So you want to start a blog. What subject do you choose? How do you know you will get readership, and how do you build it when you do? These questions and more are asked by “would be” blog writers wanting to share their life, their hobbies. their career, and more.

Let’s get you started.

• Focus your blog. Perhaps your interest is in interior decorating. Can you decorate on a budget? Do you buy all of your furniture at garage sales or antique dealers?
• Expand or localize your information. You may think nationally is best, giving you the most readership, but consider for a moment a blog on the best kept secrets in your area regarding restaurants. What if your blog revealed these secrets and gave those in your community dining options they’d never before considered?
• Check the latest trends. Love toys? Want to tell people about your latest finds? What of clothing? What is new and different and classy that you’d like to share with readers? Do you have a degree in fashion? Even better. Use this degree to your advantage. Let you readership know that you know of what you speak.
• Keep the blog short between 300 and 500 words. Keep it short to keep your reader interested.
• Write conversationally, as if you’re writing a letter. Make the reader think that they are the only reader on the planet. Don’t get wordy. Don’t show off.
• Share some of your personal life. Readers like to connect with others. It makes them feel as if they’re not the only one in society with the same concern, love, or problem.
• If you have to write about something negative or difficult to digest, do it was tact. Ranting rarely works unless you are especially good at it.
• Write at least once a week. Folks like to see you posting often and will follow you wherever you take them if you keep your articles fresh and constant.