By Justin Dixon of A little Better
Every year it gets easier to start a blog, and as this ease brings more blogs into the picture it becomes more important to set yourself apart. But with so many blogs already out there, and so many ideas already being put in to action, aren’t all the good ideas taken? The answer is no. Each one of us has a unique experience, and angle to come at different problems, and each one of us have a different strength set. You have a message. You may even have multiple messages, the trick is to figure out what they are.
No matter why you are starting your blog if you want to bring people to it, and if you want it to be the best quality that you can produce you are going to need a message. So what is your message? Your message is the story that you tell people about your own life and theirs. It is a consistent message and it is your brand, and without a strong message your blog is going to just end up being a raindrop lost in the ocean.
The first thing you need to know is what you expect to get out of your writing.
Are you doing this for fun? Would you like to turn it into a business? How much do you want your blog to grow? Is there a certain audience would like to connect with? These are the questions you need to ask yourself before your going to have a clear idea of what direction to even start moving in.
So pull out a piece of paper or open a text document because we are going to find your message by answering a few questions. While answering these write down as many things as you can think of. The more things you can put on this list the better, and feel free to add to it as you come up with more ideas.
What excites you most to think and talk about? You are going to need passion to write consistently and you are going to need something that excites you before you can get someone else excited about it. The best part is that if you are excited about something excitement and passion are very contagious.
What type of people do you want to build a connection with? Is there an age group? What do these people have in common? Why do you want to connect with them? Be as detailed as possible, the more specific the better. Try to think from their perspective. This is going to be your target audience, so it needs to be somebody that you can relate to, and think like. It is okay to have more than one type of audience to aim at, but you are going to want to try to aim at one type at a time, unless you can find a broad connection between the different groups.
What type of problems does your target audience have? There is no problem too big or small. Even just relieving boredom is a problem that some groups of people need solved, and changing the world can only be done if somebody tries.
Make a list of what you are good at. What major and minor accomplishments have you completed in your life? If you have troubles coming up with answers than go ask friends and family, what they say you are good at.
How did you achieve each accomplishment?
What type of things do you like to read?
What have been the most important things you have been told in your life?
What have been your favorite things to write about in the past?
Once you have all that down its time to start going over the data. What you are looking for is a common theme. Pay particular attention to the problems that your audience needs solved. What out of the things that you enjoy reading, and writing makes you unique? Is there a need for your audience that is not being addressed, or at least not completely addressed? Is there a particular approach that has helped you that is not talked about often enough? How many things can you apply this information to? This is where you are going to find your message so write out a few sentences, they don’t have to be perfect, just put down as many as you need to. How many relationships can you find between the ideas that you are writing down?
Summarize. Try to put these relationships into a short sentence. Sum it up in as few words as possible. Keep going over this again and again until you find something that makes you pause. If you get more than one idea that’s great you can save extra ideas for later on down the road, but for now pick out the idea that has the most meaning to you.
How few words can you sum up your point of focus in to. What you want to do is come up with a URL idea out of that idea. The next step is to do a search and see if that name is available to be bought. If its not available don’t worry, you can still rephrase it, and you have other ideas written down. If your site name is taken see if you can take a look to see if they are leaving anything off that you would want to do. You can focus on that difference, and rather than see them as an opponent look at this person as someone who could help you spread your message. After all something from your message will probably resonate with them too.
You can check back to your list any time you want, and add to it as you come up with new ideas, and accomplish new things. So now not only do you have a message to focus on and grow with but you have options to switch to if your first idea goes bust. Just make sure that you give it your fullest try before you move on to something else. The minimum amount of time you should work on an idea is one year. Knowing your message is the step that will set you apart. Now you need to do something about it.
What ideas did you come up with? More importantly what are you going to do with your message? You have an idea to share, but its not going to share itself. There is an audience to connect with but you are going to have to do the work to make it as easy as you can for them to find you. You are going to have to put the things together to make them want to come to your blog. So don’t let it go to waste, and have fun.
For more from Justin and his message be sure to check out his blog A little Better You can subscribe here.
