Step 1: Define Your Niche
Before you create a blog, it is important to decide on the theme or subject area your blog will cover.1 Two main factors should be considered when picking a topic to blog about, your audience and what you are passionate about, be it work or pleasure.
Determine Your Audience
Who your audience is will determine which type of blog host you use, the content of your blog, whether or not you publicize your blog and what success means for you in respect to your blogging endeavors. To determine your audience, ask yourself these questions:
Are you creating a blog primarily to keep in touch with family and friends?
Do you want to create a blog for people in your profession or who share your interests?
Is your blog an extension of your business?
Decide on a Subject
If you want your blog to be more than an online diary or a means of staying connected with family and friends, you will need to decide what subject matter your blog will cover. How focused your blog is on a particular subject is entirely up to you. Your blog can simply cover the stuff that is interesting to you and need not be defined beyond that. If, however, you would like to target your blog to a particular niche or audience, here are some things you might consider:
What are you interested in?
What are you an expert in?
Would your occupation be an interesting subject?
What do you think is currently missing online?
Do you have a goal that you’re trying to achieve that could be documented online?
Will you be able to blog about the subject matter consistently over a long period of time?
How many other blogs exist on the subject matter you’ve chosen? Do you have a fresh take to stand out from the rest?
If you need some inspiration, check out some of the most popular blogs on the internet through Technorati’s Popular Blogs page or the Webby Awards’ list of blogging nominees.
PLEASE NOTE: Take heed if you choose to blog about your workplace. Unless you password protect your blog, it is a public document. Most employers are web savvy, and even the most well-intended comments could run afoul of your workplace’s rules and regulations. Time and time again bloggers have been disciplined and even fired for negative or improper comments about their job posted on their blog.
Your blog is awesome, you’ve got lots of killer content and some regular readers. But what about those eyes that fall on your blog for the first time? Are you losing opportunity because your blog doesn’t create a strong enough first impression?
Do you have
- an ugly blog that makes small children cry and your dog cover his eyes with his paws?
- a boring blog with zero zing?
- or a blog that fails to stand out in a sea of sameness?
It doesn’t have to be that way! Massive Lifestyle can help you.
Massive Lifestyle is now offering to critique your blog. Why? Two reasons.
1) We’re kicking off our own Remodel-Blogging services to help revive your blog.
2) There are countless blogs that could greatly benefit from a simple helping hand.
If you want your site exposed to a no-holds-barred, honest critique with a helping of humor at your blog’s expense, post a comment here with your blog address and simply ask.
Along with our reviews, we will offer a few tips and tricks to make your blog awesome. If you decide to hire us to help, we’ll even give you a discount!
What we will do
Check out your site for design and visual appeal. Does your site hurt our eyes? Does it look like one those AOL pages from the late 90’s? We’ll tell it like it is and spare no feelings.
Look over your site’s content. Are your posts too long? Is your site’s purpose immediately clear? Do you have lots of obvious errors?
Review your site’s layout and usability. Is your site’s design intuitive or do first time readers have to jump through hoops to figure things out? Is your blog full of clutter? We will tell you what your friends won’t. The unbiased truth.
We have no idea how many people will take us up on our free offer, so we’re going to take them on a first come, first serve basis. In some cases, blogs on life support may get rushed to the front of the line. In other words, if you’re in a rush to get your blog reviewed, you may want to hire us.
If you would like a private consultation, our services can be had for a small fee of $50 via PayPal. You can choose whether you want your review publicly posted on our site or private, sent to you via e-mail. And, if you pay us, you can choose how you want your advice: Straight up and a bit kinder (for those who don’t appreciate criticism) . We definitely understand a lot of people don’t have the time or skills to devote to making their blog pretty and would never want to make anyone feel bad.
If you decide to hire us for a consult, we will deduct $25 from your first custom design order.
Some of the things we can do to make over your blog
- customize your WP Thesis theme
- Install Thesis on your self hosted WP site
- create custom banners and other site graphics
- custom SEO and landing pages to help your blog be found by search engines and readers
- devise a custom color theme for your WP blog
- help you determine which items to keep on your blog and which to get rid of
Got more questions or want to hire us? Contact us at 866.538.0868 or e-mail support@massivelifestyle.com
