Wow – this could go in any number of directions including the philosophical!
I don’t think I could name one thing alone but here’s the first few things that popped into my head (I’m sure I could write a lot longer list if I were to give it extended thought):
- Useful Content – as a blogger wanting to both build a successful blog as a business but who also wants to build something of value to help people I spend a lot of time asking myself how I can provide something that is useful to readers. The longer that I blog the more I am convinced that building something useful online is a key to it’s success.
- Sustainable Model – as a blogger earning an income from my blogging I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in the money side of things. While money isn’t everything to me and V and I do strive for a relatively simple lifestyle – it’s important that what I build has a way of both sustaining us and building an income to a level where it can also help others.
- Stimulation – over the years I’ve built blogs on topic that I have limited or waning interest in. I don’t want to do this any more. I’m happy to help other bloggers with a passion for a topic build their blogs in the network I’m a part of (even if the topic isn’t of great interest to me) however life’s too short to be writing about something that doesn’t stimulate me.
- Conversation – by no means am I satisfied with the level of community that currently happens on my blogs but it’s important to me that it’s growing. I’m not satisfied because I know I could contribute to it a lot more and I often feel torn between the many roles that I have as a blogger these days (here at ProBlogger alone I get 100 or so comments on an average day and to respond to them all could be a full time job in itself). My hope is to build blogs that don’t rely upon me as the only ‘expert’ but rather to build communities of expertise where the conversation is rich as a result of the knowledge that the community as a whole has.
Like I say – this is just the beginning of a longer list that I could spend a lot of time upon.
What matters to you most as a blogger?
