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Assuming you know what a blog is, here are some questions you might want to think about. Some of these are meant to be serious and some can be humorous. Have fun.
- Why do you want to blog?
- Who are you writing for? Who is Your Audience?
- How often will you write? Once a week, three times a week? Whenever you want to? Everyday?
- Will you provide value by entertaining your readers?
- Will you provide value by teaching your readers?
- Will you provide value by providing lists to your readers?
- Will you provide value by doing product reviews? How many per year? For how long?
- Will you ask your readers stupid, smart or funny questions? 😉
- When will you write? During the day, evening or a mix?
- Will you write a bunch of articles in one sitting and then post them in a timed way?
- Will you provide a mix of text and images?
- Will you video blog? In other words, will you provide a video of yourself on your blog talking about a topic instead or in addition to writing one?
- Will you provide a podcast of a topic?
- How will you provide a podcast? What software will you use? How will you get your voice into your computer? Will you provide a link so your readers can download the mp3 of your podcast for their favorite mp3 player?
- Do you know what a podcast is?
- Will you do interviews with other people on the topic of your blog?
- If you do interviews on your blog, how many interviews will you do in one year?
- What is the optimal length of a podcast to hold your readers attention while listening?
- What if your readers complain that they don’t want to hear a podcast? What will your response be?
- Will you hold contests for your readers?
- What will be the prize(s)?
- Will you ask questions to gather statistics?
- Will you provide voting polls?
- Will your articles be 200 words long on average?
- Will you write more than 1,000 words articles?
- Will you write more than 3,000 words articles?
- Will you monetize your blog? Right from the get go or later after you’ve established an audience?
- Will you ask for donations on your blog?
- Will you write blog posts for your friends and family?
- Will you provide screen shots to help you explain your points?
- Will you provide free ebook(s)?
- What if you miss a day of posting or a lengthy time period? Will you tell your readers in advance or fa’ get about it?
- If there is a long dry spell where you don’t post anything will you be apologetic when you start posting again or just dig right in again and get going?
- Will your family complain about your blogging if it takes too much of your personal time?
- How long will you write for free?
- What if you get addicted to reading other blogs and have a hard time writing your own?
- What if you read other blog posts that are just like you were going to write about?
- Will you set goals for where your blog will take you and your readers?
- What resources will help you to blog more better? (advanced english)
- What if you don’t get any comments at your blog, what will you do?
- How will you analyze the traffic coming into your blog? Awstat? Google Analytics? Etc.
- If there are discrepancies in your stats what program will you believe is true? How will you know that?
- Will you use WordPress.com? The free version.
- Will you use WordPress.org? The not free version.
- Will you use Blogger?
- Will you use other free blog software?
- How will you work your SEO?
- Do you know what SEO is? Search Engine Optimization
- If you do, how will you go about measuring the effects of SEO so you can adjust your blog to do better in your SEO efforts?
- Will you let SEO happen organically? Not trying to abide by any SEO rules?
- How will you drive traffic to your blog?
- Will you use a feed counter?
- How will you implement that feed counter?
- Where will you get blog post ideas from?
- What if you get discouraged along the way? Will you give up?
- Do you have a threshold in mind that if you hit that threshold while blogging, it will make you say, “For Cyring Out Loud!! That’s it, I quit blogging.”
- Will you hire writers to help you write blog posts?
- Will you do guest posts at other blogs?
- Will you want other people to do guest posts on your blog?
- Let’s say you sleep from midnight to 6:00am and you have to be at your day job at 8:00am. Will you stay up and crank out that post even if it takes you to 2:00am or 3:00am to get ‘er done?
- Finish this sentence from one of your readers, “Your blog rocks because ________.”
- Where will you get your images for your blog posts?
- What if a reader gets irate with you in the comments? How will you handle that?
- Will you write your blog articles in Microsoft Word before you post them or some other editing software besides your blogging software?