I start a blog because I want to make money from it.And the topic of my blog is also about how to make money online :).Now I find my self really interested in it and I have a great passion to share it with others.Besides this,I find myself really like writing.
That is a very clear goal, now how are you going to do it? What is going to make you stand out? What do you have to offer thats not already being offered? What can you offer at a higher quality than is being offered? What kind of product can you make, that people would trade their hard earned money for? What type of product would you buy online? Where would you buy it from? Why them? Why that product? What would you expect from an online product you paid for, how could you deliver that?
I started my blog to network. I trust the networks and connections to help with financial opportunities, but whether they bring financial opportunities or not some of the friends I have made through my blog are well worth every amount of effort I spend, and than some.
I love the idea on how to come up with a URL…
Justin,
I started my blog initially as a tool to get me in the door to a “real job”, but as keep working through it the focus is shifting more and more to running it as a business and with that come alot more strategy. I’ve been writing many guest posts lately and I’ve actually been paying closer attention to analytics. My ultimate goal is pretty simple: get paid to travel the world, surf, and write about it. I actually think it’s a viable goal and in the short term I’m trying to get income via freelance gigs and part time social media work.
I think its definitely possible. I don’t know which way I’m going to go, and I try not to make predictions, but yeah, I definitely think you can do it. Your just going to have to do it in a way that others will want to pay you for it.
Nice post – and great, doable tips for anyone looking to get into blogging. I often think all of the good ideas are taken, and then someone breaks out with an amazing idea. To use a cliche, it’s the people who think out of the box and look for a unique and different take on the same old topics that do well. Copying ideas is stale, how can you make an idea stand out?
This was such a helpful post. I have not yet found such comprehensive yet concise and accessible advice on blogging. I deeply appreciate it. These questions really pushed me to contemplate why I blog and what my blog is really about.
Thanks for the great advice. Your post was just what I needed! Can’t wait to ponder over your thought questions a bit more.
Great post!
This is something I’m still struggling with. My blog is fairly new (started in July) although I’ve technically been a blogger for a few years, but in the past I’ve always had very clear niches.
The problem with my passion is it isn’t a noun, and that makes it difficult for people to “get” straight away. Right now I’m operating under the title of phrase a coined, a Barefoot Geek. And although I feel that phrase explains everything I write about (a combination of new age-ish + geeky ideas), explaining that concept itself is the difficult part.
But now I’m rambling. Just thought I’d put my thoughts out there as a bit of a public brainstorming session.
At some point I’m planning on making this a business, and I realize not having an ultra-clear message up front could be somewhat damaging, it’s the only path I feel I take to do what I love for a living.
Not bad ideas, but I find myself hesitant to take advice from a writer who doesn’t check his grammar or spelling before posting an article potentially hundreds of people will read.
@ David, honestly I like the barefoot geek. My girlfriend was showing me stuff off of it just last night, and we both liked it. I think you should run with what you have going. You can always build a philosophy on the way, and you can always change that philosophy on the way.
@ Kate, I spent a year studying different forms of marketing, branding and leadership because I found it fascinating. I tried to sum up as much as I could in this article.
@ Juggling Motherhood, I can’t take all the credit for the questions. Johnathon Mead of Illuminated Mind.net wrote about this idea in his free e-book the zero hour work week.
@ Deb, Glad I was able to help you. I know a strong and clear brand is one of the most important factors in growing anything that you want to spread be it a business or a blog.
@ LPC and I look forward to seeing what URL you come up with from it.
Hi Justin – I started my blog using the information I’d talk to my mother about, as she is badly stroked (89), but her brain still works, and she laughs and enjoys good interesting information. So having written these ideas out in letters to family and friends updating them with Mum’s health etc and included what we did or talked about – people were writing and saying please don’t stop your letters – they’re so positive and so interesting.
So I started my blog and I have lots of ideas, it seems to be well accepted – granted I don’t have many readers .. as I’m not pushing it – but people enjoy its content .. my very intelligent uncle thought it was great and couldn’t wait to get his copy through the post!, my mother enjoys the pictures on the iphone and the content, I’ve been told I should have googling kids on it, and the Hospice people thought it was great for stimulating people at a difficult time of their life ..
