How to start a blog. Blogging 101 – Make, Write, Promote! |
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Each day blogging is becoming more and more popular because of the social connections it creates between the reader and the author. If you ever wanted to start your own blog, this article is for you. I will cover the fundamental steps to starting a blog. The aim of this article is to turn a total newbie into a blogging machine!
Blogging Prerequisites
Before we start diving into the finer points of blogging, you first need to have a blank blog ready to go to follow along with.
Get your free blog - If you are looking for a free blogging service, I suggest you check out www.wordpress.com
Start a professional blog - If you are looking to make a blog for your business or plan to make money off your blog in the future, I suggest you start with a paid blogging solution as this will save your time, money, and frustration in the end.
For a good blogging host, take a look at ReadySetConnect. Once you sign up, you can run the auto-installation program that will setup your blog for you. There are multiple blogging platforms you can choose from, but I suggest you pick WordPress as all my examples in this tutorial will be for a WordPress blog.
Keep in mind the above suggestions are not your only solutions for getting your blog online. I am merely suggesting the ones I think will be easiest for someone new to blogging.
Picking The Right Design For Your Blog
Once your blog is setup, you will notice it starts out with a very ugly, default template design. Luckily, these blogging platforms make it simple to change the look of your blog.
Don’t know a thing about web design?
Don’t worry! There are literally thousands and thousands of pre-designed wordpress templates free for download. You can easily find some real professional looking web designs very quickly.
First, find the theme you like. Here is the WP theme database. Or you can search google for other wordpress theme sites. There are endless amounts of them.
Now, installing the theme can be a little tricky but is easy to do once you have done it once. Instead of writing out the install process, check out this tutorial on how to install the theme you want to use.
Writing to Your Blog
Now that you have your design up, it’s time to start writing to your blog. There are two ways you can write to your blog – a post, or a page. A post is similar to a journal entry, while a page is good for things like contact info, author bio, etc. The post is what you should be using for your daily entries to your blog.
Top Tips For Blog Writing
- Do not write long paragraphs. No one likes to read long things on the internet. Use no more than a few sentences per paragraph. Use lists as often as you can. <—this format is a list.
- Add images to your posts – It’s good to have at least 1 image per post to keep them interesting. All text is boring, and gives people head aches!
- Always Add Tags - It’s a good idea to always add tags to your posts. Some sites will categorize your post based on your tags. Tags are also a good way to add keywords to your posts. Just make sure the tags relate to your post!
- Post Daily - You don’t have to do this, but if you post daily you will get a lot more traffic over time.
- Always use header titles for breaking up your posts - Headers will make your posts easier to read, as well as add some search engine ranking benefits to your posts.
Promoting Your Blog and Getting Traffic To It
Traffic building is probably the most annoying part of blogging in my opinion. It is also the most labor intensive part of blogging for a lot of people.
Social bookmarking
This seems to work well with blogging sites. Here is a good site that will bookmark your sites to about 100 different social bookmarking sites. You do have to sign up for each site before hand, but it is definitely worth it. It will take less than an hour to sign up for all of them.
Guest blogging
Guest blogging is a great way to get traffic. Basically what you are doing is writing a blog post for someone else’s blog. Simply search google for blogs related to your niche. For instance, I run a web hosting blog so If I wanted to find another web hosting blog to possibly guest post on, I would search google for ‘web hosting blog’.
Keep in mind that not all blogs will allow you to guest post. Simply keep looking until you find one that accepts guest writing.
Commenting on other related blogs
This is another good source of traffic. Simply find blogs related to yours and comment on them. Add your blog URL to the comment (most blog software have an option for this when commenting). Always write quality comments. The best way to get traffic from other blogs is to write solid comments. The reader will think to him/herself that if this guy writes great comments like this, his blog must be awesome.
Writing vs Promoting your Blog
It is often difficult to partition your time for your blogging activities. I think the best portion of writing to promoting is 25/75. If you write one post a day, spend the rest of the day promoting your post, as well as promoting your main URL. It is a good idea to always link build and traffic build to particular posts on your blog, as well as your blog root URL – www.yourblog.com.
