5 Ways Blogging is Like Running A Cafe

My husband and I went out for out Sunday afternoon coffee. Well, he had his flat white and I my hot chocolate as I don’t drink coffee. We went to our favourite little cafe which is a glass blowing studio and gallery as well that overlooks a marsh. It’s lovely and so we are really disappointed that it is closing down next week. The family that runs it is going overseas for a year, so I understand. But, I’ll miss going there.

Anyway, as we were driving home I thought about how blogging is like running a cafe. (Yes, blogging is taking over my life a little and is obviously never far from my mind!) I thought of these points to illustrate what I mean:

Customers won’t come back to your cafe if:

* you don’t provide food they like
* your cafe is messy and not appealing to look at
* your service is half-hearted and not friendly
* your coffee is not hot enough
* there are not enough options on your drinks or eats menu

Readers won’t come back to your blog if:

* you don’t provide content they like / are interested in
* your blog is cluttered and confusing to navigate
* your writing shows lack of effort to engage with your readers
* you aren’t writing about interesting things or
* you’re writing about the same thing all the time

Even if we already are aware of these things, it doesn’t hurt to be reminded from time to time and to have a good think about what we are writing about. On my other blog, technoLOTE, I’ve asked readers straight out what they want to get from the blog. I’ve got my own ideas about what I want to do with it, but I’m sure I’ll get some other ideas from my readers. Many heads are better than one.

I’m going to keep these cafe lessons in mind as I do more reflecting on my blogs and blogging. Have you got any tips to add to the list? Have you been somewhere or done something and learned lessons about blogging at the same time?