- Do you know how to install a plugin?
- What are the first set of plugins will you install on your WordPress blog and why?
- Will you check your stats constantly – every day, multiple times during the day?
- Do you know what Bounce Rate means?
- What if the most popular blog posts on your blog are the ones you don’t particularly like writing? What will you do?
- What if you have a reader that constantly emails you and says, “You suck and so does your blog.” What will you do?
- Will you Digg yourself?
- Do you know what Digg is?
- Will you ask your friends to Digg your articles no matter what?
- Will you Stumble your own articles?
- Do you know what StumbleUpon is?
- What if WordPress is updated, how will you update your WordPress to keep up with the blogging Joneses?
- Will you outsource all the technical stuff pertaining to your blog?
- Will you miss your son’s or daughter’s soccer game so you can finish a blog post?
- Do you think parents constantly need to be involved with their kids life?
- Do you think your son or daughter will feel left out if you have to finish a blog post on time instead of participating in their life for a brief moment – sporting event, dance show, etc.?
- Do you think it’s advantageous for your child to see how committed you are to something that is important to you and they are not involved in?
- How will you establish relationships on the web? Social Media sites? Commenting?
- How many profiles will you list on your blog showing people you are a member of LinkedIn, FaceBook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.?
- Will you split every blog article with the –more– tag so readers have to click on it to see the whole article?
- Will you sell your own products/services to your readers?
- When will you start selling your products/services to your readers?
- If you use the WordPress backup plugin, how will you test it that it’s working? Will you actually do a test restore?
- Will you blog by schedule – Monday you talk about topic 1, Tuesday you talk about topic 2, and so on. Creating a repetitive pattern so your readers can count on what you’ll be writing about on specific days.
- How much will you spend on your blog? Hosting, technical support, etc.
- Can you blog when people are running around the house yelling and screaming?
- Can you blog when the dog(s) are yelping for your attention?
- Will you eventually provide a forum at your blog?
- What WordPress theme will you use?
- How long will you keep the same WordPress theme before you update it?
- How many courses will you take on blogging?
- How many books will you buy about blogging?
- Will you watch YouTube videos to learn about blogging?
- Do you know every aspect of WordPress – every menu choice, every option and where they are and what they do?
- One question for you to leave in the comments section of my blog that I have not provided above.
- A Second question for you to leave in the comments section of my blog that I have not provided above.
- A Third question for you to leave in the comments section of my blog that I have not provided above.
Excellent Info! I’ve used http://www.Boostviews.com ….they seem to do a decent job.
Nice questions which I believe prospective bloggers should have a look through, so some won’t have the wrong notion that it’s going to be easy all the way.
@The Man – Yes, I saw someone on Twitter send a tweet about writing his first blog post and how long it took. He sounded surprised that it took so long to write and edit.
@The Man – Yes, I saw someone on Twitter send a tweet about writing his first blog post and how long it took. He sounded surprised that it took so long to write and edit.
I think a good question is whether or not you will have genuine motivation to blog. I find myself thinking “Wow, blogging, women, women blogging, arts and crafts, that’s cool. I really like. I’m a girl. I can jump in.” But then I know for a fact I really don’t get any internal joy simply from just writing, and that I tend not to really read others people stuff either. I can’t think of, or see how I would have some real motivation, since writing in such a way doesn’t really seem to fulfill me. I’d have to have an actual purpose for it. Something solid. If I don’t have that, I don’t think I can really blog. Even though I like reading such and such blogs, they all seem the same to me. Mine would have to be something seriously different; not because I’m vain but because I hate repeating what everyone does.
very helpful to readers that are looking at starting a new blog. thanks for posting! keep it up
Nice list, to read before you start a blog, but aeven more when you are a blogger already and could use some new ideas.
101 questions more like 1001 and i am not kidding
Chester builders » You got that right. 🙂
After reading this, it made think twice about blogging. I don’t think I have what it takes.