In the last post we discussed that how one should consider doing a little bit of research before starting a blog and before buying any domain name. In this part of the post we’ll discuss that what should be the next step for your “blog plan“. Now that the domain name is booked, WordPress or any other blog platform is installed and you are ready to blog too! Well, that’s what you think! Blog Plan is a lot more than and lets find out -

1. What’s the real goal of the blog – There are lot of reasons because of which one decides to start a blog. It may be just for building authority, meeting like-minded people, making money out of it and when it comes to businesses, there is a whole lot more you can think of – be it brand building, finding new customers, building business relationships and what not! You should always keep in mind that what exactly your main goal is and once you have a clear goal in mind, your target should be to achieve it in minimum amount of time and should not deviate from that at any moment. All blogging related activities of yours should help you reach to that particular aim of yours.

2. Amount of hours you decide to invest – Ask any freelancer and you’ll know that the most important thing is that how important it is to calculate that how many hours go in any project. Building a blog is not at all short term thing, so it’s difficult to find out the real amount of time for the whole thing, however one can always decide that how many hours you are ready to invest in it everyday and that’ll enable you to find out that how much time will be invested in coming 5-6 months.

3. Are you ready to invest some money? – You thought blogging is free, Sorry to bust your myth, you can invest in blogs too in various ways. a) A beautiful blog design (ahem! I hope you know whom to choose). b) Ads – If you think that you are ready to target a particular audience then you can use ads to attract visitors. c) Good web host – You’ll always find some cheap web hosts, however if you think that your blog will go to another level, then do consider a better web host (even though they may be expensive).

Small tip – In starting use some shared hosting, however if you see that the blog is getting popular, you’ll need to ultimately need to shift to a better webhost or you’ll need to get VPS or even dedicated servers.

What I really want to say that even if you plan not to invest much on the blog (money wise) still consider this point and mention it in the blog plan and think that will there be any stage when you’ll invest and if the answer to this question will be yes, then decide that how much you plan to invest and when.

4. Making smaller or short term goals – Its important to make various small or short term goals. Remember that we have already discusses that every blogging activity should be focused on one main goal, however these smaller goals help you in realizing that how far is your main goal. These small goals can be either the number of page view, number of subscribers, if the community is building around the blog and what not. There are various ways of counting a blogs growth and one should make small and realistic goals and should try to achieve them to reach to that ultimate goal!

I hope this second post of this series will motivate you enough to pull up pen/paper or any word application to get going in building the blog plan for your upcoming blog. In the next post we’ll discuss that what all should one mention in the blog plan when it comes to marketing of the blogs. Stay tuned or subscribe to our newsletter for regular updates.