Tips: Starting A Blog
Blogs can be used for a variety of reasons. You can use it as your online journal. I can be used as a marketing tool to build your audience. It can stand alone, or be part of a larger platform. You can use your blog to develop a media presence you never thought possible before.
Here are some things to think about before starting a blog.
Be yourself: The quest of being different and unique in your blog begins with staying true to you. Insincerity is easy to spot, even in blog form, so don’t try an be someone you are not. Keep your style through your writing - people can tell when someone is trying to over- or under-compensate.
Identify your audience: Don’t try to appeal to everyone. Who do you want to call to action? Who do you think will identify with what it is you are trying to communicate? Is the purpose of the blog to help drive sales or to get your audience to think?
Build a cache: Before you make your blog public, be sure to have several posts ready to share once you start inviting people to read. There is nothing worse than launching with one post.
Use the age old structure: Because it works, use the Beginning, Middle, and End structure when writing your blog. Start with an Introduction, move to Explanations, and end with a Conclusion.
Stay on point: Know ahead of time what it is you are trying to say with the post and stay on topic as best as you can. You will lose your readers interest if you start going down the rabbit hole. It is sometimes helpful to come up with a title to the post early on and to use it as your target.
Be clear and concise: Don’t use more words than are necessary to make your point - despite how much a reader may love your posts, they don’t have all day.
Give readers a chance to breath: Super long sentences and paragraphs are hard for readers to digest.
Use images when it makes sense: Don’t use images just to use images. Make sure your visual additions make sense with the blog’s content. Images can be a great breather tool.
Attention to grammar: There is nothing more embarrassing than a reader commenting on your post in regards to a misspelling or grammatical error. If you have the resources available to you, have it proof-read.
Be consistent: Try to post on a frequent and consistent basis. When building an audience, set the expectation and keep to it!
Use the right platform: Squarespace is by far the best platform for hosting a blog. It is intuitive. It is easy to make dynamic posts with linkable text, video, galleries, audio, quotes, summaries, etc. We could go on and on… but will end with this. If you are interested in starting a blog, we would love to show you how easy the web component is through Sqaurespace - so that you can focus on your content. Give us a call!
