Hi Pete,
The interesting thing about starting a blog is the fact that there's always work to be done.
Here are important must-have steps when starting your blog. I'll explain the details/reasons behind each item.
1. Choose 1 (broad) topic for your blog. Not three, not two, one. This gives readers a clear idea of what to expect from you and trains them to listen.
2. Develop uniqueness. "Lot's of blogs cover the same topic. Why should I read/follow yours?" Show readers the one (quantifiable) thing you offer that they can't get anywhere else. This is something most businesses really struggle with.
3. Build an A+ presentation. Most people focus on "great design" but that's not the only thing that makes presentation great. Great presentation is a mix of tangible and intangible factors working together. Get it right, readers stay, customers buy. Get it wrong and they quietly disappear, never to return.
4. Create value for other larger audiences. Most entrepreneurs don't have an audience in the beginning. Creating value for a larger, more established audience (and siphoning some of that audience for yourself) is how you get attention (and traffic). Ads, guest posts, billboards, radio, TV ads - all marketing - is essentially piggybacking on someone else's audience.
5. Create value on your site. Creating value for others attracts an audience, creating value for yourself is how you keep your audience. Most blog advice focuses on this step.
6. Put your audience through school. New customers are like young children, they're limited in what they can handle. Advanced customers what in-depth and substantive content, whether that's free or paid. Create materials for your novice, advanced and expert students. Offer the next step as if your readers/students are going through school.
All of the other minutia discussed is important (very important), but you need the basics (above) in place before all the other details make sense.
Hope this helps,
Andrew
