Blog Writing Goals … a few questions before the end of the year

Why are you reading this blog? Seriously, I'd like to hear from readers what you are seeking. What would you like to know about? What topics are so compelling you'd come back here each day to read something new?

Since the name of this blog is Writing on the Web, I'm assuming you have questions about writing and how to use content on the Web to attract clients for your businesses. But this can mean different things to different people.

I focus on content marketing and blog writing tasks. There are many ways to write and publish content (blogs, newsletters, articles) on the Internet that helps you attract people who want and need your services and products.

At the beginning of the year I started a poll and asked this question:

"Which writing tasks do you need to master to explode your Internet marketing in 2008?" Here are the results:

Writing great blog posts that attract prospects and gain subscribers and eventually convert those readers to clients is one of the most challenging writing tasks. The difference between good and great is enormous.

As the Blog Squad, we recently released our Better Business Blogging Learning System. Plan B has an intermediate module for business bloggers that includes a module on blog writing. It has best practices for running a successful business blog and writing blog posts that get results. For more info, read this page on Better Business Blogging.

When it comes to business, you measure results, not grammar or typos. This puts our writing into another dimension…

In school, writing was graded by an English teacher. On blogs, and in all our copy, this wouldn't be at all an effective measure. We probably need our copy to be reviewed by a psychology of marketing professor.

The real measure of success is judged by readers and measured by their reactions and actions. What do you want your writing to do? Do you want readers to keep coming back for more by subscribing? Do you want them to take an action, like register for a teleseminar or download a digital report or buy something?

Or maybe you want readers to do nothing, take no action for the time being, but you want them to like you. You want their respect and trust. You want to build a relationship with them. You want them to respect you as a credible expert in your niche, someone they can depend on.

You need to be clear about your writing objectives and goals. Don't try to cover too much territory in one blog post, or one email promotion message. One goal, one action, one message.

I know I've meandered in writing this post a bit. I wasn't clear about my thoughts before I started writing. Sometimes I need to write to find my thoughts.

My goals for this post weren't at all clear when I started, other than I knew I'd like to get feedback from readers on what they'd like to read about in 2009 on this blog… oh, and I also wanted to remind you about our Better Business Blogging Learning System we launched last week. So I am not following my own advice, but instead I'm mixing thoughts and objectives.

I can always tell you I'm showing you what not to do, right? I probably should write two separate blog posts, one about blog writing objectives, and one about our blog writing learning system. But hey, nobody's perfect…