How to Start a Blog

Everyone seems to be blogging these days. Some are worth reading, some aren't and most of them have different agendas. People start a blog for a variety of different reasons: some like to keep a blog as an online diary, kept private or shared with friends and family, where they post comments, pictures and links about things that interest them; others launch a blog as a way of achieving recognition. These kinds of blogs are made accessible to everyone and can be found in search engines, giving the blogger the chance to develop a following and stand out as an expert in a particular subject.

A blog might lead to all sorts of employment opportunities, or provide you with a body of work to show off at your next interview. A successful blog can also offer you the chance to make money directly through advertising, or indirectly through spin-off publications, consultancy, public speaking engagements and all kinds of other means. Whatever your goals, blogging can be highly satisfying and fun and a great daily discipline to focus the mind!

HOW TO BLOG

Pick a service
There are a number of free blogging services out there such as Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, Blosxom.com, Blog-City.com, LiveJournal.com and Vox.com; others charge a nominal fee such as TypePad.com, SquareSpace.com, BlogIdentity.com and Bubbler.com, but give you a free trial to see if it works for you.

Decide your agenda
It's important to decide early on what you want to want from your blog. Is this going to be an online journal? A way of marketing your professional skills or business? A way of imparting your expertise and generating income? The more focused your blog, the more successful and satisfying it is likely to be.

Set up your blog
You don't have to be a technical whizz to set up a blog, and most will be surprised at just how easy it is. The main thing to decide in the first instance is what ‘theme' you want, ie. the colours, number of columns and the overall look and feel of your blog.

Write your first post
If you're new to writing, this might be difficult at first, but persevere and you will soon find your rhythm. A good place to start is to tell readers about yourself and what you intend to cover in your blog. Include links and pictures to make each post interesting and relevant.

Publicise your blog
Tag each post with key words that will come up on relevant internet searches and make sure you're ‘pinging' the major weblog tracking sites - most blogging services handle this automatically. Add links to other sites and try to get other sites or bloggers to link back to you. Use social media sites. Let people comment and give feedback to your posts.

Write regularly
Get into the habit of writing daily. You could be the best writer/ blogger in the world, but if you don't provide regular content for people to read, they won't come back. Simple as that.


BEST BLOGGING SITES REVIEWED

Wordpress.com - bloggin made easy.

Blogger.com - a great place to start blogging.

By Emily Jenkinson

20th January 09