When a business decides to blog, they’re bubbling with questions. But quite often, very important issues aren’t on their radar at all. When consulting, these are the 5 questions I wish I heard more often.

1. What is my blogging objective? You’ve got to see the forest before you can see the trees. Clients frequently get hung up on technology questions and tactical issues such as how to handle negative comments. Before you can tackle those problems you must have an idea of what you want to achieve with your blog. More clients? More loyal clients? Thought leadership? SEO, pure and simple? Start there.

2. What’s my audience? Answer the preceding question and this one becomes a virtual no-brainer. You can write for customers, for stakeholders, for peers, the public at large, or a combination. However, if you don’t have an objective, you risk putting out a mountain of material that resonates with nobody.

3. How do I market my blog? New bloggers tend not to have a feel for how much time it takes to market a blog. Six months after launch when they find out, blogging enthusiasm fizzles. Most of my consulting time with new bloggers revolves around developing a manageable, affordable, and effective marketing strategy.

4. How can I integrate my blog with the rest of my marketing? Most people tend to stovepipe their marketing stuff - brochures over here, the website over there, the blog over yonder … By orchestrating your marketing efforts, you can make beautiful music for customers. Use your newsletter to drive readers to your blog. Use your blog to showcase your latest print brochure. If you think of your business blog into an island, you’ll never get optimum results.

5. What are the long term consequences of having my blog on a separate domain? This one is huge for entrepreneurs and small companies. I know, because I made the mistake of using a separate domain when I started Word Sell. When it comes to blogs, content decisions and marketing decisions can shift on a dime. However, technology decisions are far more difficult and costly to alter. Domain issues may not seem significant at first, but as blog traffic grows, as branding becomes more important, and as the complexity of your web presence deepens, you may be confronted with an inadequate platform that will take a lot of time and money to bring up to speed. That’s why Lara Kulpa and I are focusing on building sites and blogs in WordPress - for many it’s an ideal short-term and long-term approach.