Develop Your Blog - 10 Questions

If you are a beginning blogger, I think you are lucky. If you haven't started your blog yet, you are even luckier. You still have time to plan.

Blogging with the intention to make money, is not just a matter of being a decent writer, although that helps a good deal. Making money on the internet, be it with a blog, or a website, requires a plan. If you are just starting out, you have a golden opportunity to develop that plan before you get too far into it.

I'd start by answering a bunch of questions. Don't worry if you already have a blog, it's really not too late, however, your answers to these questions may point you in a little different direction than you are currently going, so be prepared to change what you are doing if it's necessary to be successful and make money.

1) What is your blog about? This is key. This is where you decide if your blog is a niche blog like this one, or a general blog about multiple topics.

2) Is there enough material and ideas to make your niche blog viable? Can you write post after post about it, or will it run dry after a few posts?

3) How often will you post? Can you create a blogging schedule and stick to it? Developing a readership means you have to post frequently.

4) What is the name of your blog? Don't just grab a quick title because it works when you plug it into the first pages of the blogger setup page. Make sure your blog name corresponds with what the blog is about. Try to make it descriptive, yet memorable.

5) How will you make money from your blog? Adsense alone, or another ad provider like AdEngage or Clicksor? Or perhaps several ad providers. Will you have affiliate ads? If so, what affiliates? Do they provide a product or products that are related to your blog?

6) Where will you put the advertisements? What color will they be? Will they blend with the blog, or stand out? How many advertisements will you have on each page?

7) Do you want to become established with a readership before you start to monetize your blog or website? Many people believe that ads take away from a blog, therefore a new blog with too many advertisements can turn readers off. You need to decide whether or not you want to start out slow, with a few unobtrusive ads, or go full on from the first post.

8) What do you want from your blog? Fame, money, just to be heard? Or do you just want to write? This really should be question number one or two, because this is important. You need to know what your goal is so you can properly aim for it. If all you care about is getting read, and money is not important to your blogging career, you may not need ads at all.

9)Are there already a lot of blogs in your niche? This is twofold. On the one hand, lots of blogs might mean you have chosen a popular niche, or it could mean that the competition is too great already, and you won't be able to compete effectively.

10) Who are your readers? This is a big one, and doesn't belong at number 10. You need to get a handle on your reader demographics just like magazines and newspapers do, as do television shows. Knowing who your readers are will help you to target your posts to things they are interested in. Knowing your audience also helps with things like affiliate sales, allowing you to target the products you sell to the people reading your blog. If your blog is about ladies shoes it is unlikely that you will do well selling books about fishing.

So there are my top ten blog strategy questions. I am now going back to my blogs and asking these questions about all of them. I think I am going to be surprised at my answers.

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