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    How to Write a Blog
    How to Write a Blog
    How to Write a Blog
    Ebook188 pages2 hours

    How to Write a Blog

    By Inklyo

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    We explain how to determine what niche your blog will be targeting, where your ideas fit into what’s already been done, and what type of blog is most suited to your interests. We look at the various paid and free platforms you can use for blogging and explain exactly how to get started with them. We provide hints for the research stage, help you to find a writing schedule that fits the goals you have for your blog, and discuss the various privacy issues involved in blog writing. We instruct you on how to manage your blog, including how to moderate comments, and help you understand basic search engine optimization (SEO) and other techniques to ensure your blog gets read.

    Whether you’re looking to write a blog for recreation or to make a little extra cash, How to Write a Blog will walk you through the entire process in seven easy steps—from selecting your topic to marketing your ideas.

    As an added bonus, we’ve put together an extensive resource section that provides tools and resources that every blogger should know about.

    After reading How to Write a Blog, you’ll be ready to start your next project . . . and have the confidence to bring your ideas to life!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherInklyo
    Release dateMar 15, 2013
    ISBN9780991759705
    How to Write a Blog
    Author

    Inklyo

    We are all writers. Whether you are a student or an author, a blogger or a businessperson, writing is likely a significant part of your daily life. However, writing often takes different forms and requires mastery of different skillsets. Finding reliable resources to help you improve writing skills and excel in your writing can be a challenge. That’s where Inklyo comes in. At Inklyo, writing—in all its forms—is our passion. We seek to use this passion to help our customers learn and excel in the specific forms of writing they use every day. Providing a quality writing education that caters to the needs of our customers is our mission, and we accomplish this by supplying an array of writing courses, books, and ebooks that are detailed, affordable, and convenient.

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    • 4/5
      This book is instructive. It allowed me to discover the various aspects of blogging.
      Thank you.

    Book preview

    How to Write a Blog - Inklyo

    How to Write a Blog

    by Inklyo.com

    Copyright 2017 by Inklyo Inc.

    Copyright 2017 by Inklyo Inc.

    Researched and written by Katherine Humphries an Ryan Van Til

    All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission.

    For permission requests, please contact us online:

    https://www.inklyo.com/books-on-writing/

    Electronic Edition

    While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of the references, referrals, and links (collectively Links) presented in this ebook, Inklyo Inc. is not responsible or liable for broken Links or missing or fallacious information at the Links. Any Links in this ebook to a specific product, process, website, or service do not constitute or imply an endorsement by Inklyo Inc. of the same, or its producer or provider. The views and opinions contained at any Links do not necessarily express or reflect those of Inklyo Inc.

    Introduction

    Do you have something you want to say to the world?

    Maybe you want to share your revolutionary ideas about the TV show Friends. Maybe you have a lot of funny cat pictures you think will make people laugh. Maybe you have a product you’d like to sell.

    In its report on the State of the Blogosphere 2011, Technorati surveyed over 4,000 bloggers around the world. And that’s just the number of bloggers who volunteered to take part—the very tip of the iceberg!

    Well, how do you go about it?

    Today, thousands of people worldwide use blogs to express their ideas and opinions or to promote products and services. Blogs are one of the most powerful tools available for communication and marketing purposes.

    But, what is a blog?

    Simply put, a blog is an online space. Moreover, a blog can be anything you want it to be: a place to share your favorite recipes, write reviews of new products, or even keep a personal journal. A blog is what you make it.

    However, creating a unique and exciting blog requires planning, research, and a lot of work. It’s worth it, though, to create a site you can be proud of, full of original content.

    Before you jump in and start building your blog, consider the question we began this book with:

    Do you have something to say to the world?

    You do? Good. Now, ask yourself a few more questions:

    WHAT do I want to say?

    WHO will want to read it?

    WHY should they care?

    HOW will I make them care?

    WHEN will I update my blog?

    WHERE will I host my blog online?

    Don’t worry if you can’t answer all of these questions just yet! The purpose of this guide is to help you be clear about what your blogging goals are and how to meet them. You will learn how to go from the initial stages of creating your blog to the realms of building readership—even making a profit, if you wish. Ready? Let’s go!

    Part One: So, You Want to Write a Blog

    Before you create your blog, there are decisions to be made. First, you need to decide on a topic and identify your target audience. Then, you must determine what you want from your blog, and establish some long-term goals. This may sound like a lot of work, but we’re here to help make the process fun and rewarding!

    Finding your niche

    You may already have some idea of what you’re going to write about, especially if you’re planning to promote a particular product, business, or service. Even if this is the case, you still need to determine the specifics of your topic in order to make it truly unique. This is known as defining your blog’s niche.

    The topic of your blog should be something you’re passionate about and a subject you know very well. Readers will see right through you if you don’t know your stuff. Successful blogs are made of authentic, compelling content.

    Once you commit to writing a blog, it’s time to begin creating content. Writing content takes constant work, but you don’t want to turn the process of updating your blog into a chore! Writing posts should be something you enjoy, so think about what you find fun and interesting to explore.

