How to Create Your First Blog

I’ve been running a blog now for approximately 2 years, and I’m surprised at the number of visitors that I get from my weblog and the variety of folks who inform me that they first heard approximately me from my weblog as opposed to my website. The phrase blog is derived from the term “internet log,” or a web diary or magazine. If the HBO series “Sex and the City” were being filmed today, Carrie Bradshaw might be a blogger as well as a columnist, I suppose. Why? As she stories her revelations approximately lifestyles, love, and relationships, she ought to post them to her blog for the arena to see and remark upon.

Blogging has opened internet sites to almost everybody because it takes little or no understand-a way to get a blog up and go for walks. In fact, many provider business owners are using a blog platform as their number one website, with a number of them developing static pages, as you’ll discover on a traditional internet site. In contrast, others are the use the platform as a weblog and are posting updates regularly.

There are numerous advantages to the use of blogs instead of ezines or conventional websites:

1. Search engines love blogs. The approach that seems to be attractive to serps nowadays is frequently updated content. I can log in to my weblog at the start of a day and post a post. Within 24 hours, I’ll get a notification from my Google indicators account that Google has listed that post.

2. Content can be dispensed speedily. If you coach your visitors to enroll in your weblog through updating services like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they will be notified within hours of any new posts on your weblog.

3. Little web programming knowledge is needed. Once your blog is set up, it’s surely a remember to log into your account, typing the info you submit, including pics or photographs as wanted, and publishing your put-upon blog.

4. Reader feedback. Your readers can give you comments and comments approximately your posts nearly at once you log an entry. Blogs are an outstanding way to interact with your target audience.

Are ezines and conventional websites lifeless? No, because humans devour records differently. Some are auditory novices and prefer to pay attention to the info (superb audience for podcasting, an audio form of blogging). Some prefer to receive updates as they’re posted (weblog readers), even as others like a strong, desk-bound medium to which they can refer. At the same time, they may be equipped (readers who archive ezines or bookmark net pages).

How do you begin to weblog? Here are 10 simple steps you could comply with:

1. Blogging platform. The easiest way to get began to use the unfastened provider discovered at Blogger.Com or WordPress.Com. The loose services constrain the potential to personalize your weblog, so I urge my customers to join Typepad.Com, for you to host your weblog on their servers or buy a website hosting account in which WordPress can be mounted. The downloadable model of WordPress is located at WordPress.Org and is free of the price if you need to put in WordPress yourself to your website hosting account. I use Typepad for my blog, so many of my examples will relate solely to blogs hosted on that platform.

What do you want to name your weblog? 2. Name. Blog names tend to be attention-getting and rancid-beat. However, I encourage my customers to use key phrases critical to their commercial enterprise whilst naming their blog for carrier companies. You may also need to collect the.Com model of your weblog’s call or your weblog’s name with the word “weblog” connect as your weblog URL. After installing your weblog, your weblog provider can provide you with more information about how to map your area for your weblog. (Note: You do not want to simply forward your blog to your domain name, as that affects your character blog pages).

3. Look and Layout. How many columns do you want to display? Do you want links to static pages? What colorings do you want to apply? How approximately is a signup field for a loose giveaway? Should you operate one of the templates provided or have something customized? Do you need your weblog documents displayed? Do you need to be the handiest writer, or do you need to permit others to make posts nicely? There are many questions you may be asked inside the startup segment about the look of your blog. A Typepad blog lets you trade your mind about your layout at a later date. The best way to determine your blog’s appearance is to take a look at the layout of different blogs and determine what appeals to you.

4. Widgets. There are some of the widgets or add-on programs that you can contain in your blog. Check your weblog software program’s web page for more info approximately what capabilities you’d like to add to your weblog. At a minimum, you’ll need to give traffic more than one methods in which they could receive weblog updates via diverse updaters, or feeder offerings, as stated earlier.

5. Comments. The most modern sp*am making its rounds online is comment sp*am. Don’t those men have something better to do? Set your remarks to moderated; this means that you need to approve any remarks in your weblog before the submit is going to stay. You’ll shop yourself top-notch many complications and time by selecting to moderate the feedback.

6. Blog content. The time has arrived — your weblog is prepared to accept posts. What do you write approximately? You can submit content material, wealthy articles of a hobby to your target marketplace, comment on a modern occasion, solution questions out of your site visitors, gift a before and after case look at outlining how your business helped someone, and so forth. Keep your eyes and ears open for records applicable to your target audience. I use my weblog to bring forth info that does not shape nicely into my publication format or something that arises among e-newsletter issues. I post my ezine content to my blog, as well.

7. Posting frequency. Blogs are similar to gardens — they need watering frequently and require a little care and attention. For maximum effectiveness, you want to post several instances per week for your blog. I try to post 4 instances in step with a week in my blog — 2 posts are items I run across or comment upon as noteworthy inside the moment, and the latter 2 are the contents of my ezine published over 2 days. And, reply to reader’s feedback while they arrive — blogs provide a remarkable forum for ongoing discussions.