head and end up with a broad range of largely unrelated topics. This is not all that efficient as many readers simply don’t have time to wade through posts they are not interested in and it makes it more difficult to target monetization efforts.

When it comes to writing your posts you will be able to organise them into categories which makes it much easier for new readers to find your posts and its easy for them to see at a glance what your blog is about. When you just post a mish-mash of posts on all sorts of topics that are not really related then it can be more difficult to turn a one-off visitor into a regular subscriber.

Deciding on a Posting Schedule

A common trend amongst new bloggers is to start out bursting with enthusiasm. Indeed, much of the advice around tells you to blog as much as you can – at least every day if possible. Whilst more posts do in theory give you more chances to be found in the search engines, there are many readers who suffer from information overload and simply cannot keep up with busy blogs which leaves many of your posts unread.

To be honest it doesn’t matter so much what your posting frequency or schedule is, as long as it is consistent. There are some blogs that post only once a week and do very well as they readers look forward to that weekly post and others that find that they do best when publishing multiple short posts every day. Every blog is different.

One trend that I see with many blogs is that the blogger starts out enthusiastically by posting every day or even many times per day but over time he either loses steam, finds it too time consuming or simply runs out of stuff to say and then the schedule starts to slip and the posts become less frequent. This is noticeable to the reader and it does not look good!

It is much better to start out with a much gentler blog schedule and see how it goes for a few months rather than over-commit yourself at the beginning and then burn out a few months down the line. My recommendation would be to start conservatively and then increase it gradually if you feel the need – not the other way around!

Do You Have a Particular Writing Style?

Some people suggest that you alter your blogging style to fit your target audience but in my experience I find that it never works to try to blog in a style that is not uniquely you. Your blog is a reflection of you – your thoughts, your findings, your interests and passions.

I would recommend that you simply write in whatever way suits you. Everybody is different. Some people are conservative in their writing, others like to use language as a shock factor, some like controversy, others prefer a dry factual style. None of these are right or wrong – simply be who you are.

The only area where I might suggest that you alter your default style slightly is that of post length. A blog that is publishing 10 posts a day would probably do better with shorter, snappier posts than a blog that is publishing only once per week.

It really doesn’t matter what your style is because the readers who like your style will stick around and subscribe and the ones who don’t, wont! Simple as that really! There is no way that any single style is going to appeal to everybody so don’t try! No matter what your posting style is, there will be people who like it and some who don’t, but it never pays to try and be something that you are not.

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