7. Take Questions
This is a basic tip that can help you to identify the needs of your readers – simply ask them.
Once again this isn’t rocket science – but it’s amazing what results when you do it.
Start a Question File – I get questions on most of my blogs every day or two from readers wanting information on the topics I cover. Collect questions like this and put them in a file for one of those days when you can’t come up with a topic to write about.
Call for Questions – If you don’t get asked questions by readers normally give them permission to ask you questions. I tend not to do this much these days because the questions tend to come faster than I can answer them at the best of times – but when I first started blogging I actively sought questions with an ‘ask a question’ link on my blog. Of course if you do this you’d better be willing to answer them. In the early days I also occasionally would go as far as asking specific readers for questions by picking a few from my newsletter and emailing them the offer for me to do a free short consulting job for them as long as I could blog about my answers to their questions.
Ask Your Own Questions – If readers still don’t ask questions – ask some yourself! Some of the best discussions I’ve ever seen on a blog have been the result of the blogger themselves admitting a lack of knowledge on a topic and asking for help.
Creating an environment for questions and answers can really bring your blog alive – especially if you can create a culture where bloggers feel comfortable to ask even the simplest of questions and where bloggers get into the habit of answering the questions of each other instead of just leaving it all up to you.
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