This is a guest post by Andrew Rondeau who is a full-time Internet Marketing Specialist and blogger from the UK. At his blog he shares all his knowledge and experience on how to make a blog.


Who do you write for, when you blog?

Yourself?

Your partner?

The woman down the road who shares your passion for your industry?

How did you first stumble across your voice as a blogger, and what was going through your mind when you first launched your blog and decided to use it as a marketing tool for promoting your business and services?

One of the most fundamental mistakes we can make when we blog is to forget exactly why we are writing articles, and who we are writing them for.

Small blogs are an ideal platform for discussing various details from our life, as when we publish the links of social networking sites such as Facebook, it’s lovely to get warm comments from our friends and family.


The Mistake Many Make…

A friend of mine who started out blogging about the project management industry fell in to this trap. She commenced her blog with a really strong strategy for generating sales for her project management download. And then, life got in the way. She had a couple of kids, adopted a cat, took up sailing. All of a sudden, a blog which started out as a useful, professional resource about project management was suddenly transformed in to an online diary detailing the minutiae of her life, including graphic descriptions of baby poo and the various animals the cat had dragged in.

My friend lost her way, because it’s always more interesting and gratifying to write about our lives – this is what interests each of us the most.

I am not saying at all that it is wrong to blog about your everyday life – as long as this is what your blog was designed for, and why you set it up. The issue arises when we start out with intentions to run a resource about a specific industry, and then write solely about what we got up to over the weekend.


The Trick Is…

The trick to staying focused in your blog is to never, ever forget who your audience are.

If you work in the IT software industry, you need to always relate your posts one way or another to IT. If you don’t, you’ll run the risk of slipping in to a confessional-style blogging technique which means that people coming to look for software news and downloads may instead find themselves getting regaled with tales about what your eldest child got up to at school.

While these two stories are not incompatible (for example, your eldest could have come across a great new software in said school, which revolutionized his or her learning), it cannot be the only thing you write about.
People understand your blog, and what they want from it. If you deviate from that even for a week or two, your audience will drift away and try and find what they need from someone else.


Ensure You Stay On Track By…

Each time you sit down to write a blog post, keep an image of your intended audience in mind.

Who are they?

Why would they come to your blog?

What keywords might they be using to get to your site?

Understanding exactly what your demographic for writing is will keep your blog posts focused, your audience happy, and your readers loyal.

The next time you want to discuss details of your latest holiday to Cornwall, take it offline and share it with your friends and family when you next meet up with them. Your customers will thank you for it!

How do you stay focused on only writing what your visitors want?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

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