Blogging Strategy and Scripting your Opening Drive

Blogging is a lot more organic than most marketing strategies.  There is no prescription for success and the only surefire to get a ton of readers and keep them around is to provide useful, compelling content.  However, you can create a plan that will at least help you get started.

Think of your “blogging plan” like the opening drive of a football game.  Many coaches script their opening drive and then adapt their schemes from there, according the rhythm of the game and the opportunities that come up.  You can script some things - a posting schedule, a weekly links roundup, etc., but as your blog grows, you’ll probably find yourself deviating from the plan. 

Things you should script include the previously mentioned posting schedule (it’s easier to remember to blog when you make it a regular part of your day) and certain types of posts.  For instance, many successful bloggers post a links round up on Fridays - a list of their favorite or most useful posts and articles

You can also script a plan to share some of your knowledge or expertise with readers.  Look at this like you’re teaching a class - don’t post all the information at once, instead, divide it in manageable chunks.  Creating a schedule for this frees you from having to come up with something new to post every day, and it keeps readers coming back for more. 

Of course, the free form nature of blogging means that all sorts of things will come up - readers might email you with useful questions to answer, blogging carnivals (more on those later) will occur, or something major will happen that you just have to blog about.

Having an organized plan is important, so script your opening drive, but keep an eye out for the open receiver down the field.