How
To Start Your Own Blog - Step By Step Guide
A
Detailed Guide For Starting And Managing Your Own Blog
Do you want to
be a blogger? Do you want to start your own blog? Are you interested in
publishing your own work as blog posts? But not sure where to start and how to
go about starting your own blog? Do you have lots of questions about starting
your own blog?
Initial Remarks Before You Start Your Blog
- Before you start blogging or before you start your own blog, you should know that there are thousands if not millions of blogs started with the same level of enthusiasm that you have right now but out of those millions or thousands of blogs only a meager percentage of them are really successful and active. So before you start you should tell yourself that you will persevere in this endeavor and be consistent with your efforts. Regardless of the reasons why you are blogging, you will be able to achieve your goals only when you are consistent and regular. It is not enough that you create just a few short posts in the first week or two and forget totally about it. Success in blogging comes with regular efforts and just make sure that you are made of that stuff for perseverance.
- Secondly you should know that success with your blogging efforts cannot be expected overnight. Your blog will not become instantly popular. Only when people see that your blog is adding value to them in some form or the other they will come back to your blog. You will need to be therefore patience. This is one of the reasons why many blogs fail and why many bloggers get discouraged.
- You are going to need plenty of content and hundreds of blog posts before you make your blog start working for you. Initially you need to work for your blog but once people star noticing your blog, you will be surprised to see the sudden increase in your traffic rate. If required hire writers to support your blogging efforts. You can provide your blogging themes and ideas to your writers and just oversee the entire process rather than writing every single post yourself. If you have that kind of time and the skills to create interesting blog posts then it is best that you be the sole author of your blog or else it is best to delegate the work.
Starting Your Own Blog
Where To Start
Getting started is the biggest problem for most of the bloggers. Don’t
worry, even the most successful bloggers that you see today have had to go
through this syndrome and only those who have managed to overcome this syndrome
have managed to be successful. You too can overcome this issue with the right
guidance. Just read on and follow through the steps below and you will soon
find yourself in the right spot.
Setting Clear Goals
Ask yourself “Why Do I Want To Blog?”. Never start a blog until you
have a satisfactory answer for this question. Most of the blogs that fail are
the ones that have started without really knowing why they are starting a blog
in the first place.
Know your goals!
Here are some common goals that bloggers have.
Common Blogging Goals – Popular Reasons Why People Want To Blog
- Blogging To Make Money
- To Share Your Ideas And
Knowledge
You might have
expertise in a specific area and you might want to share your ideas with the
rest of the world. It can be anything from photography to bee keeping. If you
are passionate about something and when you know that you are really good at
something, it is always a welcome gesture to share your expertise online. This will
help you become an authority in your own niche market.
- To Create Awareness
About A Specific Topic
You might have a social cause that which you want the rest of the
world to appreciate. For example popular social themes today include global
warming, social responsibility of organizations, going green and so on.
- For Personal Branding
Blogging can prove to be a very effective platform for branding
yourself. Personal branding is important for individuals that are seeking high
profile jobs, for CEOs, marketing professionals and for everyone that likes to
be noticed in the society. Consistent blogging effort is a sure ticket to
online popularity.
- To Drive Traffic To
Your Website
Blogging has a tremendous SEO value especially with Google becoming
increasingly content centric, you will need to pump in loads and loads of fresh
content. Many website owners use blogging as one of the mainstream SEO strategy
to impress Google. So your goal too might be attracting traffic to your website
through blogging efforts.
- To Increase Your Sales
You can help your customers make favorable buying decisions with
your blogs. By providing resourceful information to your customers, it will
help you win the trust and confidence of your customers.
These are some
of the reasons why people blog and for a more complete list of reasons why people
blog read 145 Reasons To Blog
Identify Your Area Of Blogging
Once you have
identified the goal for creating your own blog, you need to identify the area
or what to blog about. For a complete list of 400 blog ideas or 400 things that
you can blog about visit 400 Things to Blog About
For example if
your goal is to make money by blogging, you should first run a research online
to know what kind of blogs make the most money and shortlist the top areas for
blogging. From this list you will need to identify topics that you can confidently
handle. The things that you blog about should be something within your area of
expertise. You should be able to produce resourceful content and remember that
you are not talking about just one or two blog posts that are few hundred words
but regular blog posts with resourceful information with several thousand
words. You better spend time in your initial research and identify the right
topics for blogging so that your blogging goals are achieved.
Identifying The Right Topics For Blogging
After identifying
what you would like to blog about, you should then start creating the list of
topics for creating blog posts. You will of course constantly be coming up with
new topics to keep your blog populated but to start with make sure that you
have a sizeable list of topics. Moreover, make sure that your topics are not
chosen randomly but based on some kind of theme or long term plan. You should
know where you are going and be steering clearly in that path with each of your
blog posts.
Here are some
important factors to be taken into account when you are selecting your topics.
- Who are you targeting or who is your audience?
- What do you want to tell your audience?
- How different is your blog from the hundreds of other blogs in your niche market?
Create your list
of topics for the blog posts.
Select Your Blog Name
The next most
important step in starting your blog is selecting your blog name. Come up with
something catchy and interesting. However, keep your blog name short so that it
can be remembered easily. When you are selecting your blog name always think of
its future and when it becomes really popular with millions of hits everyday,
will you be proud of the name that you have chosen for your blog, will the name
be something peppy and impressive. So better do some groundwork in this area
and do not rush to pick your blog name. The blog name will become your blog URL.
Decide Whether Free Blogging Platform Or Hosted
Blogging Platform
When you have
the blog name ready, you will need to register your blog name. You have two
options here,
- Free blogging platforms such as WordPress, Blogspot, etc.
- Hosted blogs – You host your own blog.
This will depend on your goal. If it is going to be just a hobby
level blog, you might want to start off with the free blogging platform. On the
other hand, if you are planning to do something at a professional level, then
it is worthwhile to go for hosted blogs or blogs that you host yourself. Hosting
your own blog will of course has its own recurring expenses in the form of
hosting charges. However, hosting your blog will give you 100% ownership of
your blog.
In one of the subsequent posts, I am planning to discuss in detail
the pros and cons of using free blog platforms and the pros and cons of hosting
your own blogs.
Similarly, I will also be discussing in detail how to use some of
the most popular free hosting platforms.
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