Let’s Start Blogging … the Remix

Why start a blog? There are millions of reasons that people start a blog. People start blogs every day, and after a few posts, or a few weeks they give up. People start blogging because they feel like they have something important to say and want to get it out there.

I starting blogging here last year … and then stopped. You may start a blog and then your life goes all wacky.  Last year our daughter was born and who has time to blog when you have an infant? People with 5 nannies, that’s who. No time to blog, no time to shower.

Now I am ready to start blogging again, I am in the right frame of mind, I have learned a ton over the past year and most importantly, I have learned where I have gone wrong in the past.

If you think you may want to start blogging, ProBlogger has an excellent set of 23 questions to ask yourself in the post Is a Blog Right For You. That post was written 4 YEARS ago, but it is still as relevant today.

Don’t Make the Same Mistakes I Did

Blogging takes commitment and focus. Focus is needed in two ways, the first is to keep you on track writing, but also you need to chose a focus for your blog that is both narrow, yet wide. Your niche must be for a specific group of people, yet wide enough you will have plenty of sub topics to write about. I did not get that mix right the first time, my blog was like a cocktail mixed by a 5 year old.

When I decided to start blogging here again, I brainstormed a list of over 100 post titles I could write. Not only will brainstorm possible topics let you know if you are on the right path (if you get stuck at 7, you might want to switch the focus), but you also get to save that list and use them for the next 100 posts. Don’t you just love two-for-one exercises?

A blogger has to be a good writer … or at least want to be a good writer. Don’t even start blogging if you don’t want to write, or learn how to improve your writing. Do you like writing? Do you like editing? Oh, ouch, that’s a place where I went really wrong.  I would slap a post out, without proofreading it, without editing it, without having any real goals for the post. This is not a good way to blog. This is sloppy blogging – slogging. Readers want to have well thought out posts that have had time, thought and energy put in them.

Let your posts marinate for a few days, revisit them and see how you can improve them. The only way to successfully do this, is to have a few posts scheduled in advance, so you can tweak and alter them until they are just right. I am working on this post on Thursday, but it is not scheduled to go out until Monday. See? I am a new blogging woman!

I have also found new people, new blogs, new books that have opened my eyes and allowed me to grow. Lots and lots of cool stuff has been happening and I am excited to share it on this blog.

And here I am, back, focused and ready to blog. Although my blog doesn’t have a name so the topics can be a bit fluid, I really plan to focus on Stuff for Internet Entrepreneurs. Not only biz related stuff, but “lifestyle” posts too.

This blog may be for you if you like to read about:

• techniques like seo, link building, traffic generation, getting customers, building your list
• social media
• blogging
• gadgets and tools
• mobile web
• people involved with Internet Marketing, e-commerce, web design & coding, web applications & sites
• working at home, working by yourself, working with a small team
• working in your pajamas (which I do 99.9% of the time)
• working with kids

If you are not into that sort of thing, slowly back away and we will pretend you were never here. If you are, then stick around, subscribe to the RSS feed and I can’t wait to read your comments and suggestions.

To show I am not longer a sloppy blogger, I have edited this post many times. It is drastically different from it’s first draft.  Don’t be like I was, and embrace your inner Editor. I am not perfect, and I make many, many typos, but it feels good sending something out into the blogosphere that I really worked hard to make “just right”.

Now, let’s start blogging!

What have been some of your blogging mistakes?

Tagged as: Blogging