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If you are about to start a new blog it can be a useful exercise to think through the direction that you want to take it in as these decisions will direct just about every aspect of your blog work. For example, somebody using a blog to promote an existing business is going to have different goals to a political blogger.

Whether you have already got a blog or are about to start one, take a moment to think about the following factors and as you work your way through the course have your answers in mind.

Develop a Profile Of Your Target Audience

Think about who your target audience is for your blog. Are they male / female? What is their income? Are they married? Have children? Are they tech-savvy?

These questions can help you develop a profile which will affect some of your blogging practices. For example, social media works well with young tech-savvy readers but might be lost on an older audience that is not comfortable with the Internet.

How will your visitors read your blog posts? Some people such as older people tend to read slowly, taking in every word you write. Younger people with busy lives are looking for a quick read and haven't got time to read long posts. This will very much affect your content and writing style.

Map Out Your Blog Monetization

From the outset you should try to have a clear idea of how you want to monetize your blog. For example, if you are planning on selling private advertising then you'll need to make sure that your blog theme is designed to support the sizes and shapes of ads that you want to run.

If your blog will be monetized primarily through some kind of service such as consulting or client work, you will want to ensure that the promotion of your services is integrated seamlessly into your blog.

Another popular strategy that bloggers use is to place contextual ads such as AdSense. Even this requires some thought - should you place them straight away or wait until you have more traffic?

If you know that you are blogging for profit then you may as well start placing ads from the outset. You might not get much income at first as your traffic will be low but it means that when new readers come to your blog they know what to expect. Some readers can become offended when bloggers suddenly introduce advertising at a later date.

Another benefit to placing ads straight away is that the audience that you build will often contain your future advertisers but they won't think to advertise with you if you're not in the habit of having ads on your blog. Start as you mean to go on!

Determine The Brand For Your Blog

Branding is an important thing to think about because it is very difficult to change later on - especially if your brand is built into the domain name of your blog! Do you want to brand yourself as a person using your name or are you branding some business name or product etc? If you are promoting yourself consider graphics - do you have a suitable image of yourself that you can use as an avatar? You need to get this right because when you start using social media that avatar will get absolutely everywhere!

Moving In A New Direction With An Existing Blog?

It is not unusual to start out a blog and then later on realise that you want to change the direction it is going in. If you have an already established blog think about where it stands currently on the points mentioned above. What kind of audience does it currently attract? Is that the audience you want? What monetization are you using and are you happy with it? Is your audience responding well to it? Finally, what image are you projecting, if any?

Don't be afraid to change something. It is better to gradually implement changes to shift into a new direction than to blindly continue in a direction that is no longer working for you.