Friends often ask me how to start a blog, and I always enjoy explaining the advantages of a blog over a traditional website, but it is a lot information to take in over dinner. I thought I would document the process to make it easier to understand.
Decide What To Blog About:
There are a lot of bloggers on the web already. If you want to attract readers, you are going to need to establish your credibility. Don’t just blog about anything. Pick a topic you are are passionate about. Something that you have lots of experience with.
Free Hosting or Paid Hosting:
When it comes to starting a blog, your biggest decision will be whether you want to host the blog yourself, or use a free blogging service that is hosted for you.
Free Blogging Services
Yes, it’s free, but nothing is really free. When you start a blog with a free blogging service, you don’t get your own domain. You get something like mygreatblog.blogspot.com (where there are a million other blogs at blogspot.com) and you don’t actually own the blog. If you ever do decide to move to your own domain, you have no way to take your readers with you, because you have no control over the site.
Cheap – Host your own blog using WordPress free Blog software
This is the method I suggest, because it offers much more flexibility and freedom to do what you want. You will have your own domain name, like yourwebsite.com. You can get this for as little as $30 per year. In my experience, WordPress is excellent free blog software that allows you flexibility and room to grow.
Now lets talk something about Why Blogging?
1) Blogging is Really Easy
Yes. For the most part, starting a blog is extremely easy. I always say, “If you can write an email, you can maintain a blog.”. It’s really that easy. The blogging software takes care of all of the scary stuff, like writing HTML and publishing your pages to the web. All you need to do is type your content.
2) Blogs Can be Set Up Quickly
You can literally have a blog from one of the many free blogging services up and running in about 10 minutes. If you want to host your own blog, it takes a little longer, but most of that time is spent waiting for domain names to be ready.
3) Blogs are Search Engine Friendly
For the most part, blogs are pretty search engine friendly. What this means is that you won’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), because most blog software takes care of SEO basics for you.
Blogs automatically link all of your posts and pages together, which helps search engine spiders to find, crawl, and index your whole site. Blogs also use your relevant keywords in the Titles, Meta Tags, and URLs of every page, which also helps pages to rank higher in the search engines.
4) Blogs are Extremely Organized
One of the toughest thing about maintaining a traditional website is keeping pages organized. Blogs automatically organize your content by date, category, tags, and even include a built in search. This makes it much easier for people (and spiders) to navigate your blog and find what they are looking for.
5) A Blog is a Magnet for Readers
If you’re writing about something you are passionate about, there are bound to be others who are also passionate about that topic too. Hopefully, your blog will attract those readers / visitors, and if you write regularly, those readers will keep coming back for more.
6) A Blog is an Instant Online Community
Blogs have built in commenting systems, which allow your readers to comment and have discussions about various topics.
This promotes readership, and also generates unique relevant content.
7) Built in RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
RSS or Really Simple Syndication, basically syndicates your most recent content, and distributes it to several blog search engines. Your readers can also “Subscribe” to your “RSS Feed”, had have your latest content automatically delivered to their inbox.1) Blogging is Really Easy
Yes. For the most part, starting a blog is extremely easy. I always say, “If you can write an email, you can maintain a blog.”. It’s really that easy. The blogging software takes care of all of the scary stuff, like writing HTML and publishing your pages to the web. All you need to do is type your content.
2) Blogs Can be Set Up Quickly
You can literally have a blog from one of the many free blogging services up and running in about 10 minutes. If you want to host your own blog, it takes a little longer, but most of that time is spent waiting for domain names to be ready.
3) Blogs are Search Engine Friendly
For the most part, blogs are pretty search engine friendly. What this means is that you won’t have to spend a lot of time worrying about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), because most blog software takes care of SEO basics for you.
Blogs automatically link all of your posts and pages together, which helps search engine spiders to find, crawl, and index your whole site. Blogs also use your relevant keywords in the Titles, Meta Tags, and URLs of every page, which also helps pages to rank higher in the search engines.
4) Blogs are Extremely Organized
One of the toughest thing about maintaining a traditional website is keeping pages organized. Blogs automatically organize your content by date, category, tags, and even include a built in search. This makes it much easier for people (and spiders) to navigate your blog and find what they are looking for.
5) A Blog is a Magnet for Readers
If you’re writing about something you are passionate about, there are bound to be others who are also passionate about that topic too. Hopefully, your blog will attract those readers / visitors, and if you write regularly, those readers will keep coming back for more.
6) A Blog is an Instant Online Community
Blogs have built in commenting systems, which allow your readers to comment and have discussions about various topics.
This promotes readership, and also generates unique relevant content.
7) Built in RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
RSS or Really Simple Syndication, basically syndicates your most recent content, and distributes it to several blog search engines. Your readers can also “Subscribe” to your “RSS Feed”, had have your latest content automatically delivered to their inbox.
In my case, I start an English blog to try a new way to learn English, it has helped me a lot, in effective way. I really love blogging for now. Thanks for sharing this post.