Blogging is a huge commitment - to yourself, and to your readership. You set time aside in your life to think up content then wrestle it down into words, something that’s cohesive and sensible and it’s just something, something to give your readers to read and enjoy, because that’s what you gotta do as a blogger. Think, write, publish.
It’s a great life. All the friends you meet and the connections you make, and the new things you learn. It's incredible. But there's some things you need to think about before you jump right in.
will i be able to make time for this in my life?
This -- this is a big one. Can you commit?When you blog, you no longer have a duty just to yourself and your site. You have an obligation to your readers, your followers, the ones who make it worthwhile for you to sit for hours as you try to find clever things to say while making a point at the same time.
If you abandon your site just like that, you’re letting them all down. You’re leaving them hanging after you got them interested in your site -- and your writing.
how frequently am i going to publish things?
This sort of ties in to commitment. If you can’t flood your site with a post a day five days a week, all with fresh new content, then don’t. If you do when you’re not able to maintain that type of intense scheduling, you’ll run out of steam and start to slow down -- or your content will suffer. Instead of writing five fresh blog posts for people to read, now you have rehashed content being churned out day after day. And trust me, readers will know that you’re running out of creative juice. Your posts will start to turn stale from the lack of inspiration because you used it all up when you started.And yeah, your battery will always recharge, but who knows how long that’ll take? In the meantime, your readers will either get turned off by the lack of consistent post times or the lack of new content.
My advice? Treat it like a marathon. While there isn’t really a ‘finish line,’ you need to pace yourself. Maybe do two posts a week, or even three. Keep up the quality of your posts, and
what do i want my site to look like?
Not so much a design question, but more of a vision question. How do you envision your site looking like, two years down the road? Will it be a top-end blog with tens of thousands of avid fans? Or will it be a quiet you-space where you just chat about things that you find interesting, not necessarily what’ll interest the readers?When you blog, it’s always good to have a vision of what you want. Then you can lay down the proper things you need to grow into what you want -- making connections, talking to people, getting involved with larger blogs. That sort of thing. Always have an endgame plan. Unless you don’t really have any big things planned for your blog, which in that case just going with the flow and rolling with the punches should do just fine.
