Before you sit down and write the first word of your first blog post on your new author website, stop and think about what you want to accomplish with your blog post. What’s your goal? How is this blog post going to help you accomplish something to help you move forward with building your author platform.

Here are some questions you may want to ask yourself:

• Are you writing a post that you hope will get shared across social media and grow your reach?
• Are you writing a post that also invites readers to join your email list so you can get back in touch later?
• Are you writing a blog post to start a conversation with your readers?
• Are you writing a blog post with the end goal of peaking your readers interest about your current book, or upcoming new release?

All of the above are valid goals for your blog posts and I’m sure you can add a few more to that list. The important thing is that you are aware of what you’re trying to accomplish with your post.

Then start with the end in mind. If your goal is to get the attention of potential readers for your new book or your upcoming book, think about a post you can write about that includes something you needed to overcome in order to get to this point, or maybe share a little lesson you also share in your book. Try and keep the theme around what you share in your book.

If your goal is to grow your list, think of a topic that’s complimentary to your opt-in offer freebie. Write the content and then transition into an invitation to join your list and download the free download.

Do you see how much easier it is to craft goal driven blog posts when you know what your goal is before you sit down to write? You can reverse engineer the entire process and make sure everything flows well and leads your reader to whatever action you want them to take at the end.

Being able to do that is pretty powerful stuff. It allows you to craft different posts strategically. Write a post that helps you grow your author platform. Then work on one that starts the conversation with our new readers. Next work on getting them on your list and finally let them know about the wonderful books you have worked so hard on writing.