Blogging Fool

There is a plethora information concerning how to start a blog, but most of it is hyperbole and seldom gets down to the stuff you really need to know.

Let me start by saying – blogging is not for the meek if you want to take it seriously, meaning, if you want to actually monetize (that means make money from) your blog.  If you are interested in working from home and someday actually getting something back other than the warm fuzzies for your creative output, then you really must have some sense of how code works, how Search Engine Optimization (SEO) works and what a MySQL database is.

But Don’t Run Away!

Not quite yet.

Because even though that all sounds a little scary or high-and-mighty, there are some things you can do to start, with the FAITH that eventually it will all feel quite natural to you.  First, you have to put in the time and learning.  Like anything, with some diligence, some tenacity, you too can become a pro blogger.

Ask yourself: how many hours do you spend a day online?  If you aren’t blogging yet, you probably wile away the other checking and updating your Facebook updates, post your feelings to a MySpace blog, or write long-winded replies to topics you gravitate towards on various forums.

Well why not control your own portal so that people come to hear what YOU have to say?

To get started, let’s talk about what you really need to make it as a blogger.

You really need your own host provider.  You don’t want to start with an all-in-the-box service that later limits your choices.  Wordpress.com or Blogger.com are fine, but eventually you will see that for every little customization you want to make or extension you want to add, you have to pay a little out of pocket.

Instead, consider a hosting site like Hostmonster.com or Dreamhost.com or a dozen other choices where you can get your own little piece of storage and manage the back-end.

Basically, for less than a hundred bucks a year (sometimes even cheaper) you get a whole lot of personalized email accounts, your own domains and the ability to install all sorts of great content management systems (CMS) so you can run your own blog, your own community or whatever else suits your needs.

In our case, we will talk about Wordpress – unquestionably the most successful blogging platform going.

So once you have your own hosting provider, register a domain name like “http://im-the-best-blogger.com” (at Hostmonster.com you can do it from within your control panel – in fact hosting providers will offer a way to do it “in-house”, you can also try domain registrars like GoDaddy.com) you go to your cPanel back-end, find Fantastico or SimpleScripts and install the latest version of Wordpress.

*TIP*

When registering your own domain, consider putting dashes in between the key words of your URL.  This helps search engines figure out what your site is really about.  For eg. www.imawesome.com is not really as good as www.im-awesome.com, because the latter provides KeyWords that the search engines will lookk at when determining the relevance of your site to a search query.

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You may now want to go back to your cPanel and set up your own custom email account based on your personal domain.  Something like info@im-best-blogger-ever.com.

Once your Wordpress installation is complete, you will wonder what to do next.  There are so many sites that offer advice on this subject that I merely want to point you to some of the good ones I have found to save you some trouble.

But essentially, you are going to need to install a nice theme for your site to make it stand out, you will want to install some plugins to extend the functionality, effectiveness, interactivity and ease-of-use of your new online home, and then do some little tweaks to make it really sing.

Here are some of the better posts I have discovered that guide you through this initial process.  They can save you an awful lot of time when figuring out what to do next and avoid a lot of mistakes.  (Although making mistakes is one of the most valuable lessons in learning that you can have.)

• JTPratt’s Blogging Mistakes site offers a great article on getting going, and first steps to take once you are up and running.  I really couldn’t have said it better myself.
• Darren Rowse, creator of ProBlogger.net is one of the most important people with one of the most imporant sites to pay attention to and learn from when getting going.  Before you do anything else, you relly should consider subscribing to the Pro Blogger RSS feed and reading the countless amazing articles Pro Blogger has to offer.  One of the articles that recently caught my attention, however is about Darren deciding to start a brand new blog after two years, the mistakes he learned from and what he did starting fresh.
• Another thing you will want to do when you are up and running is go to your Settings->Writing and paste the entries for the various blog update services under “Update Services“.   This page gives you a list of the services you will want to ping automatically every time you post a new entry.  Also, under Settings->Permalinks, make sure to enter /%postname%/ where it says “Custom Structure” so that all your URL’s are search-engine friendly.
• Smashing Magazine has a list of 100 beautiful free Wordpress themes to get you going.  There are dozens of lists and sites like this, but Smash, in my opinion, has some of the best out there.  Furthermore, simply by persuing what is available, you will learn what makes a good theme and why, so this is a leanring experience in itself.

Finally, you will want to start learning all about AdSense – Google’s bread and butter – essentially micro-targeted ads that you can place for free on your site that update according to the content you create.  When people click on the ads, you make money.  But don’t get of ahead of yourself, thinking you will strike it rich overnight; AdSense is a complex science that takes a while to master, and it relies on getting the RIGHT traffic to your site, and a lot of it. But it’s free to use and implement and it is important you begin to learn about how it works.  Eventually you will spread out into other Affiliate Ad opportunities and create even more potential revenue streams.

There is so much more to cover, but let’s begin there.

I look forward to your thoughts, and welcome you to the wonderful world of blogging.

Make sure you subscribe to this feed so that you can follow along as we go through the various phases of setting up a successful blog!

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