Starting a business blog is hard.
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As I’ve been ramping up my freelance writing business, I’ve been doing a lot of research. (I like to do a lot of research because (1) I love to learn new things and (2) it’s a great way to feel like I’m accomplishing a lot, even though I’m not, really—but that’s a topic for a future post.) One piece of advice I encounter over and over again is “Start a blog.” Chris Garret, for example, blogs regularly about it, as does Michael Martine, and many others. In fact, Michael Martine has a free ebook for download called—surprise!—How to Start a Business Blog (which I recommend).
The thing is, starting a blog is hard. Wait, let me qualify that. The mechanics of setting up a blog are really quite easy. But actually starting to blog is pretty difficult. Let me illustrate with my own experience.
I’ll save the mechanics of setting up and launching the blog for another day, and only if someone asks. It’s a fairly dry, albeit straightforward, process. The tough part came once everything was in place, theme picked and customized, plugins selected and activated…basically once all the busy work was done and I had to commit to the blog. Because, see, I was faced with a problem: What was I going to write about?
Answering this has proven to be quite a challenge. First, I had to decide my audience. Am I writing for potential clients? Am I writing to share my experiences with other writers? What about topics? Will my topics be general, or tightly focused on my writing specialties? How often will I update?
What if I suck?
That last one is a biggie, but I’m fairly confident I won’t suck. I better not. Writing is my living, after all.
Truth be told, I still haven’t answered most of those questions. But there comes a time when you gotta stop tweaking and adjusting and twiddling your thumbs and just do it.
“Start a blog,” they said.
Okay.
(Photo credit: Daniel Morris)
You don’t have to know all the 100% perfect answers when you first begin. It’s important to simply begin, and get used to it. Practice, but before you get too set in your ways, answer those tough questions for yourself. You want your blog to accomplish what you want it to, instead of becoming a big time sink that merely affords you the illusion that you’re accomplishing something.
Good luck!
Matt,
You won’t suck. You are way too funny and succinct. Think of successive approximation. The research is necessary. Intent and positioning is really important. You have to have bones to hang the whole of it on. Then you get to play within the nifty little challenge you have made for yourself. And lucky us. We get to watch.
It looks good.
All best,
Jan
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