So I do have loads of ideas – sadly my uncle has just died, but my mother lives on .. next year I have to have to move forward with it .. it’s being worked on now ..
Your points are good – it’s that niche market ..
Hilary Melton-Butcher
Positive Letters Inspirational Stories
Hi Justin,
Thank you for the reminder, a great post.
Too many people, myself included, jump into blogging as a venture before completely understanding what their intent is…. and end up waffling for a while before finding their (valuable) niche.
I started with a personal blog (ramblings, discoveries, poetry, travel tales etc) before I realised that in order to be considered a professional in my field and use a blog as a business medium, I had to start anew. So Im back to square 1 with an additional blog, but following your advice in planning out my target audience, intent, and personal offering, and just taking it nice and slow, and not allowing any momentum to overtake me :o)
K
@Hillary I’m sorry for your loss. It hit me pretty hard when my Grandpa Larry died. The best thing though that I chose to do about it, was to take the things I loved most about him, and add them to myself. (mainly his bizarre sense of humor)
@ Kaye, Thank you Kaye, though I wouldn’t get too caught up in the plan, this was more written to make it easier to come up with new ideas, while at the same time making a brand.
Justin,
Impressive writeup, through and through. I’m actually taking the time to write out these questions, and spending extra time thinking through possible answers. This is one of the best posts I’ve read in a while. Seriously, this is excellent beyond measure. Practical and actionable steps which lead one into a direction. I’ve been in a rut of sorts, lately on struggled to focus and produce for on my site, I know this will help get me going again. Maybe I’ll start by sharing this post on my site. Cheers!
Thanks again,
-Miguel
Glad I was able to help get you moving again Miguel. Sometimes we just need someone else to help give us a new perspective.
I started my blog because I am writing a memoir, and I thought that a blog would get me use to the idea of writing, and also, get followers that would be interested in reading my memoir, if published. I get to learn about what my intended audience is interested in reading from the comments I get on my posts.
Comments definitely do make blogging a lot more fun. What I would really ask for your purpose is what people can benefit from reading your memoir?
To T.
Who commented “Not bad ideas, but I find myself hesitant to take advice from a writer who doesn’t check his grammar or spelling before posting an article potentially hundreds of people will read.”
I think that a writer should check grammar or spelling as much as possible but I disagree that a reader should dismiss an article or book because it has spelling errors.
One of the rules I follow is “Do It Badly – But at Least Do It! In 1991, I wrote a book called “The Joy of Not Working” and used a desktop publishing program without spellcheck. Three years later, after the book had sold 30,000 copies, I used a new version of the program with spellcheck. I found that the book had 150 spelling errors.
“The Joy of Not Working” to date has sold over 225,000 copies and still sells almost 5,000 copies a year.
The reason: Because I followed most of Justin’s advice for writing a blog.
In other words, the book is written from the heart. If I was a perfectionist like many people are, and which you appear to be, I would never had written this book that has helped tens of thousands of people around the world slow down and live. At the same time, I have earned about $625,000 of pretax income from it.
The moral of the story is that writing from the heart is much more important than getting your spelling and grammar perfect.
Ernie Zelinski
Author of “How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free”
(Over 110,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and “Career Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations”
(Over 15,000 copies sold and published in 3 foreign countries)
@ Ernie Great story! (I’m not too fond of snipers.)
@ Justin I wish I could answer those questions, especially who I want my audience (and my connections) to be, but I always draw a blank.
But about your point… I went to a bookstore yesterday. There were so many titles screaming for attention. One got me and I bought it. How does that happen? Why that one, and only that one, at that time? If I could answer that question, maybe I could answer the question of who would choose my blog. Maybe the problem with answering these questions is that my motivation is often subconscious?
Maybe some of us have to learn in hindsight what we were seeking. The fact that I chose this post today tells me I am still looking for the purpose of my blog.
Hi All, This has been very helpful. some really good information and tips! It was useful for my team. Thanks for all of your hard work!