Does your blog content have a purpose?

Thursday, November 11th, 2010 at 8:44 am

We have been talking about content for the last week or so. Two more posts including this one to finish this series. (I think. Being old and bald change can happen I just may remember another point to discuss.)

What is the purpose of your post?

Seems like a simple enough question on the face of it. Can you answer it about the last post you wrote?

Often I wonder when reading a blog if there was a purpose or did someone just start writing?

If it is the latter, then I probably won’t last to the end. If I don’t get a feeling of where this content is going I have trouble finishing.

Now this may be a byproduct of the age. After all we have…

The 24 hour cable news cycle.
Conversations in 140 characters or less in Twitter.
Text messaging
Instant messaging (Skype)
More conversations via Facebook then by being face to face

And many more short attention span items in our lives.

Because the attention span has become so short you really need to have a purpose for your post. Without that you will tend to lose your reader’s attention. Your reader’s attention is very valuable.

One of your first items when you sit down to post is to have a purpose for your post. Attention is at a premium and if you do not have a purpose you increase the chance of losing that attention.

Now there are a lot of purposes you can have when you sit down to post.

Some of the more common are…

To instruct
To get to take action
To make them laugh
To entertain

It does not matter which is yours just that you do have a purpose when you sit down to post and you double check that your post does what you want it to before you push the publish button.

So the question of the day is…

Did your last blog post have a purpose?
Do you think you accomplished it?

Leave your comments below to let me know. I look forward to your input.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.

After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.

If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.