Blogging is becoming more and more popular and more people are seeking blogging advice as they start their first blog. First I am sure you have heard about social networking. For those of you that have not, basically social networking is about connecting with people and or information using web-based tools or software. It’s a way of meeting other like minded individuals on the internet.
A blog is one such tool and has become very popular but many people start a blog with the wrong idea about blogging and that’s why I decided to impart some blogging advice to help you to get started.
First of all, you need to decide what software you are going to use and then you need to understand about the information you’ll be putting on your blog. I prefer WordPress. Many people will suggest Blogger because it is free. Wordpress is free too but I would recommend getting a hosting site because then you can use the SEO plugins. If you choose to use Blogger, or any other free service that is hosted on their site, then you are subject to their changes without any control. When you host a blog on your own domain, you only have to worry about the restrictions of that hosting site, which, by the way, I recommend Blue Host. With blogger, it’s very simple but you don’t have as much flexibility in customizing it whereas with WordPress there are so many ways that you can modify it from the themes to adding plugins and widgets, that it makes it so much more powerful. Some people feel because Google owns blogger that you will have your blog optimizied faster but there are many SEO plugins you can use with WordPress to be able to optimize it and have it in the search engines pretty quick. It goes back to knowing your keywords and what to write about. The blogging advice I am providing today is more about getting started but make sure you read my blog about keywords because that’s the foundation of anything you write for the internet.
After you have chosen which software, you want to select a theme and personalize it. Many people ask me about this because they’re not sure what type of theme they should choose. My advice to you is to pick what you like, not what “you think” someone else will like. You want to attract to you like-minded people and so be yourself. I helped my sponsor in one of my businesses get an internet presence and he chose a beach theme blog. That’s not me, but hey – he liked it and that’s what counts. By the way, a great place to get started with blogging is wordpressdirect.com. They have great themes and you can host on their site for free. That’s the recommendation I would make for anyone who isn’t really technical savy. Some people choose to have one blog and write on many different topics and just categorize them or add pages. I like to have different blogs depending on the focus and then just include them in the blog roll.
Okay – so now you are ready to start blogging.
Here’s the most important piece of blogging advice that you will ever hear. Are you ready? Write this down: Be consistent and persistent with blogging. Blog every day.
If you don’t write every day, there’s no reason for people to come back and you won’t have your blog optimized – remember Google likes fresh content.
The next piece of blogging advice is don’t be constantly selling. That’s just as bad as when people create a list and instead of sending emails in their autoresponders that inform and establish creditibility and trust AS WELL AS having autoresponders mixed in that sell, they just sell sell sell and people just opt-out; opt-out; opt-out. With blogging, it’s not that they will opt-out, but they just won’t come back. Think of yourself as a reporter and provide information that people will want to read. Go to other people’s blogs and post comments and reference back to your blog. There are many different ways to have people find your blog, but when they do, you want them coming back and the only way that will happen is if you provide something of value.
Have a blog that is not completely covered with banners and ad-sense. When you have too much on your blog like that, you are actually distracting people from your message and in some cases, it shows people that your only intent is to make money and not provide anything of value and that offends people.
Use the blog to tell your story; to help people; to provide valuable information and you will attract people who will come back to your blog.
Tags: "blogging advice", blogging, Internet Marketing
