31 Days to Building a Better Blog : @ProBlogger

Strategic Blogging

NB: this is the first in a series of posts on Strategic Blogging. The following posts in the series are – Mission – Values – Vision and Goals – Issues, Present Reality and Future Direction – Strategy – Action Plan

Over the past year I’ve been meeting with a business coach who has been helping me to look at my blogging as a business rather than just a job. One of the things that has become evident to me is that good sustainable businesses don’t usually just happen by accident.

Instead they take planning, strategy and intentionality.

So as part of our 31 days to building a better blog series I thought it would be wise to start by talking about some big picture issues. Whilst these first few posts may not be as practical as some that will follow in the coming weeks – I believe that thinking through the issues that they contain could be the difference between a good and a great blog.

I know that for some this type of talk will be frustrating – words like mission, vision, values and strategy are not where you’re at – but humor me please. You see I believe that if you get these things right you’ll find many of the other tips that I share later in this series to be much more powerful as you’ll be able to use them in much more focused and effective ways.

Over the next few posts I’m going to lead you through a strategic plan process that a friend of mine gave me to think through another (non blogging) project that I’m working on – I think it’s highly relevant for ProBlogging and hope you find it helpful.

In each post I’m going to give us a little homework, a few questions to ask that hopefully will help you to think through the issues at hand. Feel free to answer them in private or to even think out loud in comments after each post.

As I post each post in this mini series within the larger 31 days to a better blog I’ll post links to them here as a central place to see the whole process.

I hope you enjoy.

The posts in this series are:

31 days to building a Better Blog

update: see a summary of all of the post in the ’31 Days’ series here.

August is going to be a frenzy of Blog Tips here at ProBlogger.net.

Starting Monday I’m going to turn up the ‘Blog Tips’ volume to 11 and am going to attempt to vomit onto you everything I know about how to make your blog better. Each post will be in a normal category but also in a new 31 days to building a better blog category also.

In a sense it’s nothing different to normal (there are hundreds of blog tips in my archives already) but I’ve noticed recently quite a few bloggers are in a bit of a slump with their entrepreneurial blogs – lacking inspiration, slipping in their posting frequency and even considering throwing in the towel.

Whilst it’s every blogger’s prerogative to let their blog slowly die – I’d like to be a part of giving bloggers a shot in the arm (or a kick up the butt) and hopefully in the process give them the motivation (and practical know how) to get their blog reaching it’s potential (whether that be financially or in some other way).

So we’ll be revisiting some old tips, coming up with some new ones and hopefully will all improve in our blogging as a result.

All I ask of you as readers is that you join in the frenzy of Blog Tips. I do not and will not know everything there is to know about blogging – but I have a suspicion that the wider ProBlogger community does. The only way to get at this communal knowledge is to make a commitment to share what we each know.You can do this in two ways:

1. Leave comments on the blog tips that I post here. ProBlogger is increasingly becoming a place of conversation and group learning. I learn so much from you and hope that you continue to teach us via your comments.

2. Post your blog tips on your own blog and let me know about them. If you’ve learnt something about blogging recently the rest of us want to hear about it. Post it on your blog and then email me with the title and URL. I will attempt to post something every day or two with a summary of the blog tips that have been written.

3. Suggest a Topic for me or someone else to write a Blog Tip on. To do this simply leave a comment below. I won’t guarantee it’ll be answered by me – but if you see a question and would like to tackle it on your own blog (see #2 above) feel free to do so.

I’m looking forward to the learning that we do as a community in August!

update: see a summary of all of the post in the ’31 Days’ series here.