Congratulations, you’ve finally decided to take on the World Wide Web and make your voice heard, or maybe you just want to see if blogging is right for you. Either way, this is the guide for beginners.
What is a Blog?
First of all, let’s talk about what a blog actually is. The name blog is actually ‘blog, which is short for weblog. Today, blogs are used for everything from personal experiences to commercial integration. Blogs are often accompanied by RSS feeds which are an internet browser’s way of displaying frequently updated content. So that means that blogs are frequently updated through posts (short to medium length articles). Usually posts are interesting and provoke the audience to comment and debate on the subject.
See What Others Are Doing
So whether you’re serious or just interested, viewing other blogs and websites is a must. Getting a feel for what other people write about and what their visitors have to say gives you knowledge. Looking at other blogs will give you ideas for your blog and will help you decide whether or not it is something you can do.
Picking a Topic
We assume that you have already picked out a topic for your blog, but if you don’t already know what you’re going to write about try How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog. We will say that you just have to pick a general topic not specific. You don’t even have to do that. If you’ve ever heard that sticking with one subject is the only way, just forget about it right now. You can write about different stuff for each post, as long as you know your audience won’t be turned away from it. Do whatever you need to do to keep it fresh and engaging.
Building the Blog
Choosing the framework for your blog is important because as you will read, switching hosting can be costly and could actually be deadly for your blog. To start off and make sure blogging is for you, see how many posts you could write in the next week. If you come up with 5 or more content rich and interesting articles, then you should proceed with establishing a website. The site part of website is going to be your decision. You have to decide between going straight toward getting your own domain and hosting or signing up with a free platform (like wordpress.com or blogger.com). Just remember that if you choose to not get your own domain that you will have to be part of someone else’s. This will be a problem when your blog starts getting visitors. But owning your domain and hosting means you have control over many variables that you otherwise wouldn’t. The downside is that you do have to pay little bit. Luckily you can get your site to pay for itself and more by reading Making Your Site Work for You.
Posting
One word… Quality. If your posts are interesting and maybe even a little provocative then your visitors will return and tell others. Just remember to ask yourself the following questions after every post:
- If this was the first page I ever saw (found on a search engine maybe) on my site, would I stay?
- And would I want to click around and read more?
- Is this a page I would bookmark?
Timeline
Below is a general timeline that describes what the process is for starting up a blog. This is not something to be followed word for word. You can use it as a guide for your own timeline of goals (goals are important to measuring success).
Day 1…
OK good, you’ve set up your blog and you’re ready to go. Just post some stuff and they will come right? No, sorry, it’s a little bit harder than that. You should be posting routinely to keep your blog fresh. Even though you probably don’t have any visitors yet you should still be posting at least weekly. Over the next 30 days you should be posting even more than that to help establish the blog. You should also be starting to ask family members and close friends to read over your posts, make suggestions to you, and comment on your posts. You should always be open to criticism and suggestion. Don’t forget to add some widgets to keep your site fresh.
The First Month…
The first 30 days is the hardest part in starting any blog, just ask any successful blogger. This is the time when most beginners quit. If you make it, everything from here on out should be easy (well, easier…). If you have been posting to a free hosted blog like wordpress.com, this is the time when you should be thinking of moving to a self hosted blog and getting your own domain name! This means that you are going to have to pay for hosting from services like GoDaddy.com. Just a little expert advice… Don’t wait too long to make the transfer; the longer you stay on someone else’s domain the harder and more costly the move is going to be. By now you have 10 to 30 posts (depending on the subject of your blog and how devoted you are to it). This means that you can now start advertising your site. There are various ways of getting your site out there. You can do basic things like starting an email chain, or you can get more complicated. Since all the stuff on your blog is free to all visitors, you shouldn’t have to pay for advertising, if you are, then you’re advertising to the wrong audience. We know it takes money to make money, but running a blog does not involve an advertising budget.
60 Days…
You should start to be seeing visitors now. There should be plenty of articles/posts on your site and you should still be posting routinely. Comments should also be starting, don’t worry if there are far more visitors than comments; most blog visitors are just visitors. Only a small percentage of your audience will actually comment. This is why it’s important to keep your post interesting and controversial to spark conversation and some debate.
Next Few Months…
OK, so over the next few months you should be getting a steady supply of visitors and you should receiving more and more comments. This means you may have to start moderating your comments. This brings up a controversial topic of its own, censorship. No blog owner wants to have to censor their comments; but some language and irrelevant, offensive comments can degrade the integrity of your blog and must be altered or removed. Most blogs have a code of conduct or terms of use page, so check them out some time.
More Info
Here are some links for sites that have more details and interesting information on blogging. A few of them are actual blogs, so be sure look around even more.
This sounds great… so many things to consider though. I think i’ll definitely go with wordpress.
Glad to see your interested…
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