    If you’re struggling to come up with a niche, try this exercise. Take three pieces of paper, and in the center of each write one of these headings:

    Topics I know a lot about

    Topics I feel passionate about

    Topics other people will want to read about

    Explore these three factors and find topics that meet all three criteria. For example, you might know a lot about pool cleaning, and people may want to read about it, but you may not feel particularly passionate about it. On the other hand, you may feel passionately about your boyfriend, and know everything about him, but it’s unlikely that the rest of the world will be interested in reading this information! (Your boyfriend might not be pleased, either.)

    Once you’ve written down your headings, create a mind map of possible topics around each one. Look for topics that appear on all three pages. These are the potential niches for your blog. For each topic that meets all three criteria, ask yourself:

    Do I know enough about this topic to write convincingly about it?

    Do I feel excited about this topic? Do I think about it often?

    Could I write about this topic regularly without growing bored?

    Is it likely that there’s a market for this topic and that other people will want to read about it?

    Am I able to write about this topic in a unique and interesting way?

    Identifying your target audience

    Once you have a niche you think your blog will fit into nicely, then you need to identify a target audience for your specialty.

    Regardless of whether you’re hoping to monetize your blog, the ultimate aim is to build an audience. Your blog needs to be as appealing for other people to read as it is fun (and challenging) for you to write.

    What kind of people do you think will want to read your blog? Male or female? Young or old? Tech savvy or technophobic? How can you draw them in and keep them coming back for more? This is your target audience—the people who will become the core readership of your blog.

    The most important part of blogging is learning to understand your audience. The nitty-gritty of how to build up a strong readership base is covered in Part Six. For now, you just need to identify your target audience, to help you design your blog and write posts.

    For example, you may decide that you’re targeting the fans of a theme, be it video games or gardening. But there are other factors to consider, especially in broad topic areas, because hundreds of other blogs already exist in the same niche. You could target a certain demographic, for example, girl gamers or older gardeners. Putting a unique spin on your topic will make your blog stand out.

    Your choice of target audience will also affect multiple elements of your blog—particularly the tone of your writing. Your tone of voice when writing for teenagers, for example, should be different from the tone you adopt to appeal to older readers. Many writers and bloggers recommend that you write to one (real or imagined) person, who:

    Is a fan of your niche

    Is friendly, but will notice your mistakes

    You would enjoy spending time with

    Is eager to read

    Writing to one person will help you focus and strengthen your voice so you can avoid that oh-so-common pitfall of trying to please everyone!

    Your blog should cater directly to your target audience. They should be able to access your blog and think, Wow! It’s as if it was designed just for me.

    If it helps, you could even find a picture of your ideal reader and stick it above your desk while you work, to act as a reminder that you’re writing to just one person.

    For fun or for profit?

    While preparing to launch your blog, it is important to determine exactly what you hope to achieve. There are many possible motivations and goals for starting a blog.

    Technorati divides the bloggers surveyed for the State of the Blogosphere 2011 report into five categories:

    Hobbyists: these bloggers make up 61% of the blogosphere and report no income from their blogs.

    Professional Part-timers: making up 13% of the blogosphere, these bloggers receive some compensation from blogging but do not consider it their full-time job.

    Professional Full-timers: these bloggers make up just 5% of the blogosphere. They are independent bloggers who consider blogging to be their full-time job.

    Corporates: corporate bloggers make up 8% of the blogosphere, blogging for the company for which they work.

    Entrepreneurs: 13% of the blogosphere consists of entrepreneurs who blog for their own company or organization.

    Now you should ask yourself which of the above categories you would like to join. Your niche is linked to the relative financial goal of your blog.

    Long-term goals

    "Impatience is often listed as one of The 7 Deadly Sins of Blogging."

    Achieving your goals will take time. Remembering this will help you to stay committed to your blogging enterprise. When considering your long-term goals, it’s important to consider your blog’s lifespan. It’s often assumed that bloggers begin without any thought for how long their blogs will last. Yet many blogs have built-in, or natural lifespans. For example, if you’ve started a blog to chart your weight-loss experience, or to follow the story of your three-month cruise, there will be a logical point (assuming all goes well) where your narrative comes to an end. Sometimes this is a good way into blogging. It takes the pressure off and gives you a chance to spend some time working on a simple hosted blog before launching a more serious, self-hosted blog that you may want to monetize.

    It’s also fine to leave the lifespan of your blog open and undecided. Just be aware of the direction and shape your blog begins to take, and make sure to re-evaluate your goals as you go along. If your blog begins to diverge on an unexpected tangent, do not feel like you have to rein it in! Be flexible! You may find that some of your initial goals become less important as new goals emerge.

    Create your goals in a concrete way. They don’t have to be overly ambitious; they should simply reflect what you want to get out of your blog as time goes by. Here are a few examples:

    At two months: I will have written 10 posts.

    At six months: I will have 100 RSS subscribers.

    In one year: I will begin to make money.

    Long-term goals are important to help steer your blog along a successful path. Think of them as guideposts to keep you on track, rather than stress-inducing indicators of success.

    Naming your blog

    The name of your blog is more than what appears in the

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