If you’re like so many other people who’ve gotten the ‘blogging bug’, congratulations, you’re in for a lot of fun! People start their own blogs for many reasons, sometimes they just want to be able to share their life with family and friends far away, sometimes they like sharing their knowledge about one of their hobbies, and sometimes they want to make money. Whatever your reason for starting a blog, you’re going to want to start off on the right foot and get some great blogging advice, and that’s where this article can help.
Blogging isn’t a difficult thing to learn, as a matter of fact, most people can easily learn all they need to know in an hour or so. Here are some key points to keep in mind as you begin your online blogging adventure:
1. You can start your own blog for free. There are many blogging platforms that will host your blog for you for no charge, WordPress.com and Blogger.com are two of the most popular. Even with the free versions, you’ll still have access to hundreds of different designs, or themes, that you can use for your blog. You can also use plugins and widgets, basically just like apps for a smart phone, that will allow you to do many different things with your blog, these are usually also free.
2. The topic of your blog should be based on two major considerations: what do you love and whether or not you want to use your blog to start an online business. Sometimes these two things will overlap, your business blog can be about something that you love. Other times you won’t be able to make money with your hobby because there just aren’t enough other people who love that topic enough to pay for products related to it.
3. When you start your blog, especially a business blog, you will want people to return frequently and read your new posts. In order to keep them coming back you’ll want to make sure that you make your posts and the other information on your blog related to the topic of your blog. For example, if your blog is about gardening you really don’t want to start going off on tangents about all kinds of other topics. Occasionally it’s ok to stray a little bit but the bottom line is that the readers of your blog joined because they were interested in that topic, so give them what they want.
4. If you want to use your blog to make money and start a business you should consider buying your own domain name and get your own hosting account. Don’t worry if this sounds foreign to you, it’s easy and inexpensive enough. The reason this is important is that if you stick with the free versions you don’t actually own anything, not the name of your blog or that little piece of internet ‘real estate’ your blog sits on. That’s not a good way to structure your business. Buy your domain name and get your blog hosted and you will own it and you can decide what you want to do with it.
I hope this blogging advice has helped you a little bit. The most important thing to remember is that you should have fun with your blog. This is a great way to express yourself so make the most out of it.
Joshua Shoemaker
joshshoemaker.com
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