Guide To Planning A New Blog

Maybe you discovered a new hobby that you want to explore, maybe you have a new message to get across, maybe you just need some more money, or more likely a combination of all three. There are many reasons for starting a new blog, and depending on the reason for the blogs’ existence will determine how much planning and preparation needs doing before its launch.

For example, a quick niche blog based around a few keyword phrases doesn’t need as much planning as a flagship blog that you aim to devote at least one blog post a day towards.

Planning a new blog can be divided into two parts; the building of the blog and the launch of the blog in terms of marketing (and longer term marketing plans if necessary). This post will cover the planning of building a new blog.

Photography by Ben Pollard

What Do I Need To Think About When Planning A New Blog?

• Purpose of the blog. Why are you building it? This means choosing the weighting in terms of business blogging/labor of love.
• Domain name, Brand Name, slogan/tag line. Will you use .com or something else? Will you include the “Dot Com” in the brand name? Could people easily misspell your domain name? Does the name capture what your blog is all about?
• Blogging Platform and hosting WordPress, typepad or something different? I recommend WordPress hosted with BlueHost, which is what I have used cost effectively for well over a year without any serious problems.
• Layout and colour scheme (design). Will you use a free template and modify it yourself, pay a designer to do it all, or something in between? A great way to have an affordable custom header graphic/logo designed for you is by starting a design contest in the contests section of the Digital Point forums. This gives you options to choose from for very little money (we are talking $10-$50!).
• Content topic(s). This requires the most thought. It can be difficult to decide exactly what counts as “off-topic” at first, it can take time for content topics to slot into place. However, it’s best to plan ahead as far as possible so good decisions can be made about the names of blog post categories and the writing style. Make sure the issue of being yourself online is solved. Also check out my post about Pillar content.
• Day to Day running of the blog. Will you be doing it all yourself? Setting a posting frequency and sticking to it is vital in the early stages of a blogs life. Make sure you have enough time to write a post when needed, moderate comments, sort out the advertising, networking, building links etc. Setting the bar too high results in running out of steam, bloggers block and and all round bad time.
• Monetization. When (if at all) will you monetize and how? Check out my free Blog Monetization Strategies e-book for in depth information about this.
• Budgeting. Do you have money to invest? If so where? Personally I prefer investing more financially in the design of the blog than the marketing. Overall I invest far more time than money, which is what’s so great about blogs - anyone can do it without a big financial investment!
• Future expansion options. These commonly include adding a forum/ning network/job board/affiliate store.
• Search Engine Optimization. Choosing basic keywords to aim to rank for in Google, page titles, internal linking structure and linkbaits, all in as much detail as you choose. For more info about this read my guide to SEO.

It takes a lot of preparation to launch a new flagship blog and often the first month of a blogs life is the hardest as there are very few readers, who make the whole experience worthwhile. Getting though the first months takes patience and discipline, but is very rewarding. If you are starting a new blog I wish you the very best of luck!