The current blogosphere is concentrated with quirky,funny,smart and interesting blogs.
It comes as no surprise that they consequently inspire most people to try their hand at blogging and perhaps become the next internet superstar. However,when you look closely,you will find that the internet is also full of blogs that have been abandoned simply because the owners could not keep them up or they lost interest altogether. This can be very disheartening but with a little creativity,dedication and time,you can easily start your own blog and become successful.
Before we give you the guidelines of how to start a blog,it is important that we first define what a blog is. A blog is a website that contains a series of discussions. They could be informal or formal depending on what you choose to do with it. So how do you start your own blog?
1. Create a blogging concept
Whatever topic that you choose,it should be appealing to you. It should be something that you are passionate about. This will make it easy for you to keep the blog fresh and up to date by publishing new information on a regular basis. You can choose a topic about fashion,politics,movies,food,cars,etc.
While creating your concept,you also have to decide on your target audience. Is your blog going to target working class people,college students,single mothers,women,men,etc? You could also decide for the content to appeal to more than one category of people.
2. Choose a name for your blog and blogging software/ platform
Next,you need to decide on what name you will give to your blog. You have to ensure that the name you choose is available. Depending on which plan you want to subscribe to,you can choose to purchase a domain or pay for hosting and get a free domain.
There are many blogging platforms that you can use. Some of them are free while others are not. The free platforms have a number of limitations. For instance,some platforms post links to other blogs inside your blog. These other blogs may not be relevant to the content in your blog. Other platforms may also post flashing advertisements on your blog which more often than not will make it very unattractive.
If you want to start a business blog that will attract business clients,you should invest in a paid platform such as WordPress (the upgraded version) and the likes. However,if your blog is just for friends and entertainment,you can go for the free blogging platforms such as Blogger.com,Tumblr,Drupal,Joomla,etc.
3. Ensure that you are blogging daily
Once you have set up your blog,try and blog on a daily basis so as to attract traffic. The blog should be interesting or at least contain information that your readers want to know. More importantly,ensure that you interact with your followers. When they comment on your blog post or email you,reply to them.
You can also connect with your followers on social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook. Most blogging platforms have social media sharing buttons. You can add these buttons to your posts so that when your readers read them,they can share it with others.