Ideas for a Fantastic Blog
Perhaps you’re interested in starting a blog. You have some great ideas to share, and a blog might be the perfect venue. But you might not have the slightest idea how to create a blog, much less make it something special. The following tips will help you get started on a fantastic blog.
Find Your Niche
Your first step is to find your niche. Your blog should focus on something you love and know a lot about but also something that others will find interesting. This can be a difficult balance at times, but it is necessary. Remember, though, that unless you plan to monetize your blog, your audience can be relatively limited to those who share your interests.
Depending on those interests, you might choose to write about music, books, crafts, sports, business or even energy management solutions. When you’ve chosen a topic, stick to it. It should be broad enough to supply you with blog post possibilities for a long time, but don’t mix topics unless you can establish a meaningful relationship between them. You can always start another blog for another topic.
Make Your Plan
When you’ve found your niche, make a plan for your new blog. Sketch out ideas for posts, and see if you can come up with several series of posts that will keep your readers coming back. Explore possibilities for taking your topic in unusual directions. If you’re writing about fantasy literature, for instance, you could compare themes, characters and plots across several authors and books. You’ll draw more readers if your approach is different from that of other bloggers.
Design Right
Don’t neglect your blog’s design either. You don’t have to get fancy, but you should lay out your blog with an eye toward readability. Choose fonts and colors that are easy on the eyes. Most readers don’t care to read long passages in artistic fonts no matter how fun they are, and don’t use bright backgrounds that obscure your text. Some readers will take one look and leave. Your blog design should be simple. You could certainly include pictures, but present them in a way that blends well with the text.
Update Frequently
After you’ve created your blog, set up your initial design and written a few posts, you might find your enthusiasm flagging a bit. This is normal for bloggers, but this is also a critical time for your blog. You’re just gaining an audience, so you need to update frequently to hold onto them. Hopefully, your initial plan contains lots of ideas for posts and series. Make good use of those. At this early stage, you should try to add posts a couple times a week at least to keep your audience’s attention.
Promote Well
You will also want to promote your blog well to bring in readers. Announce your new blog on your social media pages and groups. If you belong to relevant special interest forums online, you can post there, too. Reach out to people who might enjoy your blog, and ask them to have a look and then share with others. Connect with other bloggers and with website owners in your field, too, and request that they review your blog and promote it. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have much of an audience at first. Keep networking and reminding people about your blog, and your readership will grow over time.
Interact With Readers
Depending on the nature of your blog, you may be able to interact with your readers quite a bit. Consider allowing comments on your posts, for instance, but if you do, monitor them closely, and delete inappropriate comments immediately. Answer as many as you have time for, and try to get a discussion going. You may need to set some ground rules, and you could also choose to review each comment before it goes live.
Your new blog can indeed be fantastic if you choose your niche, plan and design well, update frequently, promote continually and interact with your readers. So get started, and get ready to enjoy sharing your ideas.