Have any questions? Feel free to ask them via comments. I will try my best to clear things up for you! Good luck blogging, and most of all KEEP AT IT!
Mar 31st, 2009 at 4:28 am
Thanks for the good post. I just made my site and looking for some good blog to promote my site. I do not hesitate to tell you that i came your blog only to get backlink, but you post catched me and I am here. I heard that people make too many blogs on wordpress and blogspot to promote their sites. Is this a good technique? should i make many blogs and put my site link there, even there is no traffic but i’ll get some backlink.
Mar 31st, 2009 at 3:00 pm
Hello,
Check out this post for a little more in mini sites:
http://blog.readysetconnect.com/2009/03/creating-an-internet-marketing-plan-for-your-website-and-business/
Typically what you want to do is make one or two mini sites that are a sub niche of your main website. For example, if your main website was about cars, you would make one mini website about really fast cars and another mini website about classic cars. You would develop traffic as well as backlinks to your mini sites.
Then on your mini sites you should carefully craft each page so that it flows the traffic to your main niche website. The best way to do this is to experiment. Each niche has different traffic patterns and different visitors. So it is all about experimentation and what works for your certain type of website.
Apr 5th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Yes , guest blogging and comment posting are very effective in developing relationships and increasing traffic for blogs
Apr 5th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
“Do not write long paragraphs. No one likes to read long things on the internet. Use no more than a few sentences per paragraph. Use lists as often as you can. <—this format is a list.”
So true, I get bored with all those lines … Good article by the way! Got you Bookmarked.
Apr 7th, 2009 at 1:40 am
Good information , I think you should also add a point “to write quality content” I mean it should be the top most priority of any blogger
Apr 17th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
thanks for share, this post really good for fresh blogger, but to post one article every day is not easy.
Apr 20th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Awesome thanks for the quick summary on what a blog needs. I was thinking of starting one. Is it better to have a blog hosted on your own site or having an external blog like blogger.com?
Apr 22nd, 2009 at 4:30 am
In another resource I saw tips for blog promoting, and there was a point to use YouTube as advertising platform
Not bad I think, ha?
Jun 13th, 2009 at 9:22 am
An excellent start. Wordpress.com also has a ‘domain’ hosting program though it’s not as flexible as others like godaddy or normal hosting companies. But if you are only looking for a blog, wordpress.com would probably be the cheapest.
For beginners, it’s also advisable to participate in forums and keep their blogs in signatures (when allowed). Blog commenting is probably the best method to get the blog noticed.
Jun 16th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Good to know these, but you forget something like:
—
You can create a free blog to blogspot too,not only in wordpress.com
Much preferable is to buy a domain and a webhosting account(under 40$ a year) – glad that yoy said this!
Keep up!
Jun 19th, 2009 at 3:02 am
It is a blog age to day. Each and every individual is now in the blog excitement. They are creating blog for their hobbies and educational purpose. This post will definitely help many people who just create blog and do not take it to its optimum.
Jun 24th, 2009 at 4:16 am
In a post yesterday i read a post regarding HOW TO WRITE A BLOG IN JUST 10 MINUTES & that post was truly a silly moderated because no one can write the blog in just a 10 min. because it might affect the quality of the content !so i read your post about the blog promotion but i want your feedback about this——-can any one write a blog in just 10 mins? i know it is very stupid question but it is point of fact!Waiting for your reply!
Jun 28th, 2009 at 3:41 am
We all know having a blog with the relevant content is not a play of kids because it requires a lot of facts & points to be followed then only our blog can be popular so i would like to say that your post is useful for that task to make it easy!
Jun 29th, 2009 at 1:49 am
I think this is the right work for me as I get 2 to 3 hours daily in my routine I can utilize this time by making more money by blogging. Thanks for guiding me.
