Things to consider before you start a blog

Blogging is a great way to express yourself, get your name or brand out there. Personally, starting my blog was the best thing I've ever done. It has taught me a lot about myself and introduced me to an industry I never even knew existed. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Blogging takes a lot of work. It can be difficult, time consuming and sometimes lonely. But the positives always outweigh the negatives in my book when it comes to blogging, you can read why I think that here. Before starting a blog, there are a few things I think you should consider or are worth having a little think about...

Money or Passion?
Why are you starting a blog? What motivates you? What drives you to want to write? Is it money or is it passion? Both by the way are completely legit reasons in my book. It's no secret that there is serious money to be earned from blogging and if money is what motivates you, then more power to you, there isn't anything to be ashamed of in that regard. If you write as a passion then what are you expecting from your blog? Do you want it to be your own little personal corner of the internet that you can go to whenever adulting gets too much? Do you want to share you love of something and share all your experiences? Be honest with yourself with this, so that you don't end up quitting or being disappointed.

What would you write about?
Regardless of what the answer to the first question is, you'll need something to write about. Find your niche, is there a market for it? Where would you find readers? Is there something similar already in existence ? Chances are, there is so what will make your blog different and stand out? Before launching your blog, try writing 10 posts or at least have a serious brainstorming session and see how far you get. Don't worry if over time, your blog or what you blog about changes, mine has and I love that it has changed.

Time
This is a biggie for most people. How much time to you realistically have to devote to blogging. As I said above, blogging is hard work and boy is it time consuming. You also need to think about how long it takes you to complete a post. For me I write quite quickly and once I have an idea, I can get it out of my head and have it ready to be published, usually within and hour, taking photos and getting it ready to be published, I'd be looking at, at most two hours. But I know it takes some people days, entire weekends to publish just one post. Also don't just rush posts, take your time with them, if they take you a full weekend, let it be so, quality content will always win so don't worry if you're not getting five posts a day wrote. Figure out how fast you work and how much time you realistically have. Once you know this, you can create a plan and develop a consistent schedule with your readers. The reason for this is so that you don't quit after a few weeks or months, if you only have time to blog once a month, let it be so but be realistic about your time and how much you're willing to give up.

The Technical Stuff
There's a whole other side to blogging other than just writing. One of the most basic questions being what platform to you want to use? Blogger, wordpress.com, wordpress.org ? Then there's designing the blog, do you want to do it yourself or pay someone to do it for you? Do you have a certain budget? Do you have no budget what so ever? I didn't and had to learn it all myself, no harm in that either. Do you understand social media and how to use it properly? Do you know where you should be promoting your blog or how to promote it? There's so much more to it than you could ever imagine, but that keeps it interesting!

The Legal Stuff
So there's obvious legal stuff like copyright on images and of course content but recently new legislation has come into effect and you need to be careful about how you present yourself online. There are certain guidelines that you need to stick to, it's the law people! For example you now HAVE to disclose when your being paid to promote something(which you should do anyway out of respect to your readers) And there are a few other things you need to educate yourself on so do your research, a quick google search will help you a lot.

As I said above, blogging takes a lot of work but if you're passionate and you want to do it, don't let anything stop you!

Erin X