How To Decide What to Blog About

Decisions

Now that my 28-Day Personal Challenge is over, it’s time to decide what to blog about.

I didn’t plan on sharing this, I figured it would be a behind-the-scenes working. Since I’m a curious person and I love to see how people come up with plans I “why not” share my thought process.

Be aware I’m not a blog specialist. This is just what I’m doing to figure out what I need to do for my blog. There is no guarantee this is the best method. I’m a “trial and error” type of person. Yes, it makes life more complicated and takes me longer to do what I need to do, but I learn best that way.

Let me be clear, this whole blogging journey, so far, has been a great big trial and error event. I have crashed and burned and risen again and again.

What to Blog About?

What to blog about? I think we can all relate that we’ve asked this question of ourselves many times.

Which is why I did my 28-day personal challenge. I wanted to create content without fear and see what I enjoyed and what direction to take my blog.

Let me tell you, writing 28 posts in 28 days, I asked myself, “what to blog about today?” more than I care to admit. I even asked myself that question today. And that’s when I decided to let you in on the average person’s thought process. Buckle up, here it goes.

Step One – Write without fear

I did this step during February. This was important for me because I don’t have a niche. I cover that reason in my first post of the 28-Day Personal Challenge. Recap: I don’t want to write about writing just because I write.

The whole point of the challenge was to write about anything that came to my mind.

Step Two – Review what you wrote

This is my current step. I’m reading through the last 28 posts and I’m looking for:

• Common threads – are there any posts that contain similar content or subjects
• Enjoyment – which posts brought me the most joy when I wrote them?
• Sustainable – for me, is there a subject that I want to continue learning and writing about?
• What’s Missing – is there a subject I wish I had touched on but didn’t?

Once I’m done reading through these posts, I hope to glean a better understanding of my style and what I may be able to help others with or at least bring joy or fun or knowledge to others.

Step Three – Decide how often to post

Bloggers vary with how often they post. Some post three times or more per week, some post once a month. It really depends on what we can reasonably fit into our schedule.

I’ve jumped ahead here. I’ve already decided I can reasonably blog once per week. For now, maybe I’ll do more later. At this point, I want consistency and I know I can do one post per week and not affect my writing time (fiction, freelance, business).

Step Four – Decide what to blog about

Now is the time to nail down what you’ll blog about.

And maybe a format plan for your blog, too. Let’s say you’ve chosen to have a food blog and you’ve decided to blog three times a week. Maybe Mondays will be covering a new restaurant, Wednesdays will be comfort food recipes, and Fridays will be ten-minute lighter-fare recipes.

I’m currently still deciding what to blog about (see step two), but I know I want to have four different categories for a format. So, instead of different posts for days of the week, since I’m only doing one post per week, it will be formatted via the week of the month. Wow, that was convoluted. Let me use the food blog as an example again. The first Tuesday of the month would be covering a new restaurant, the Second Tuesday would be comfort food recipes, the Third Tuesday would be lighter-fare recipes, etc….

Step Five – Brainstorm blog content

Once you’ve nailed down what subject(s) you are going to write about, how often you plan on blogging, and a format if you wish, it’s time to sit down and plan your content.

If you plan on writing three posts per week, I’d recommend brainstorming at least a month’s worth of content. Plus a few extra content ideas in case a topic goes south or doesn’t appeal to you once you begin writing.

If you’re doing one post a week, I’d recommend brainstorming at least three months’ worth of content, plus a few extras for the reasons given above.

I think it’s a good idea to remind everyone, I’m giving recommendations and I’m not an expert. Take it with a grain of salt.

If all else fails

…learn from those who have invested time and money into figuring out the blogging system. Go read blogs, watch YouTube videos, and/or take a course.

I don’t have a whole list of recommendations, but I have seen some of Suzi’s stuff and I like the information she shares and she’s a down-to-earth person so I enjoy her YouTube videos. You can find her at StartAMomBlog.

I’ll keep you posted as I go through this process. Let me know what works for you when creating or deciding what to blog about.