Jul 8th, 2009 at 11:37 am
In addition to avoid writing long paragraphs, write concisely and clearly and edit! Bloggers tend to allow their thoughts to flow out chaotically from mind to keyboard without reviewing and refining their words for impact and clarity. Observe grammatical rules and punctuation. Even if it’s a journal entry, think about the impression you make to your readers.
Jul 21st, 2009 at 3:55 pm
Thanks for the article. I agree no one likes long paragraphs… reading or writing them. After managing my own blog for a while I also found it help to develop an editorial policy to help me define my form of writing to help achieve a level consistency in style and delivery. Do I use contractions? Do I write in first, second or third person? Do I spell it theater or theatre? You can develop guidelines as you go along with your writing since it’s often more challenging to establish the policy without first penning an article.
Jul 25th, 2009 at 7:33 am
About the design, that’s the most “crucial” part for me whenever I start making a blog. I have to consider on how to integrate monetization in the design.Also, WP Themes database is not the only way to find fabulous themes
Jul 29th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Thanks! I will definitely try to consider this while I blog.
Jul 30th, 2009 at 2:06 am
very well organized article. I have recently launch a new blog at blogger with the name of Web Heavens. Know i don’t have strong English grammar to write good post but i have the know ledge.
What about i copy some one articles and post in my blog and keep doing it.
Is this a good technique?
Know if you don’t have a good english then how can you promote your blog with good content.
Should i also do guest Posting and allow other people to post there articles on my blog.
Jul 31st, 2009 at 4:44 am
Thank you for a great post and it seems you add to it when your commenter’s give you feedback you like. Here is my contribution you may want to consider for the section about “Promoting Your Blog and Getting Traffic To It”:
->Convert PLR content or articles you have already written and submitted to promote your website/blog into video for search engines love video traffic.
->Spin articles PLR content or articles you have already written and submitted to promote your website/blog and submit them to a network of dofollow blogs.
Aug 4th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Thanks nice post got some insight on blogging and what are the ways that I could actually add on to my current marketing strategies to better promote my blog.
Aug 18th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Thanks for such an excellent write-up! Even I’ve set up my own blog hosted on the server of a reliable web host (LimeDomains) and added plenty of content to it. But I could not see good traffic coming to my website. And now I know the reason why?
Perhaps, I should have thought about the design element too and added a professional-looking theme to the same. I’d also follow the writing instructions mentioned by you in the post.
Let’s see if it makes any difference to my blog!
Aug 19th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Of course you need to have a web hosting account if you want your own blog. You can always use a free blog like blogspot, but it is much better to have your own .com to host your blog. I always make sure that my web host has a 1-click install for my blogging software of choice. I would hate to have to setup my own connection strings and MySQL Databases. I prefer WordPress, but most web hosts will have a few options. Read some web hosting reviews, and most will show you the available 1-click install options. Good Luck!
Aug 20th, 2009 at 2:15 am
I am running three blogs (paid blogs)right now.Earlier it was a NoFollow blog but right now i changed them to DoFollow. After that i can see a huge difference in the number of visitors in my blogs. But also i am receiving a lot of spam comments.
Aug 20th, 2009 at 6:57 am
I heard that people make too many blogs on wordpress and blogspot to promote their sites. Is this a good technique? should i make many blogs and put my site link there, even there is no traffic but i’ll get some backlink.
Aug 21st, 2009 at 5:47 am
The whole world is blogging nowadays. The most interesting thing about blogging is that you can pen down your thoughts about anything you love to share. So, just blog and be blogged. Thanks for such a nice article.
Aug 21st, 2009 at 11:00 am
2 100 seotips
“…I heard that people make too many blogs on wordpress and blogspot to promote their sites…”
In my opinion, that’s an awful idea. Such tends as you described make webmasters generate more and more sites, so the quality of the content becomes lower and lower.
Aug 30th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Great article for newbies and even for those of us not quite so new. I have a personal blog and include pictures from time to time. I hadn’t considered inserting an image into every post. But I really appreciate the idea.
Oct 23rd, 2009 at 6:38 am
Blogging is a really helpful platform for new users