What’s the POINT of Your Blog?

You’ve got a blog? Awesome!

But, um, what’s the point?

Please don’t be offended; I’m not suggesting that your blog is pointless.

It’s just that if you can’t tell me what the point of your blog is, right this minute, then maybe you shouldn’t be blogging until you’ve got that all figured out.

You probably already know what your blogging niche is. You probably have a good idea of who your audience is, too. But seriously, a niche and an audience are useless if you haven’t defined the point of your blog in the first place.

The worst thing of all is, nobody else can tell you the point of your blog. People can make suggestions, sure, but only you know if one of those suggestions is right. So if you’re not certain, let me break this down and try to help you get some clarity…

There are about a googolplex of reasons people start blogging. Some of the most common are:

You want to make money online.You want to be famous.You want to get free stuff and preferential treatment from brands.You want to build a career in media.You want to help people.

Does your reason for blogging sound something like one of those? Totally cool, whichever one it is – they’re all good reasons to blog. Even cooler if you’ve got a more unique reason of your own.

The thing is, your reason for blogging isn’t quite the same thing as the POINT of your blog.

This is kinda difficult to explain unless I give you a couple of examples, OK? Here we go:

The point of it all is how you ultimately use your blog to fulfil your reason for blogging.

Example 1: Imagine that you want to be famous, and you’ve chosen to blog about career development for a Gen Y audience.

The point of your blog could be to grow an online following until you’re famous in the career development blogosphere. Or, it could be to promote your public speaking career. Or maybe the point of your blog is to get a book publishing deal and become a famous author instead.

Example 2: This time, you want to make money online and you’ve chosen to blog about parenting for young, first-time mothers.

The point of your blog could be to sell an ebook of parenting tips. Or, it could be to earn affiliate payments through links in your review posts. Or maybe the point of your blog is to funnel a percentage of your audience into your real-world baby massage classes.

Now, what’s the point of your blog? How will it help you to achieve your blogging purpose?

If you’re not sure yet, try this quick exercise: say to yourself, “I want to XXXXX and I could get there by YYYYY.”

OK, you don’t need to say it out loud. And you don’t need to say “XXXXX”, either. Just replace XXXXX with your reason for blogging, and YYYYY with any sane method of fulfilling your reason.

Do that a few times, and you’ll soon see how many potential points there are. But you need to pick one to focus on. Keep trying out ideas until one hits you that seems perfectly suited to your personality, lifestyle, and capabilities. That’s the one.

Believe me, you’ll know it when you see it.

You go from “huh?” to “hell yeah!” as soon as you understand the point of your blog.

And funnily enough, after that, it all gets easier.

Your whole approach to your blog is more focused, and more fun.

Your blog posts flow from you like honey. [I'm exaggerating, and that does sound kinda disgusting anyway now that I think about it, but you get the picture, right?]

Your audience picks up on your hell-yeah attitude and renewed sense of purpose, and they love you for it.

So, one last time:

What’s the point of your blog?

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