studentblogger

Every time you turn around, someone is blogging something, posting links to blogs or saying they are starting their own blog. Blogs seem to be all the rage these days and you might be asking yourself, “Do I need a blog?” First, not everyone needs a blog. To many people writing blogs clutters the internet with useless information that no one wants. Here are a few things to take into consideration before you start your own blog.

Do You Have Something to Write About

Do you have something to write about? It is important to write about a topic that you are knowledgeable about, interested in and like to write about. If you don’t have any idea what to write about then you probably don’t need a blog. However; if you have a good idea of what you would do, ideas for posts and etc. than a blog could be the thing for you.

Do You Have Something To Advertise?

Another good reason to start a blog is if you have something to advertise. What you advertise could be your own personal website, your business, your club or whatever. Blogs attract readers who in turn learn about your business. If you are blogging about things your advertisement product does; all the better, your blog will most likely attract readers who are looking for what you are advertising.

Are You Creative

Creativity is a must for a blog. If you don’t have creativity, don’t even think about writing one. For example, can you continue to come up with new and interesting blog posts each time you post? If it sounds daunting you might want to consider a different hobby, like reading other peoples blogs. That can be fun as well.

Are You Consistent

Consistent blogging is as important as interesting blogging. If you can’t blog regularly then you will not come up in search as often. This translates into attracting fewer readers meaning your blog gets less traffic. A blog without traffic is generally worthless so you might as well save yourself the time and just not blog.  This holds especially true if you are operating a blog for your business or trying to sell something.

Another consideration is that if you aren’t consistent, your blogs will quickly lose any search engine ranking they might have. Search engine ranking helps a blog to come up in search when someone looks for a related topic such as one in your keywords.

What Will You Do With A Blog?

If you don’t know what you will do with a blog, or even what you can do with a blog then you might not need a one. However; if you have a good blog plan and know what you want to do then go for it! Blogging is a fun and rewarding hobby that you can do for the rest of your life! 

Your blog theme might not sound important to you. However; your blog theme can actually be responsible for about 75% of the traffic you receive. And by theme I don’t mean the color of your background and by traffic I don’t mean cars.

Your blog theme is what your blog is about. Each of your blog posts should follow this general theme in order to fit in. Your theme is designed to appeal to both you (so you are interested and hopefully qualified in writing about it) and to your reader (so that they follow you or keep coming back for more).

What Are Your Interests?

The First thing you should ask yourself when choosing a blog theme is what are you interested in? Do you like sports? Art? Music? Dancing? Pick something that sparks your interest or that you even do yourself. For example, if you paint for a hobby, writing a blog about painting might be just the thing for you. Do you drink lots of tea? Write a blog about tea and learn about what you are drinking while you research your articles.

What People Read

This is important. What do people read? What would you read? If you wouldn’t be interested in reading your own blog post, don’t even think about posting it. No one else will be interested either which means you have just wasted your time and downgraded the quality of your blog. Think of fun and interesting posts that people will be interested in.  If you aren’t sure what other people read, try looking for ‘search popular keyword engines’ and search keywords related to your blog theme!

What Do You Know About?

Here’s another tip. Don’t write about anything that you don’t already know at least a little bit about. Even the most extensive research won’t let you know everything about something and missing one tiny crucial detail can cause you to completely misinterpret something. Write about what you know so that the quality of your blog is ensured and you don’t get comments saying you are stating false facts.

What Can You Keep Writing About?

Another good question is what are you interested in and know enough about to keep writing about it. Think about it, plan past the first one or two posts and decide if you can keep, continuously, coming up with good blog posts. If not, you might want to think about using something else for your theme. Or, you can think about just broadening the theme.  For example: Cute teapots I own is a bad theme because it is very limited. However; cute teapots is actually a good theme because as long as you can keep using the internet to find cute teapots, you can keep posting your blog.

Is It A Good Blog Theme?

Now, is it a good blog theme? Is it something you can blog about and keep blogging about. Are you interested in it, do you know about it and most importantly, will people read about it. If so, you have chosen your blog theme. Congratulations and feel free to start a blog. 

Whether you are a student who has not yet started work or if you are a well accomplished business guru with years of experience under your belt, you should have a blog! Why? There are a lot of reasons actually but it all boils down to one thing; you receive more attention and therefore more sales, especially if you are a freelancer, than you would without a blog.

Blogging Directs Traffic

While your blog won’t be standing out on corners wearing an orange vest and holding a stop sign, it will direct traffic to your website. Blogs are useful in this way because they put up content that is related to your site (or profile). People tend to search for content, not profiles which is why your blog will come up in search and users and readers will then become interested in you or your website. This basically translates into if you are interested in promoting yourself or your website, you need a blog.

Collect Interested Readers

Just like books in your library, internet readers can be collected. A reader is someone who follows your blog and checks back frequently to read it. Obviously the more of these you have the better because it directs traffic towards your site and, if you are promoting your services or etc., will provide you with a list of potential clients and employers!

Discover Like Minded Individuals

Blogging helps you to attract like-minded individuals who share similar interests or who maintain similar blogs. Working with these people and sharing links to your blogs will help you to promote your cause, business and blog which is beneficial to everyone involved. Plus, you might even get to make a few new friends along the way!

This type of networking can be used not only to find and meet new people but to promote your blog, your business and your profession through shared interest.

Learn To Polish Your Writing Skills

You’ve heard that practice makes perfect right? If your writing skills are a little crude or rusty, try writing a blog every day for a week or two, it’s not the most glamorous form of writing but it will polish your writing skills so that you can do pretty much anything you want!