How to start a blog - a beginner's guide

The 'how to start a blog' process begins with a few basics.

Firstly do you have anything to say?

There's a lot of writing involved in blogging and if you haven't got a decent subject or theme, your blog is going to dry up pretty quickly.

Also, if you really hate writing, blogging probably isn't for you.

To make it worthwhile, you need to be writing at least 2 or 3 posts each week.

By following the tips on this website - determining your niche first, then researching high demand/low supply/high profit determining your niche first, then researching high demand/low supply/high profit keywords and you'll find that your keywords virtually write your blog for you.

So do the hard graft at the beginning and you'll find that you pick a theme with plenty to write about.

How to start a blog - what's the point?

The second thing to consider is what's the purpose of your blog?.

Take a look at the list below and see which suits your purpose best, it might be a combination of several of these items:

• Want to share thoughts about hobby/interest/business
• Want to seek feedback about business or products
• Want to attract traffic to website by building a 'deeper' relationship
• Want to share expertise with others
• Enjoy writing and have lots to talk about
• Want to generate keyword rich content that the search engines will love
• Love reading blogs and want to join the blogging community
• Want to see what blogs have to offer
• Want to use a blog to promote and build an online business
• Want to be collaborative online, to get thoughts, comments and contributions about services or products
• You simply want to enjoy blogging, with no particular aim or outcome

Have a think about what you want to achieve through your blog as this will help you determine the best tools to start the process.

How to start a blog - how technical are you?

What you choose may well depend on a couple of technical factors:

• Do the terms HTML, php and FTP make you want to run a mile?
• Do you want to do it all yourself, or are you happy to get a techie friend or webmaster to do it, possibly at a cost?
• Do you want to incorporate audio, video or photographs in your blog?
• How sure are you that blogging is for you? If you're unsure, don't go for a complicated or costly technical solution in the first instance.

Once you've worked through the three key factors above, you're ready to get started.

How to start a blog - my 'top 2' tools

Blogger

This is Google's contribution to the blogging world, and I'd recommend it for 'entry level' blogging.

It's browser-based, which means you don't need any technical knowledge.

It's simple, straightforward, free and perfectly acceptable.

You have a selection of fairly limited templates to choose from, if you get ambitious you can play with the HTML code and personalise your blog even more.

Being on Blogger means that you're instantly listed in Google's blog list, you can also add photos and video really easily.

I started out on Blogger and still keep a family blog on the system now.

All new bloggers should sign up for a free account and take it for a test drive.

There are two ways to use Wordpress for blogging - you can do it the teccie way and download the software, or you can do it the more straightforward way and sign up directly for a blog and enter blog posts via your browser.

I do it the techie way, as Wordpress is a superb and easily customised blogging tool, but only do it that way if you're experienced with php and MySQL databases ... if not, leave the download well alone!

The browser based version is for people who are more confident with IT and happy to move beyond the simplicity of Blogger.

One great feature of Wordpress is that you can import your Blogger posts automatically, so if you graduate from Blogger and need something more ambitious, you can move on, without pain, whenever you want to.

Other great features of the browser-based Wordpress are:

• Takes seconds to set up, it's free, all you need is an email address
• Lots of good themes to choose from, much better than Blogger themes
• Great anti spam tools incorporated
• Straightforward writing tools, photos easily included

Note: Wordpress will occasionally display Google ads on your pages with this system.

You can avoid this by paying a small annual fee or use the Wordpress download, via the Fantastico Open Source easy-installation system, and say goodbye to ads (unless they're yours and making you money) and fees forever.

If you have a web host and knowledge of MySQL databases you can download the software and do it yourself, but beware, this is for the advanced user or someone who can afford to pay a webmaster.

My tip: try the freebies first, only part with cash if you have to!

I'm a big fan of Wordpress.

It's a superb blogging tool, has a vast community offering advice, support, templates and add-ons and would quite simply be my number one choice.

How to start a blog - other popular tools

However, in the interests of education and fairness, here are some other popular blogging tools which you might care to investigate:

• Movable Type
• Drupal
• Serendipity
• b2evolution
• Textpattern

How to start a blog - next steps ...

You need to get your blog listed in the blog directories to increase its likelihood of being found.

I highly recommend that you take the time and trouble to do this as you will find that it builds almost instant traffic for your blog and launches your online presence much faster than any conventional website would ever do.

In SEO (search engine optimization) terms, it also gives you high quality, inbound links to your website ... and SEO must!

Technorati is the best-known blog directory and the one you really must engage with.

My 'Top 5' list of blog directories to submit to

• Technorati
• Blogged
• Bloglines
• Blog Catalog
• Feedburner

Each of these directories offers a range of great tools to improve the visibility of your blog and get it 'out there' as soon as possible.

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