How to Start a Blog
Have you been thnking about starting a blog but do not know really what to do? Starting a blog is very easy, but once you start your blog, you will need to keep writing new content and constantly do work to get people to read your blog. I am going to go over several steps to create a blog and give you a few pointers on how to get your blog to stand out from all the rest. First you should answer a few questions before you get started.
- Why do you want to start a Blog?
- Do you have a specific topic you are interested in writing about (i.e. Sports, Politics, Business)?
- Can you make time to write at least a couple posts a week?
- Are you interested in making money with your Blog or are you doing it just for entertainment? (I will share more about this at another time)
- Do you want to write with other like minded individuals or do you want to be the sole author of this blog?
Once you have an idea of what you want to do with your Blog the next step would be to get one setup. You can use sites like http://www.blogspot.com or http://www.wordpress.com to setup a blog through their website. However you have more flexibility to host your own blog and you can have your own domain name like my scottconlon.com domain.
If you go the route of hosting your own domain, then you need to register a domain name. I usually use http://www.startlogic.com to register my domains but you can use http://www.godaddy.com, http://www.name.com or any of the other options out there. Since you will also need web hosting (space on the internet for your blog), you may want to consider using one of the hosting companies since they somtimes register the domain for free with your plan.
After setting up your web hosting you will need to install the blogging software. I use and highly recommend, WordPress as the software to use. It is simple to setup and has many additional functionalities you can add to your blog, called PlugIns. Many web hosting companies have a simple installation process built into your webspace already for you.
You then get to have the fun on choosing a theme or layout for your blog. WordPress has thousands of free themes out there that you can download. They are very easy to install and you can always change your theme whenever you want.
After setting up your blog you are ready to begin posting! I recommed making some changes in your settings so that the URLs in your blog or what is called search engine friendly, rather than the standard URLs that contain things such as http://www.yourblog.com/p?23 which does not look as clean and is not well optimized for search engines. I will write more in the future on Search Engine Optimization that will further explain the reasoning for this method.
Once you begin creating posts to your blog be sure to submit it to the major search engines, tell your friends and family, post links on your social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace, and start commenting on other people’s blog. You can start by commenting on this post! Check back for future tips on how to maintain your blog, make money with your blog and much more!
January 27th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Great! Thank you very much!
I always wanted to write in my blog something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Sincerely, Reader
February 2nd, 2009 at 4:42 am
I recently bought Jeff Paul’s internet marketing products but sometimes wonder if I wasted my money, then I came to know that my IT Geek cousin also uses his products so even I took a shot at it
February 10th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Nice template. Where can i download it?