HOW TO START A BLOG
A blog is a simplistic, revolutionary website
which allows users to effortlessly express themselves, share their knowledge
and advice throughout the internet; they adapt and evolve to meet the needs of
the present."
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Starting your first blog can be the beginning
to a world of wonder, excitement, and online riches - or at least that's what
many people would have us think - but how do you actually go about getting one
setup in the first place?
Pick something you are passionate about! Say you use a
certain product every single day, and you think you could make a living by writing about all the different
flavors of that.
Make sure the market isn't flooded with other
blogs talking about the exact same thing that you are. If you find the niche
you picked isn't working, narrow it down!
After you have your niche picked and narrowed down you have to decide
how you are going to blog.
Register a domain name and host it. I recommend you
buy your domain name from NameCheap.
Namecheap is a registrar which is
well-established and offers reasonable domain registration prices. With it, you
are able to register your domain name for as little as $3.98 which is an
incredible bargain. It doesn’t have annoying ads and it is more protected in term
of users’ login. The process of registering a domain name is extremely simple and requires
very little skill. There is adequate protection and managing the domain is a
snap with their control panel. Aside from domains, it offers plenty of other
services such as web hosting, email, and websites. They also have a marketplace
to make it easier for you to sell your domain names.
Make an account in any blogging platform.
There are hundreds of these that can suit you for everything a new blogger
could need. Below are the top rated
blogging platforms.
v Wordpress
v Blogger
Blogger.com is easy to use, customizable, and
free. Users are drawn to this service because it is so easy to jump into with
no website building experience. It offers an easy to use control panel, several
themes, and now even mini-programs for your website called "gadgets".
These gadgets make it easy to add custom elements to your website like
mini-games, maps, and photo galleries. Where Blogger.com excels in my opinion,
is the ease of use. No other program is as intuitive and user-friendly as
Blogger. This is my choice for new webmasters looking to get into the game.
Where Blogger falls short of similar services
is search engine optimization. If you want to get serious traffic to your blog,
you will need to make sure your website is noticed by Google and other search
engines. Blogger.com does not make it particularly easy to change the
"behind the scenes" elements of your blogs, such as Meta tags.
Furthermore, customization is not as robust with Blogger.com. Sure, you can
change your theme, but it is not nearly as easy to alter individual elements of
your blog.
Customization is where WordPress shines.
WordPress is completely open source, which means that users create the themes,
plug-ins, and templates. With some basic HTML and CSS knowledge, webmasters can
customize literally every element of their website, including Meta tags and
page titles. Even if you are not a coding master, there are tons of themes and
plug-ins (similar to gadgets on Blogger) that make customization possible
without coding. This is why WordPress is the website-building platform of
choice of so many large companies. Simply put, you can't build a website to
your exact specifications on Blogger, Live Journal, or any other blogging
program besides WordPress.
Overall, Blogger.com is a great tool to use
for new webmasters. However, if you're looking for a fully customizable website
with great search engine optimization features, WordPress is the ultimate
program for you. While WordPress requires a bit more technical know-how, no
other platform gives you the opportunity to create a 100% custom website
Content is the king. If your blog
doesn't have something good to say then why are people coming? There are a few
key things you can do to have great content and get people hooked.
1. Write five or six articles before you
start your blog, and make sure you have a few backup posts ready for the days
when you don't have time, or can't write a post.
2. Stay on target! Don't ramble off about
something different entirely.
3. Keep at it! If you don't get responses in
the first few weeks, keep going. It’s bound to happen that someone will stumble
on your blog and link it from their site.
4. Content!
Marketing
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is key. If
you don't show up on a search page, then how are people going to know about
you? You need to actively market your website MANY different ways.
1. Go to Google and submit your site! They
have a section devoted entirely to that. Make sure you have 5+ posts up before
you do this, or they might reject your site.
2. Attach a link to your website on your
emails, forum signatures and make sure it on your business card.
3. Send out an email to everyone in your
address book telling them about your new blog, and how it can help them.
4. If you have any other pages, link to your
new blog. Backlinks are how Google ranks you on their searched results.
5. Contact other blogs with the same niche as
you and set up a day where the both of you write up an article about each
other. You both get different traffic that you might not have had.
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