Comments on: Weather Any Storm with a Flexible Blogging Plan

By: Michael Martine - Remarkablogger

Michael Martine - Remarkablogger — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:49:59 +0000

@Gary – Thanks. Your comment should’ve ended after the word “perspective.”

@Kathleen – Right. It really doesn’t matter what kind of blog you have, but it’s easier to see the connection between a business plan for a business and a blogging plan for a blog. Kinda the same thing. :-)

By: Kathleen Gage

Kathleen Gage — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 18:13:29 +0000

If your blog is pure writing content with no advertising, or you earn money via advertising, you still need a plan. Without a plan, you will operate haphazardly, which will never grow your audience very well.

By: figirl

figirl — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:39:19 +0000

http://www.figirl.com

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:25:25 +0000

Michael, I loved the "exit out" approach to figuring out the end result. I'm just enjoying writing my blogs too much to think about exiting for now, but thinking about when I might want to do something else one day brings a whole new perspective. And here's a resource on creating simple and flexible Christmas Tree Plans readers might find helpful.

By: Michael Martine - Remarkablogger

Michael Martine - Remarkablogger — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:31:46 +0000

@Patricia – You’re welcome!

@Andrew – I wish I’d thought of that “analogy extender”! Good one!

@Kari – It’s generally not a good idea to mix two unrelated things on a blog if the blog has a stated purpose to be about one thing. If the blog is just a personal blog then anything goes. You can mix two things if you do it in the right way, like for example, movie reviews and knitting (knit something while you watch the movie, right?). If you focused on marketing for the travel industry (and travel bloggers), that would be a very specific niche that could potentially work for you.

But this kind of meandering doesn’t make for a very strong presence and diminishes revenue opportunities. You keep losing audience members when you shift gears and you never reach the critical mass a successful blog has–unless you have such a strong personal (non-niche) blog that you build a loyal audience who will read whatever you write no matter what (like Writer Dad is starting to do).

But even doing that requires a plan. ;-)

By: Kari

Kari — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:30:17 +0000

Thanks for the great advice! I just started my blog about a week ago and never put too much thought in to the end plan. I just wanted a log to write about my travels so people could read along. Now I’m having fun writing useful marketing articles so I have a sort of mixed purpose. Do you think that writing about two totally different topics in one blog is a bad idea?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:24:43 +0000

Thanks Mike, I see your point. Keep focused on the goal and almost no outside force can steer you far off course. To fit it to your analogy, the mature tree that focuses on keeping it’s roots in the ground rather than the storm around it can still weather the storm.

By: Patricia

Patricia — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 01:07:04 +0000

Wow! Thank you for your reply…it feels solid to me…I love to learn…so here we go – thank you

By: Michael Martine - Remarkablogger

Michael Martine - Remarkablogger — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:19:38 +0000

@Patricia – The money is the easy part: you sell something, and people buy it. You spend less than you make. That’s it. The hard part is having something people want and making it as easy as possible for them to want to give you their money. People get in their own way by having personal issues around success or by doing things backwards: coming up with something to sell nobody wants and then struggling like mad against the inevitable. Do your research first: find out what people want and then sell it to them. If you don’t know how to sell, learn. On the web, that means learn copywriting. Good luck!

By: Patricia

Patricia — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:00:41 +0000

Thank you for your good ideas and I always appreciate learning something new.
I have been using Jack Canfield’s THE SUCCESS PRINCIPLES to design my life and living for the next maybe 25 years of my life and he has charts and graphs for all the plans for your business or endeavors.
Sometimes I work so hard on the planning I forget about the “writing” part which is my favorite section.
All my life I have gotten stuck on the earning money part of plans…I am here again and trying to work it through with new vision.
Canfield suggests whenever you make a new move one should get rid of all the old “stuff” that weighs you down…I am trying to garbage, recycle, and renew each item of my financial plan to get unstuck for goal setting the future. This has been an important step in my process.
Thank you for your good article and it was timely for me as well.