By Terez Howard

You’ve rehearsed your lines. You’ve completed the finishing touches on your costume. The curtain rises, and you see an audience anticipating a five-star performance. Do you recognize the faces looking back at you?

Bloggers have a reason for blogging. They blog to share what’s going on in their personal and professional lives. They blog to promote their products or a service. They blog to express their opinions. Most often, bloggers write in the hopes of creating a reaction.

Who has a ticket to your show?

Here are some general groups of people that take a ticket to blogs:

• Relatives
• Friends
• Potential customers
• Returning customers
• Business associates
• Yourself (You write for you)

Have you chosen a group to write for? I don’t care who holds the ticket, as long as someone is reading what I write. Getting readers to follow your blog can be challenging, and in a state of desperation, you might say that you’d be satisfied with any human being capable of discerning the English reading your blog. If you want a follower to stay for the duration of the show, then not any Tom, Dick or Harry will do.

Look at it this way. You blog for a reason. Let’s say that you blog in the hopes that visitors will click on a link to buy your book on potty training boys under 2. You might be happy to see a comment from your grandmother’s Bingo partner or your son’s 10-year-old buddy. Yes, they might spread the word, but these people are not going to buy your book.

You don’t hand out tax advice or Xbox cheat codes on your potty training blog, even though that Bingo player would love to know how she can get more money back and that pre-teen wants to defeat Tomb Raider. You must stick to topic.

Know your audience

You must establish who your audience is and what they want. Returning to the previous example, you are writing to parents, and not just any parents. You specifically write for parents who have boys under the age of 2 and want to start potty training them.

You blog potty training tips that may or may not be included in your book, how to handle temper tantrums, spirited toddler boys, how to raise a happy toddler boy and throw in your personal stories. These parents will be interested in what you have to say and possibly interested in purchasing your book.

Notice that not all the topics I listed are directly related to potty training. They would, however, be subjects of interests to your audience.

Hone in on a specific group. In my example, I used parents of boys under the age of 2. One blogging professional markets to females ages 21 to 45 looking to start a small business. Another blogger writes to relatives on her mother’s side to post updates on annual family reunions. The better you know exactly who you’re writing for, the better chance you will have at retaining readers.

Sit in the front row of your show

Take a moment to get off the stage and sit yourself in one of those cushy theater chairs. Think about what your audience wants to take away from your blog. What would you want to know if you were them?

You’re audience will applaud your blog if it fills a need, satisfies a want or just pleases curiosity. Who knows? Your words could merit a standing ovation.

Who sits in your blog’s audience?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

By Terez Howard

Love Is a Natural Thing

I blog because I love to write.

That makes blogging as natural as breathing for people like me who enjoy feeling a computer keyboard underneath their fingertips. But even for bloggers having an affair with writing, blogging can become a chore. How?

A freelance writer who blogs for a business owner does not particularly relish the idea of writing about chicken coops week after week. A business tips blogger might find she has to include financial advice in some of her posts since finances are a top priority among many businesspeople when numbers are one of her worst enemies. Incorporating financial anything would be drudgery for me.

So what can a girl do to build a love for blogging?

Write what you know.

It’s not a secret. It’s not earth shattering. It’s the truth. You write about what you know. Take your life experiences and everyday happenings and regurgitate them on a blog post.

I’m not saying to give a play-by-play account of what you do during the day:

This morning, I woke up and made the bed. Then, I went into the bathroom to shower.

No. Don’t do that, and don’t do this:

After I got into the bathroom to take a shower, the toilet seat was up again! My husband still doesn’t know how to put the seat down. We argued for hours, and I left the house for the rest of the day. I might not go back.

The first example is boring. The second example is too personal. Strike a balance. Be entertaining enough and personal enough, while sharing helpful information. Like this:

After another marital disagreement (we all have them, right?), I considered what it would mean to the female population if our men actually followed our advice. So I asked myself, ‘How would I best respond to an unwanted suggestion?’ Presentation is everything.

Apply what you know

You must research your topic if you’re writing in foreign territory. Use experts and authorities for your sources. When appropriate, cite your these specialists as your sources. And remember, you are producing your own distinctive work, not a copy cat article.

Then comes the fun part. Make your blog your own. There are hundreds of blogs about cooking. I recently saw an ad about a woman who blogs about cooking and doesn’t cook. She writes super simple snack recipes. She is unique.

Your blog might not be so one-of-a-kind, but each post can stand on its own as original if you parallel what you know with what you write.

“But I don’t know anything.”

That’s just lazy. Either you are not thinking, or you are not working to know anything. Look around. Literally, look around. Go ahead.

I see a computer. I could blog about which computers offer programs that cater to writers. I see various piles of papers. I could blog about organizing these papers or why these piles are already organized. I see an enormous bookshelf. I could write a blog comparing the writings of my favorite author, Langston Hughes, with my own writing or get tips from this multi-talented writer.

Those ideas are the ones that are in front of my face. Walk through your house. Think about your family and friends and their interests. Recall your everyday activities to mind and apply them to your blog.

Maybe blogging isn’t love at first sight for you. Look at blogging through a mirrored lens to cultivate a love that could grow into a lifelong relationship.

What one thing about blogging could make you fall in love with it?

—
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

— ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

A Guest Post by Terez Howard

Successful entrepreneurs asked that question. You’ve asked that question, and sometimes I’m still asking that question.

An epiphany: it all goes back to gardening.

Let me explain. My brown thumb has kept me from killing another cactus and from watching seedlings waste away. But this year, I decided to give gardening a chance. Since it’s early in the gardening season, I don’t know whether the fruits of my labor will produce anything edible or not. I’m proud to say, though, that my green beans are towering and my spinach is plentiful.

What do you care, right?

Well, I did research, asked my friends for advice and jumped in. That’s what we do. We research how we can make a living as our own boss. We join forums, follow blogs and ask the experts to give us direction.

What happens after that?

DO SOMETHING. Don’t get stuck as a professional student, always reading and studying but never graduating and starting a career. This might sound like lunacy coming from a blogger, but stop reading so many blogs and responding on so many forums. Take some time to build your own business, and don’t let the possibility of failure to paralyze you. Some seeds will not germinate. It’s part of business.

I’m not going to give you an exhaustive list of how you can get started as a business owner. You can gorge yourself on a buffet of such information. All I want you to do is one thing that will lead you toward your goal. Of course, you have to know what your goal is first. Maybe you want to make an income selling an original fitness routine. Today, sign up with Twitter with the goal of giving your potential and future customers daily exercise tips. It’s not much in the way of marketing, but it’s something.

With my garden, I knew that I wanted to pay $1 for a package of seeds and get 20 times that amount in produce. The end result motivated me to get started. This goes back to your business goals. If you know what you want to gain, then you’ll be more likely to get moving. Write your goals down and keep them handy as a personal motivator. Post them in your workspace.

Oh, and the time is now. Time to get started on that garden!

Do you know your goal? What sort of garden is it?

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Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez … you said it perfectly and with style.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!