How to start a Blog you ask? The world of blogging provides numerous opportunities for bloggers to express themselves, share information and even make money. Starting a blog can be fun and rewarding if you get the basics right. Blogs have several advantages over the traditional websites, the major one being the ease of interaction.
Blogging has redefined itself throughout the years and bloggers worldwide have also evolved into different class online. In a nutshell blogging is basically writing about anything, sort of like writing in a journal or a diary. So, the following steps will show you how to start a blog:
Find the Best Niche:
Personally, I think the best way to start a blog is to first determine what your blog will be about. Your topics define who you are. If you are into business then your niche should be related to what you offer, if not you can always start with knowing where you are good at such as your hobby or some study. Doing this helps you focus on the articles you are to share, and the market you are going to reach out to.
Topic to Blog About:
Decide what you are going to blog about. If you are very certain about the reason you are blogging, that will help you understand and decide on what you are going to blog about. What you are going to blog about is also determined by the people that you are trying to talk to. You can blog about current events, viral videos or controversial topics. You can stick to a certain topic, eg car reparis, or how to get a six pack. By staying consistent on one topic you can gain credibility and be seen as an expert in your field. Product reviews are also a good thing to blog about.
Choose a Good Platform:
Free blogs are all over the web, simply do a web search and you will find some. Some examples are blogger.com, WordPress.com, blog.com and weebly.com. Now with most things in life, freedom isn’t free. Your blog will not be your own, the domain will be something like bradsblog.wordpress.com so you will have the same domain name as many other people. If you are looking to make money most of the free services don’t allow you to advertise on their sites.
For a paid blog you have to pay for the domain and the hosting. You will then own the blog yourself, therefore you will have more control over the blog when you begin to try to make money. Many of the free blogs don’t allow you to advertise on their platforms. You can use the free program wordpress.org to put on your blog which will give you themes and utilities to help make your blog a success.
Good sources of Traffic:
When you put something on your blog you want people to read it or watch it. This is where traffic comes in. If you want your blog to be successful you need to learn to get traffic to it. There are many different options here depending on your expertise and budget. Basically, traffic can be broken down into free and paid traffic.
Free traffic includes:
- Search engine traffic
- Social media traffic (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Forum posts
- Article Marketing
All of these topics by themselves could be the topics of pages and pages of how to articles.
Paid traffic includes:
- PPC (paid per click) advertising, eg: the little ads you see at the top of every Google search.
Post very informative content: The quality of your content will attract readers and earn you consistent followers. In the initial blogging stages, you are likely to have a lot of material to post often. However, as the days go by, you will find yourself running out of meaningful content to update.
Here you need to start researching and also be innovative. Search Engine Optimized (SEO) articles make great posts as thy enhance your ranking as well. The keywords should be chosen carefully bearing in mind the words or phrases that visitors are likely to use.
Hopefully, these few steps have enlightened you on how to start a blog and attract readers. Get ready to share your thoughts with the world as you interact with your audience. Welcome to the blogging world, enjoy the experience!