Article in Social Media

Is Blogging Right for Me?

While Technorati, the blog search aggregation tool, boasts over 112 million blogs, not everyone is a born blogger. After all, think about it: you may not necessarily be the best painter. You may not be an artist. You may not be a writer. Some people have the strengths and some people have other strengths.

That doesn't mean you can't try, but most people typically abandon their blogs within 3 months.

If you're not sure if blogging is right for you, it's really important that you look into blogging and give it a test drive. You might be lured by riches and possible money off Google AdSense. You might like to sell banner ads (of course, you might want to think about that strategy because your CPM -- cost per thousand impressions -- may be low for a brand new blog). Whatever the case may be, the advertising comes later. Growth is by far more substantial and important.

To start out as a blogger, take a few moments to buy a domain name and set up hosting. If you have both already, get a subdomain or create a folder and install blogging software on it. If you don't want to go with your own host, there are free blogging platforms available (Blogspot as Google's Blogger, TypePad which costs money, and WordPress.com). Then start writing. Usually, though, you want to pick a topic you'll feel comfortable writing, be it sports, fashion, or technology. Keep writing. During your first few weeks, you should be writing a good amount of articles a day; 5 a week is normal.

If, after a few weeks, you're not out of ideas, great. On the other hand, if you are out of ideas, you may have an audience. Ask them what they want to hear from you. If you have nothing to tell them, you may feel like you need to give up.

If you're ready to give up, take a break and think about whether you really want to do this. Is it adding any value to your life? Are you getting anything out of it?

Start asking some serious questions:

* Are you finding blogging a chore or are you enjoying the writing?
If you like it, you probably want to continue.

* Are you providing your readers with value? Are people coming back?
Is your blog about everything under the sun or can you really drill down and talk about something specific that benefits you and your audience?

* Are you able to commit to the task?
If you're not, or if you think to yourself, "oh man, I need to start blogging," it may be time to revisit your priorities.

If the answers to these questions are overwhelmingly negative and you see that you'd be happier in your pre-blogging days, then maybe blogging just isn't for you. But you won't know that until you consider blogging, give some real dedicated time to the task, and do some blog marketing to let people know about you. Then you can evaluate whether you enjoy it or if it's time to move on.

by tamar