Like that question has never been answered before! So why am I addressing it? Well, someone asked my opinion & after coming up with 5 steps & prioritizing them I thought the process should be shared.
Here is my advice for starting a blog along with some resources to get you started.
1. Branding
- Who are you & what makes you memorable? I have my photo…
- What is your message? You may not have your voice yet, but that’s ok.
2. Choose a theme & someone to build it if you’re technically challenged like me
- Find a theme that reflects your personality
- SEO is huge & widget-ready will make it fun for you
- Google Analytics & Feedburner are important
- choose a blogging platform that is user friendly
- I really like WordPress & my sister builds great blogs
3. Start writing and find your voice
- I don’t believe you need content in advance because I’ve started 3 – cold
- After 2-3 months you’ll be comfortable & will have found your voice
- During this time read & post comments on other’s blogs
- ‘Gently’ link to your relevant blog posts.
4. Go thru your posts & redo the categories at 3 months or so
- Now that you have your voice, you’ll know what you’re writing about!
- Categorize them for your readers please (it’s the librarian coming out in me)
5. Be consistent in your posting & grow your blog
- Check your stat’s & interpret them
- What searches are hitting your blog?
- Follow links back (using Technorati) and thank them for linking to you
Bonus idea – I did say 5 up there.
6. Repurpose questions that people ask or that you see multiple times.
- If one or a few people have them, then chances are the lurkers do too (which is 95% or so people).
What did I miss? It should be a fun process. If it’s work you probably won’t do it (please don’t contribute to the massive number of abandoned blogs). It will take effort, but it will be rewarding! enjoy!
Blogging gets easier with time. After awhile the self conscious feeling fades & it becomes more natural. Give yourself time to grow with it!
I think finding your voice is huge. We have a blog with multiple authors. One person didn’t blog much. We soon discovered that she was scared she couldn’t blog like me or like Connie and that held her back. We told her we didn’t want her to blog like us. (If she blogged like us, both Connie and I would get scared.) She had to find her voice and style and blog that way.
You will be most successful to blog in a voice or style that comes naturally to you, not one that you think you should be or imitate another.
[…] how social networks improve data sharing and discovery. And tonight, I read Connie Bensen’s great post about blogging 101 out of Geoff Livingston’s Google Reader shared items before I got it out of my subscription […]
Excellent post, thanks to Chris Brogan for linking to it.
Wonder what you think about this article on blogging frequency I read yesterday:
http://jonathanfields.com/blog/posting-patterns-of-top-bloggers-revealed/
I’m thinking of patterning the future of my blog on the lessons in it, and got some more valuable info from this post – and will contact your sister about having a theme done, too :-)
Also, I asked this on Twitter – and will ask you too… “Is blogging about blogging really passe? Or is there still room to do it innovatively, creatively?”
Of course, the answer should be apparent from the title of this post – Blogging 101. Common sense isn’t really common… even in blogging!
All success
Dr.Mani
hey sister, Heidi,
You know that I totally agree with you. We’ve been blogging together since January & definitely have our own voices & style.
Dr. Mani – I’ve done a lot of blogging about blogging. I think there are still people looking for creative ideas. And mine are based on my reading & experience. I enjoy sharing ideas.
Words of wisdom Connie,
I’ve found youe article, find your voice blogging and 101 bogging tips, very interesting.
Wish you well, with your future blogs.
Ed