Here's What I Figured Out...

For the past few weeks, I've been helping out several friends set up their own blogs. More than anything, I've realized that the needs of every blog and blogger indeed differ from case to case.

Just among my friends, I've noticed that some 70-80% are still personal blogs- no particular niche in mind, really- just an online compilation of pics and notes and links and other things they find interesting.

20-30% would have business in mind setting up a blog: some would want to showcase their authority on a given topic, or promote a particular brand, product, service, event or idea. These require a lot more work- as you now bring SEO into play, as well as traffic generation, RSS, social networking and link-building.

I'd say a third of those I've talked to have decided to make their blogs a money-making effort. Something I'd discourage at least until your blog reaches critical mass, or at least a solid amount of content. The problem is that, there are way too many people who put money-making in the forefront more than creating a positive user experience. Then again, it's just me.

If anything, the experience for the past couple weeks has inspired me to put together a curriculum of sorts- a way to organize the content in this particular blog to help out any blogger given his/her needs.

So for the next several weeks, I'll be working on just that. As always, I'll be more than happy to accommodate requests to help along the lines of blog-building. At least, as much as I know- I'm still learning a lot of this stuff as I go along.

Cheers, everyone!