Many blogger wannabes may not be very confident in their own ability, in their own writing or knowledge right away. Best advice from me is go for it and see where you can take it. If you are tempted to start a blog, just do it. Create a blog, start writing, start connecting with people and see how it all turns out.
To help you get started, take a closer look into your blog’s vision, the potential audience and the existing competition. These can help you decide how good the topic you want to blog about is, and if people are interested in reading about it.
What’s your blog vision?
Think about who you are, what you want to do with your blog and why you want to do it. What is the core purpose of your blog? Beyond making money, what’s the reason your blog should exist?
Imagine you only have few seconds to tell a potential visitor why they should visit your blog. Find out what is unique and compelling about you and your blog idea, and put it into a few sentences. You must be able to describe your blog’s vision. Make it interesting and short. The vision must be strong enough to be summed up quickly.
Who is your blog’s audience?
Your blog cannot appeal to everyone. You need to identify groups of people that are interested in your blog topic. Look for something people are already trying to do, then help them do it.
When you need to figure out if people are interested in your idea and how large the audience is for your blog topic, use Google Keyword Tool. There you can search for phrases and get the information on how many searches are made for your keywords. Enter your blog topic and look at the number of monthly searches.
Focus on a specific group and think about what are they interested in and why? What are they looking for? How would they interact with your blog? How would they get to find your blog? What will your blog help them with?
Who are your blogging competitors?
Figure out what other bloggers are doing related to your chosen topic. Do not try and copy the other bloggers as that will not lead you anywhere. Figure out what they do well and what their audience responds to. Learn from them, but find spaces in between the competitors and do something different.
Greatest thing you can do to stand out is to find your own voice rather than try and copy someone else. You can’t be the leader by following the leader.
Answering these questions will give you more information, a better overview and more confidence, and should help you take the first step. As long as you have the need to start an online presence, take a leap of faith and go for it. Choose a domain name and start that blog today.
