With new blogs appearing daily on the Internet, your blog can stand out and draw readers if you focus on a specific topic and a specific readership.
For instance, you probably noticed that this blog addresses steps traditionally involved in researching, writing, revising, and marketing manuscripts primarily written for a Christian audience and/ or from a Christian perspective. Therefore, the specific readers to whom I speak are Christian writers, Christian poets, and Christian editors.
For Christian readers in general, the Bible Prayers blog focuses on almost all of the prayers in Holy Scripture, while The Poetry Editor blog hopefully speaks to poets, poetry editors, poetry students, and poetry lovers who want to discuss the poetic techniques, forms, and characteristics of well-written free verse and traditional poetry too.
Before deciding on those particular topics, however, I asked myself some questions that might also help you to fine-tune your focus:
What topics have interested me most of my life and continue to interest me enough to want to keep spending time with them and investigating them, perhaps for a long time?
Which topics have I studied or researched reasonably well?
Which of these topics might readers also want to think about, learn about, or discuss?
Do I have relevant experiences that could benefit potential readers?
Am I willing to double-check the facts and information I relay, even though I think I know?
Realistically, how often can I research, write, and post new articles? Once a day? Once a week? Twice a week? Twice a month?
Do I treat blog readers the way I want to be treated?
Am I willing to focus on their needs even when I promote my blog(s) through the major social networks, so the very people I hope to draw will not feel spammed, disrespected, or overwhelmed?
Will my readers be so glad they discovered my blog that they will just naturally pass on the good news?
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© 2011, Mary Harwell Sayler, all rights reserved.
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4 comments:
I really appreciate writers like you who feed not only the mind but the soul too. God bless your efforts, Mary!
It's hard finding the balance between overly specific and overly general when running a blog, but you've found the nexus of two interests, which seems perfect for gaining a niche audience.
One unrelated observation about this blog, for what it's worth to you: the content is quite smart and useful, but the basic design template you've chosen may be an obstacle to greater success. Specifically, the use of a green background to the text. This impairs readability and places you in a more eccentric/amateurish camp where you surely don't belong. I for one find it hard to read with that background.
As I say, for what it's worth!
Thanks for letting me know how the colors affect you. I'm an experienced poet-writer-instructor but not a computer expert at all! Techno-stuff often baffles me, so I hope I can change the background without skewing the blog.
Wow! Hope you see this, Anon. I like the overall look much better. Thanks.
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