Once you’ve followed all the steps and your website up and running, you’ll want to know what to blog about. You’ve got your basic pages: About Me, Privacy Page, etc. You have a theme you are happy with. So now what? Well, you want to add content so Google and other search engines know you are still alive.
What is a Blog
Originally it was called a weblog but it didn’t take long for it to be shortened down to just blog. Basically, it you writing on a subject of your choosing.
Some people even use them for more of a personal diary type blog. And then there are those who use their blog for advertising, usually for a company they are an affiliate with.
A blog will make use of images and text and sometimes even have links to other blogs or media. You want to be able to interact with your readers through them leaving comments and you responding. The more interesting your content is, the more people will want to leave comments. This can add to the popularity of your blog, and popularity, of course, will lead to more people visiting your site.
Code of Conduct
I’ve added this bit of information to give you pause and think. When you are writing your blogs and responding to comments, think about this. Are you behaving responsibly on your website? Are you moderating your comments? Take care that your website follows the Bloggers Code of Conduct
Tim O’Reilly proposed there be a “Bloggers Code of Conduct”. It encourages bloggers to enforce civility not only in their content but also in the comments they allow on their websites. It was brought about due to some serious threats Kathy Sierra received online before she was due to appear at the O’Reilly ETech Conference.
There was much public discussion about the need for bloggers to have a code of conduct. Robert Scoble felt the incident also highlighted the issue of online harassment of women.
Scoble stated, “It’s this culture of attacking women that has especially got to stop. Whenever I post a video of a female technologist, there invariably are snide remarks about body parts and and other things that simply wouldn’t happen if the interviewee were a man”.
Food for thought when you are writing your articles.
What to Blog About
Today there is a lot of competition for bloggers. As of February 2014, there were about 172 million blogs on Tumblr and 75.8 million WordPress blogs. (WikiPedia)
With that many blogs out there, you want to be able to set yourself apart from the rest. You will need to find something unique and interesting to give you that extra edge. Your keyword research can also help you here, find out the kind of things people want to read about.
You can also look at your different social media accounts. On Facebook you can do a search for groups and find many groups dedicated to your niche. Go ahead and join a few, spend some time talking with members. See what they are talking about.
You can do the same in Google Plus, LinkedIn and Twitter as well as doing a search for forums related to your niche. Forums are set up a bit different so you need to make sure you read and follow the rules that have been set up. In any of these pages, you can find enough topics to write blogs for a very long time.
I have several websites and each has it’s own niche. For each one I need to take a look at my audience. For this website, the one you are reading, I want to provide information I feel anyone wanting to build a WordPress website and build an online business would want to know.
Brainstorm with friends, it’s amazing the ideas that will come up, your friends will be more objective than you are and have a different way of viewing the niche you’ve chosen.
Keep a list of your post and keyword ideas. I keep a list of post ideas in the WordPress dashboard saved as drafts and also keep a notebook with me for those moments of inspiration!
I am constantly adding to it. I don’t follow a specific order, I just pick one. And then there are times an idea will come to me out of the blue and I’ll write about that instead. It is all up to you. It is your website after all.
Do you need more help with content ideas? You can find some great idea for generating writing ideas in this post.
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