This idea came after I had a member in one of my webmaster forums asking me if he should start a blog. He admitted he’s considering this, but still he is now that sure he does want to open such a project. He asked us to give him reasons to start a blog and since I always liked twisted articles and ideas, here are some reasons for you to NOT START A BLOG

1. Because you need me to tell you “start a blog”.

It’s very simple: if you need me and my other members to convince you to start blogging, maybe it’s not the best idea to begin with. When I started blogging, I did it because I FELT THE NEED. Since I couldn’t care less about trends and the herds following them, I started a blog when I felt I want to share some of my ideas and not because it’s cool and few people make a fortune out of them.

I have seen way to many useless blogs in the last years and most of them shouldn’t exist. In a perfect world, where only useful and quality things would be “alive”, the internet would have 1% of the sites it has right now. We would rule out the spammers, MFA sites creators and all the junk we have to put up with daily.

A blog is a personal thing (when we talk about online diaries) and a project filled with good information presented by each of us as we can and understand to do so. It’s true that we all kinda use the same information, but we present it in our own way. Some are very serious, some are joking, others are plain cynical. We are who we are and this attracts people to our projects.

So, if you think you can come out to hundreds of potential visitors a day and present your ideas the best you can, then by all means do so. But if you’re thinking you’ll hit it big with a useless splog or you just don’t feel like blogging, then spare us the thrill of having to ignore yet another useless site.

2. You do have to invest

And we are not talking here about the time and intelligence you have to invest since these are harder to cuantify. We talk MONEY. If you think you can get away with that blogspot account forever, than maybe you don’t have all the information.

Most of us, serious web developers, won’t even consider free hosting again. We have reseller accounts for tens of sites, a Godaddy account (or any other registrar) and we have the matter in our hands so to say. Whenever we feel like opening another site, we register the domain, create a hosting account and in 10 minutes the script is already up.

Many blogs that do succeed even on blogspot, after a while get on their own domain and hosting. And they are not free. We cannot say it’s a huge investment, don’t worry, but still you won’t escape with nothing to pay.

All the time I recommend people to start “right”: on a domain and good hosting since afterwards they can build up nicely on the PR and traffic they get. Moving to a domain does take a toll on the traffic and PR, so, if you are serious, start the site as I start them all now: with their own domains.

If you want that blog to develop even more you have to think about the costs you might face:

• domain/hosting – yes, you either start like this, or move after the blog becomes successful;
• skinning – some people (myself included) have also good Photoshop and html/css skills. This means I create all my skins or change their looks to become unique. A good blog is also nicely branded, so, if you cannot skin, you’ll pay someone to do this
• promotion – when you have such big plans with a good project you might also think about promotion: paid advertising is not always that expensive, but it does cost
• prizes for the contests – well, you might do this to in order to increase the blog’s traffic, RSS subscription numbers etc.

Before you get scared let me tell you that once you have a decent traffic and a good PR you will be able to recover this investment. So, it’s not the end of the world, but you need to know what you’ll be paying for in the near or far future.

3. You do have to be active

You won’t be able to keep a good blog with 1 message a month. Most of the bigger blogs have even 20 articles a day. Of course we are not problogger, but at least 1 message every 2-3 days is recommended. I try to post daily, but sometimes I cannot come up with a good article and have to wait for 1-2 days. Still, letting weeks pass with no activity would bury your blog.

And this activity means many things:

• posting articles in the blog
• commenting on the blog as a response to people who do this
• commenting on other blogs
• being active in social networking sites such as: digg, stumbleupon, entrecard, mybloglog
• researching some more for articles in your blog
• maybe even conferences or blogger meetings where you can also socialize
• activity on blogging and webmaster forums (or forums that are related to your niche)

4. You have to be able to create something.

I cannot believe it, I left this huge condition at the 4th place, when I think this should be the FIRST THING to think about: ARE YOU ABLE TO CREATE SOMETHING?

There are so many badly written blogs, so many people who cannot create a decent article. It’s not the end of the world, but having a bit of a talent when it comes to writing is a very important condition in order to have a nice blog. If you know you really “suck” at writing, maybe a blog is not the best idea after all.

Imagine you have to know a lot about a niche (if it’s not a personal blog), research all the time and present the information in your own style. Yes, that style is the most important thing in the end. Even if you are not a native English speaker (my problem too), you can try to distinguish yourself with your style. I know my sentences sometimes sound weird since we have other rules in Romania, some of my words are not the best to be used in the context and so on. But, as long as I do make sense, I think my readers forgive me for the imperfections. Even if the style is not as good as a professional’s writer style, being able to present the information in a personal way sometimes makes up for this.

Just be yourself and try to let your readers feel your “style”. If you don’t have a style and imagination, rule out content creation and do something else. We don’t all have to be bloggers.

5. You will be attacked and mocked at.

If you think blogging attracts only nice people and you’ll have no problems, then think again. The moment you rise above others, that’s the moment you’ll also be attacked. Some do this to get attention and traffic to them, others do this out of envy, fury or plain stupidity.

I have noticed this too, after I started my other blog (the Romanian one). Out of nowhere I found out I am a senseless bitch, I am mean, I have way too many expectations (after writing about a pub in my city where I had to wash my hands with cold water and I almost froze when going for a … you know what after drinking too much soda). Even if I do have a personal blog and expect to have a warm restroom and warm water when I use the facility, I was called a bitch.

And yes, this will happen here too, and in all other projects. The moment you step in the open and present yourself, you are also making yourself a target for mean comments and attacks. How many people mock at some of the big bloggers? I have no problems when the comments are fair and point out the imperfections of those blogs. But when you attack the person, then we talk about something else.

Here are just few things you need to think about before starting a blog. No, I won’t tell you to not do this, because it’s a wonderful experience. It made me better, it helped me meet some wonderful people, helped my network and my business. It’s wonderful seeing people read your articles, commenting, even offering you some useful feedback.

I just want you to know what bloggings means in the end and what you should be prepared for. Some of my Romanian readers laughed that maybe such an article would have the opposite result: you’ll feel the need to open the blog, despite my “warnings”. I don’t warn you against blogging, I warn you about all the implications. Do open that blog, but know what this means and be prepared. It’s gonna be one of the best things in your life, but the ride won’t be always smooth.

Filed under: Blogging by ramona