How To Start A Blog: A Beginners Guide
Everyone is blogging. Your teachers blog, your friends blog, and your grandmother may have the occasion to blog.
Anyone can write a blog, but not everyone has success as a blogger. There is so much information and so many ideas on how you should be blogging.
The key to blogging lies in few simple tenets that exist not only in the blogosphere but also in the keys to writing well.
These simple guidelines will have you out blogging your grandmothers blog in no time!
Why Blog and With Whom?
If you have to ask yourself why you should blog, you may not want to keep reading, UNLESS you are unaware of the benefits of blogging from a business perspective.
- Blogging increases brand awareness.
- Blogging directs viewers to products and concepts within your field.
- Blogging can be lucrative for creative looking for brands to blog for.
Now that you officially see the benefits of blogging, here are five steps to making your blog a success.
Start Blogging in Five Easy Phases:
Here are the five phases for creating your blog. From here you will be off to blog on the subject of choice, creating the blog of your dreams.
- Choose Your Platform
- Choose Your Hosting
- Setting up your domain
- Blog by Design
- Blogger Resources
Phase 1 Choose your Platform
The largest platform for bloggers is WordPress and it is very easy to use and has innumerable plugins and add-ons. Additionally, it offers so many design options that there are entire books on the subject. Since there are so many plug ins and add-ons, some beginners prefer a hosted blog.
Two hosted blog communities are Blogger and Tumblr and are social networks as well as blog site set ups. These are also searchable within the main site. Many bloggers interact with blogs on their platforms as well as WordPress. Since WordPress is the most popular site that is not self hosting, it often is the choice of those who are uninterested in having their own domains. See Phase 2.
Phase 2: Choose your Hosting
WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger all offer free blogs, here’s the caveat, your blog url is not entirely a reflection of your blog or your content.
Here is how the blog would appear:
Additionally, you do not own your blog. When a blog is hosted on another sites server, it is technically property of the hosting site. Which means your blog does not technically belong to you. That can be sad and a waste of time, especially since they could remove it if they chose.
BUT, you can purchase your own domain through company’s like Go Daddy and get your own URL that is yours forever and content therein is yours. YAY!
The choice really comes down to how serious you are about your blogging. If you are just starting, a hosted blog with lay out options is a great way to get your feet wet.
Phase 3 Setting Up Your Domain
For the purposes of this tutorial we are assuming you are choosing WordPress, given the ease of design options and add-ons. You have likely made a decision on hosting and domains
What is a domain? A Domain is a URL of a site. Facebook is Facebook.com, etc. What is hosting? Hosting is the company that allows it to be on the internet, it indexes the information and blog content also.
Most hosting companies, Go Daddy for example, has a wordpress add in that allows you to use the function of WordPress within the site. Once this is installed, you will go Phase 3!
Phase 4 Blog By Design
This is the less technical and most fun part of the blogging process. There are a number of places to get you started such as ThemeForest.net, and they have a tons of different color schemes to give you inspiration in the design of your blog.
A blog design should reflect your personal style and also what the content of the blog will be. If your blog is about cooking, chances are you would avoid overly dark color schemes. Be sure to see our blogging themes guide here.
Clean: Keep your blog clean. No one likes a blog that is overly difficult to navigate and that is difficult to read.
When in doubt, keep it simple. A photo of you or your blog logo is really all you need with some clean lines and engaging text!
Phase 5 Blogger Resources
Bloggers need help too! When blogging look to other established blogs to generate ideas from and to help with inspiration for your own blogs.
Remember, at Make Money Expert we talk a lot about how to make money blogging the right way. Be sure to find, friend and follow as many entrepreneurs and leaders in the space you are in to see how they go about blogging for ideas and traffic.
Follow them on social media and use news sites for inspiration! Best of blogging luck!
Now let's continue the next stage of learning how to start a successful blog.
8 Expert Ways to Write Engaging Blog Posts
Anyone can write a blog, but mastering the art of blogging takes finesse in addition to fearlessness.
Once you have chosen a relevant topic for your blog, you must provide provocative content that encourages readers to share the content and engage with you further.
Here are eight ways to increase the effectiveness of your blogs.
1) Hook your Audience with Blog Bait: The first sentence is difficult for even the most seasoned writer, but is integral in capturing your audience attention. The good news is you can reel in blog readers more easily since they are informal in tone. Here are a few ideas that are great blog bait.
a) Post a Question: Many bloggers post a question that the blog answers, What is the difference between an infinity scarf and a sweater with no arms?
b) Famous Wordplay: Famous Quotations that relate to a universal theme or question in the blog work beautifully to engage a reader.
c) Fact or Figures: A fact or statistic that is little known or unusual is an excellent way to capture attention.
d) Anecdote and Answers: Start a story! Personal experiences create a bond with a reader and cause them to read on!
