How to Create Your First Blog
I’ve been running a blog now for about 2 years, and I’m surprised at the number of visitors that I get from my blog and the range of folks who inform me that they first heard about me from my weblog instead of my website. The word blog is derived from the term “net log,” or a web diary or magazine. If the HBO series “Sex and the City” have been being filmed these days, Carrie Bradshaw would be a blogger as well as a columnist, I assume. Why? As she studies her revelations approximately lifestyles, love, and relationships, she ought to publish them on her blog for the arena to peer and comment upon.
Blogging has opened website introduction to almost anyone because it takes little or no realize-how to get a blog up and walk. In fact, many provider business owners use a weblog platform as their number one website, with a number of them creating static pages as you would find on a conventional internet site, whilst others are using the platform as a blog and are posting updates often.
1. Search engines love blogs. The approach that appears to be attractive to engines like google these days is regularly updated content. I can log-in to my weblog at the beginning of the afternoon and post a submit. Within 24 hours, I’ll get a notification from my Google alerts account that Google has indexed that publish.
2. Content can be dispensed quickly. If you educate your traffic to join your blog via updating offerings like Bloglines or Feedblitz, they’ll be notified within hours of any new posts to your weblog.
3. Little net programming information is needed. Once your blog is installed, it is sincerely a matter of logging into your account, typing the info for your post, including photos or photographs as wished, and publishing your publish in your blog.
Four. Reader remarks. Your readers can come up with comments and feedback about your posts nearly right away when you log an entry. Blogs are a remarkable way to engage your target market.
Are ezines and traditional websites dead? No, because people eat statistics differently. Some are auditory learners and like to hear the information (the notable target market for podcasting and audio shape of running a blog). Some prefer to acquire updates as they’re published (weblog readers), whilst others like a stable, stationary medium to which they can refer. At the same time, they’re geared up (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 simplest way to get started is to use the unfastened carrier observed at Blogger.Com or WordPress.Com. The capacity to customize your blog is restrained with the loose offerings, so I urge my customers to enroll in Typepad.Com to host your weblog for you on their servers or buy a web hosting account wherein WordPress may be set up. The downloadable model of WordPress is placed at WordPress.Org and is freed from the price if you want to put in WordPress yourself for your web hosting account. I use Typepad for my blog, so many of my examples will relate completely to blogs hosted on that platform.
2. Name. What do you want to name your weblog? Blog names tend to be attention-getting and stale-beat. However, I inspire my customers to use key phrases essential to their commercial enterprise when naming their blog for service organizations. You may also need to acquire the the.Com version of your blog’s name or your blog’s name with the word “blog” attach as your weblog URL. After you have set up your weblog, your weblog provider can develop greater information about how to map your domain for your weblog. (Note: You do not want to truly forward your weblog in your area call, as that impacts the URLs of your man or woman weblog pages).
3. Look and Layout. How many columns do you need to display? Do you need links to static pages? What shades do you want to apply? How about a signup container for an unfastened giveaway? Should you operate one of the templates provided or have something custom-designed? Do you need your blog data displayed? Do you want to be the only writer, or do you want to allow others to make posts properly? There are many questions you’ll be requested within the startup section about the appearance of your blog. A Typepad weblog allows you to alternate your mind about your format at a later date. The nice manner of deciding your weblog’s look is to observe the layout of other blogs and decide what appeals to you.
4. Widgets. There are several widgets or upload-on packages that you could contain in your weblog. Check your weblog software’s site for more information about what features you want to upload on your weblog. At a minimum, you may want to offer visitors more than one ways in which they can get hold of weblog updates via numerous updaters, or feeder services, as cited earlier.
5. Comments. The most modern sp*am making its rounds online is comment sp*am. Don’t those guys have anything higher to do? Set your comments to moderated; you have to approve any comments in your blog earlier than the post goes live. You’ll shop yourself fantastic many headaches and time by using selecting to mild the remarks.
Once you’ve gotten this some distance, you have to have a simple weblog hooked up and are equipped to begin to weblog.
6. Blog content. The time has arrived — your blog is prepared to accept posts. What do you write about? You can post content material, wealthy articles of interest in your goal marketplace, comment on a current event, solution questions from your site visitors, present a before and after case, take a look at outlining how your business helped someone, etc. Keep your eyes and ears open for information applicable to your target market. I use my blog to bring forth data that doesn’t match well into my e-newsletter format or something that arises between newsletter troubles. I submit my ezine content to my weblog as nicely.
7. Posting frequency. Blogs are just like gardens — they need watering regularly and require a little care and attention. For maximum effectiveness, you need to submit several instances every week in your blog. I try to put up 4 times according to a week in my weblog — 2 posts are items I run across or comment upon as noteworthy inside the second, and the latter 2 are the contents of my ezine posted over 2 days. And, respond to reader’s comments while they come — blogs provide a fantastic discussion board for ongoing discussions.
