5 Ways to Ensure That Your Blog is Serving Its Purpose
By Christine OKelly | October 13, 2007
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You started your blog for a purpose – is your blog serving that purpose or has it become a drain on your resources?
From what I’ve experienced working with business and their blogs as a copywriting consultant, it is VERY easy to get sidetracked and allow your blog to drift away from its original purpose. If an unexpected direction is working for you, then great!
But if your blog has become a drain on time that isn’t serving the purpose it was intended for, then perhaps it’s time to restrategize.
Here are 5 Suggestions to Get Your Blog In Line with It’s Original Purpose
#1 Define or Redefine Your Goals
Not everyone is blogging with a financial goal in mind, but unless you’re Ghandi, you probably started a blog to achieve some sort of goal. Goals might be:
- Selling more products and services
- Networking and meeting like-minded people
- Building your level of authority/brand
- Directing more traffic to your website
- Generating ad revenue
- Getting feedback for your ideas
A lot of blogs don’t achieve their original goals and a lot of bloggers stop posting because they begin spending their time instead on endeavors that will meet their goals. You don’t have to give up your blog, just utilize it in a way that meets your goals.
#2 Define your Target Audience and Speak to Them
It SEEMS that most people who read blogs ARE bloggers. However, if your getting natural search engine rankings, there are probably people reading your blog that AREN’T bloggers, but they may be “invisible” because they are less likely to comment.
Why?
- Commenting can feel intimidating to people who are non bloggers
- They have no link to promote, so have less of an incentive to comment
If you assume from this that your audience is only bloggers because they are the majority of commenters, you could begin to write content only for them and turn off your actual target audience by writing content specifically for bloggers.
It’s fun to write for bloggers because they “get it.” Bloggers know how to leave good comments. Bloggers know how to subscribe to RSS feeds (my friend David has done polls and the VAST majority of non-blogger do not even know what an RSS feed is).
But if your target is not bloggers, and you write content that appeals only to bloggers, how are you connecting with your intended target audience?
#3 Define ROI for Your Blog
When writing a blog, you are investing your time – time that you could be using to accomplish your goals in some other way. Are you getting a positive return on your investment?
ROI for a blog is different from ROI for a website. I think Pat Schraber of the The Lonely Marketer said it best in this interview that I did with him about “Business Blogging for Success” on CBG:
If you’re at a traditional company, no doubt the boss will ask “what’s the ROI on this blogging thing?” Pat says the businesses must define an ROI on engagement. “An ROI on engagement might mean number of comments, inbound links that help the site’s optimization, bounce rate vs. high click through rates, or number of subscribers.”
I would suggest taking caution when defining ROI for your blog based on subscribers and comments only. Comments and subscribers alone many not be a profitable measurement depending on your goals. If your goal is to reach a target audience of people who aren’t bloggers, seeking comments and subscribers may make you feel like you’re failing when you’re not.
#4 Don’t Be Afraid to Promote Your Products and Services
One some of my favorite blogs is “Building My Company” – a documentary of one entrepreneur’s (Erin’s) trials, tribulations, and successes as she takes her company Durtbagz from concept to launch.
There is no denying the purpose of this blog and Erin will definitely have sale from me when these bags finally roll off the production line.
Bob of Plan B is another marketer/blogger who outwardly promotes his products on his blog. After 30 days of blogging, he has already made an important contact that he talks about in this post The Power of Blogging.
#5 Don’t Let Other’s Influence Your Writing Too Much
As soon as you start worrying too much about what other people are going to think of your posts, the closer you become to losing your purpose. Certainly it’s nice to know what’s working and what’s not working on your blog, but a lot of what you write has to come from YOU.
People come to your blog to get your perspective on things – not to read something so generic that it will appeal to the lowest common denominator. I love to read passionate blogs, whether I agree with everything they say or not. I don’t require people to be exactly like me in order to consider them interesting.
So what if you lose readers, you still have your pride and you’ll probably enjoy blogging a lot more. I guarantee you that if you’re blog shut down tomorrow, all of those readers would quickly find something else to occupy their time – so stay true to yourself because you need to be your own biggest fan before anyone else can be.
*****
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Topics: Blogging |
17 Comments »
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Christine, those are great tips. It really gives me some food for thought. I have to make sure I don’t spend so much time on my blog that I neglect creating the products - which is the reason for the blog in the first place.
Right on the money, Christine. I’ve been helping a client with this very issue lately, and you made all the right points in this. Distraction is all too easy to fall prey to. You have to remember how your blog supports the goals of your business and keep a tight grip on the content and activities.
In some cases, this is why companies hire ghost writers. The ghost writer will stay on task and do a better job!
Hey Christine, thanks for stopping by my blog and leaving a comment. I’m really glad you liked the post. It came from my heart, and based upon 10 years of working towards a huge goal. Now that I’ve reached it, I want to apply those principals to the rest of my life I’ve been neglecting. I’ve added you to my RSS reader, too.
@ Pat: I hear ya! This is so easy to do… I have to stop myself from writing on this blog sometimes because I have to remember that the businesses are the REASON for the blog… and if I neglect them because of blogging… then I have nothing to blog about!
@ Michael: So true! You bring up a good point with ghost writing… I ghostwrite for several blogs and as you probably know all too well, there are some critical issues for the writer and the company to understand in this relationship - could be an entire blog post!
BTW - check out Michael’s post’s about the 5 blogs he just reviewed - they are EXCELLENT
@ Suzanne: Thank you for sharing what you’ve learned along the way so that we may all be inspired to achieve our goals!
Once again this post was a great reason to stop by. I have a few gaols for what my site is suposed to be about and I will get there soon enough. I just have to focus on the task at hand and follow the stages of my site and how it is going to turn out. My end game is very clear and I have never ventured away from it but it may seem that way to some. But soon it will be the biggest in its field I can tell already.
Opps I forgot something, to all that read this post and blog please have a look at my interview today. It is of the self made chick herself Christine. She had some great respones to the question.
Thank you for the opportunity Collin! I’m looking forward to watching your blog unfold - and checking out that contest!
Excellent article. It’s always important to know your purpose or you will wind up going in different directions.
Another wonderful post Christine. I think that these tips and factors can actually be used pertaining to almost any aspect of life and not only blogging. Wonderful advice once again!
geez, christine, what a great surprise this morning:) i really, really like how you acknowledge that there are reasons for blogging other than how to make money directly from your blog, (aka ads). i also want to give you props on the point of staying true to the purpose of the blog. great points and reminders. thanks for the link love (again). so appreciated.
A lot of my readers are non-bloggers which is actually what I want. It is discouraging because, as you say, very few of them leave comments. I just have to keep plugging along.
I think your blog is awesome and suspect that it is probably really helping a lot of people muster up the courage to do what you’re working toward
Hello Christine
An update for Plan B! We have made 2 really good connections through blogging thus far and within the next 24 hours, we will be having our advertisement put up on the political grind network
In addition, we even hooked up with a new affiliate management program click2sell (http://jewelryguy.join.click2sell.eu/)
BTW… all good points you make in this post. #4 is especially challenging for Carol & I… the artist is the worst candidate for selling their work’s so I find I have to balance the artist and the “pt barnum act” into something that is uniquely “us”…
(at least until professional help comes our way)
Thanks for the mention:)
That is awesome Bob! I love hearing success stories like this!
It would never happen, however, I would think it would be so cool to see a financially successful blogging list.
Now, topping that list would be a prize indeed!
I am seeing #1 all to much in my industry. I see real estate blogs that appear to be geared toward the consumer with posts tossed in for other agents. Very odd from a consumer perspective. - Ashley
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