2) Be Precise and Concise: With the advent of the internet and so much content online, the readers attention is generally short, so it is best not to circle the airport, but rather land your points as quickly as possible. Make each punctuation mark, phrase, and sentence is delivered in a clear and concise way, illustrating your point and adding to your piece. Read everything aloud before posting and you will see where areas should be removed or elaborated on. Do not be afraid to edit yourself. Everyone needs an editor!
3) Tighten Up: Shorten sentences and tighten descriptions for clear writing. A sentence only requires a subject and a verb. Adjectives, adverbs, and articles with superfluous punctuation often muddle a point, rather than clarify it.
4) Use Your Words: One of the keys in communication of a thought is how clear it is to a reader. Use a thesaurus wisely when you have exhausted the use of a particular noun or verb, but not just to make the text sound more knowledgeable.
5) Analogies: A well placed analogy is one of the most impactful devices in written language, and in life! Try to use an analogy that is directly applicable and obvious over one that requires substantial explanation.
6) Make it Pop: A pop culture reference never hurts in engaging an audience. For example, If Britney can make it through 2007 then I can make it through this apple pie recipe, is a widely known pop culture reference and brings some spice to a potentially boring recipe blog.
7) Personality Post: Everyone is unique, your personality and voice should be apparent from all of your blogs, even if the subject matter is not. Coming up with original blog topics is one of the most difficult parts of blogging, however you can make your post and approach show you as a writer and contributor with a unique view on a common topic. Often this is as easy as a punchy title.
8) Effective End Perspective: One of the joys of blog writing and one of the aims is inviting your reader back to read more posts. Great ways to conclude in addition to engage readers to share and follow your blog include re-stating your point, calling to action a point of the blog, or ending with a question that leaves the reader wanting more.
Now, lets continue to the last stage of blogging we have when it comes to how quality blogs are started on the internet.
Ten Ways They Won’t Click Away: Blog Engagement Guide
Reader engagement is a direct measure of effective writing.
A post without engagement is a waste of your time and energy, however there are some easy tips to increase engagement without substantially altering content and style.
1) First Person: Unlike scholarly writing or professional script, blogging should be natural as if you are speaking to a friend. Bloggers differ from writers in this way and it is why they are often more popular than authors. Be natural and simple.
2) Keep Down the Count: Try to keep the word count down to below 600 words. Blogs are mini versions of news or opinions on subjects. Brevity is paramount in a blog because readers are reading a blog to obtain a quick version of information they require.
3) Know your Audience: Before you begin a blog, think about who you are writing for and who you would like to be engaging in your posts. When you know your audience, your writing is more natural and you can incorporate pop culture references, style, and tones appropriate to the reader. Since you know this beforehand, you can easily predict the behavior of the reader.
4) Format Format Format: Using bullets and lists are not just for recipes these days, they are an excellent tool for communicating thoughts and make information easier to digest.
5) Stats Sell: Using statistics to illustrate points is effective in all writing and is a call to action. You must cite statistics accurately of course, but finding relevant statistics from reliable sources add authority to the point you are trying to make.
6) Life HACK!: Using a common annoyance or pain in order to sell a solution is very effective in increasing engagement. If you want to suggest a life-hack, then you must point out what is annoying about life without the hack!
7) Use Your Voice: When writing about a common topic using a developed personal voice is always best. No one is you-er than you, so use you to engage your readers. Honing your style and voice is a skill that requires some time, but with practice and attention to the posts that you enjoy writing the most, you will develop it.
8) The Story: Aural tales developed into written works and engaging posts may serve as digital folklore. Tell your story in order to illustrate a point. We are curious about peoples stories, so do not be afraid to tell your own.
9) Catch some ZZZ’s: Before you post, always sleep on the blog. Not literally sleep on it of course, but rest after writing and come back to it, in case you missed a point or need a fresh eye for edits.
10) Heed the Headline: Do not rush into a headline. It is one of the most important elements of the blog. You can be writing about the opening of a shoe box and with the proper title it can get more shares than anything you have ever written.
Thank you for reading our Make Money Expert “How To Start a Successful Blog Fast” guide today. We hope you learned as much as humanely possible and will apply and implement this back into building and branding your own blog!
