Have you seen the road signs lately? Your blog may be veering off-course. That’s right. When I started this blog, I envisioned certain things, like reviews, helpful traffic analysis, writing tips, as the keystone to my writing. I don’t think I’ve gone off course, not yet at least. I can still see the markers of my original topics in the distance. What I can tell you — I have wanted to write about so much in the past few weeks. I had to employ restraint.

Can you see the path clearly? To ensure my blog stays between the guiding lines, I have developed a writing schedule, given myself time every evening to network, patterned a routine around my freelance writing, and begun various future projects that will see the light of day on this blog in the coming months.

We sometimes have to step away from our project to see it clearly. Where do we want our blog to be in a few months? Do we want to be writing poems about our lost sweetheart, conveying political ideas using haikus, or introducing the latest technology trends to our readers? We should have some idea of where we want our blogs to be in a few months. Otherwise, why have a pre-frontal cortex?

Use Your Low Beams
When I’m driving in the fog, I’m tempted to turn on my car’s brights. But doing that magnifies the mist. The blog fog affects me the same way. I need to know where I’m going, but look at each individual step as a way of getting their without crashing. My posts can and do affect each and every one of my readers. I need to be aware of the persona I’m creating, the attitude I’m conveying, and the message I’m carrying — all of which creates my path towards my destination.

We sometimes get sidetracked on our blogs. As with anything, we can always rebound by turning the obvious tangential digression into a lesson for our readers. When we admit our growing pains, we garner the respect of our readership, along with righting our path on the road to blogging success.

There’s someone watching. We all have traffic measurement software. We can see the peaks and valleys and equate those to numbers, but behind those soft falling crests and mesmerizing integers come human beings. (Unless of course your traffic analysis software mistakenly counts bots, but I digress.) Those humans are trained readers, and everyone of them carries their own grenades to the blog post you’re writing at this moment.

These grenades can best be described as the reader’s indifference weapons. The moment our writing veers from their scope of interest the pin might be pulled, leaving their hand flinching with anticipation. They want to toss it into your corner and go scurrying for their safe zones — those blogs they frequent. You must answer why they should stay.

We all have an audience. We want the traffic, and we want the recognition for our hard work. We think our egos are bulletproof, protected from those grenade blasts, but they are not. We need a comment — a bone, thrown.

What goals do our readers have? Can we find that out? Are they seeking to create their own webpages, learn more about pottery, fix a tire, write a letter to the great beyond? How did they find us? What role does our blog fill?

Know Thyself

We each have our experience, education, language, problems, family, and work.  Our blogs may deal with those things or completely ignore them. The visitors to our blogs have their whole package of influences. And they have their grenades poised to erase you from their environment. If we know ourselves, though, we can draw in those who can relate to our blog posts. They may come sheepishly at first, so we need to reinforce their initial impression through quality, focused writing. Those who toss their grenades and vanquish our blog from their landscape may find somewhere else they can relate. That’s fine. What should and does matter are the readers who stay, those who sign up for the RSS feeds, comment on the posts, and praise the good work of our writing.

Our writing can be expressive, tunneled outpourings that drench our readers. Or, it can be simple, instructive and concise on the topics we are passionate.  

Through blogging, we all have audiences. So look up from your keyboard, survey those reading, and, most importantly, know yourself.