Starting a blog is not about planning. It is about starting to write and share your thoughts. A detailed plan of action might destroy your blog!

Starting a blog should be quite an easy task, but many people turn it into a headache. The problem is the old business maxim:

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

But I believe this does not apply to blogging, even as a business. If you want to blog, whether just to share your thoughts or because you want to turn it into an income, then planning every details could be the downfall before you even start.

A blog style is personal to you

A blog is a collection of your thoughts, ideas, doings and so on. If you really think that you need to put down a plan of action in writing, then where is the best place to do it?

Yes, the best place to plan your blog is in your blog. Create the blog and then the first few posts can detail what you are planning to do. This makes logical sense as anyone reading it will know that it is a new blog anyway, and by listing what you have planned it might interest them to come back at a later date.

Planning your blog within the blog is also a good way of starting to build up initial content before you are getting any real visitors to the site. It is starting to pad out the content of your website ready for when the search engines find it and begin to start sending you visitors.

What is involved in blogging?

The thing is, planning a blog does not entail that much. Register a URL, host it, upload WordPress, choose a theme and start writing. Plans going forward for making an income can change by the day, as offers are made and other opportunities appear.

The only plan you might have – building traffic

Planning your traffic building is also not something that you should set in stone. Keep looking around and trying different things. If you plan to spend a week article writing and a week commenting on other people’s blogs and so on, it is not really realistic. For a start, you will not know for certain which is working and secondly, if something really takes off then you need to stick at it, not follow to the letter a plan you have put down in writing.

It is far better that your plan is to experiment with different ideas as you go along rather than you will follow a set structure that will take you from A to B.

Flexible, not planned to the letter

In business, especially on large scale projects, planning is essential. But blogging should be about enjoying what you do, reacting to events and just seeing what is working for you and what does not work for you. That is about as much of a blogging plan that you should really make to start off with, keep it open and flexible for maximum benefits down the line. And if you really must put it down in writing, then make it your first post!

Keith Lunt

Thanks to today’s sponsor – used cars.