1. Get Your Blog On An Introduction to Blogging By Paul Martinez Blog: paulpowered.com Twitter: @phxwebguy
2. Why Blog? Promotion of a cause or a business Record your thoughts or ideas People are searching Create relationships Sharing
3. Questions for Prospects Are you self motivated? Do you enjoy writing? Are you open to feedback? Are you well organized? Do you have the time?
4. Choosing Your Topic Casual versus business purpose driven Hobbies or pastimes Amount of knowledge and research Enough content on the topic
5. Choosing Your Topic Tied to income Direct Indirect Competitive landscape Growing Shrinking
6. Choosing a Blog Platform Are you using a CMS for your site? Do you wish to integrate the blog with your current site? Is the blog going to be at its own location?
7. Choosing a Blog Platform Hosted versus non-hosted solutions Movable Type Typepad Blogger WordPress
8. Choosing a Domain Name Easily recognizable Tied to your topic Intended audience Tone of the blog Keyword based Branding
9. Joining a Blog Network Pros Increase visibility Build relationships Additional traffic SEO Benefits Increase your level of expertise
10. Joining a Blog Network Cons Ownership rights and loss of control Additional risk of exposure Complicated legalities Advertising requirements
11. Writing Tips Have an “Idea Box” Stick to your schedule No such thing as too many drafts Invite guest writers Write often and for other blogs
12. Reading Tips Read blogs on similar topics for ideas Create alerts Subscribe to newsletters Subscribe to feeds
13. Comments Read and respond, don’t just moderate your comments Commenting on other blogs Handling comment spam
14. Driving Traffic Featured articles Get listed Strategic partnerships Syndication Promote your site feed
Blogging can be used for a variety of purposes. Some people choose to blog to share general thoughts and ideas about life experiences while others blog to promote a business or cause. Recording your thoughts and ideas can be helpful when you want to go back to refer to something. People may be searching for something that you happen to have written about. By communicating with your visitors, you can foster relationships and potentially create business leads is that is your motive.
Blogging required discipline to keep it going. Enjoying writing is almost a pre-requisite since you will be writing so frequently. Being open to feedback is important because not everyone is going to agree with what it is that you have to say. Being well-organized will help you while publishing and getting your thoughts and resources together. The time commitment is an important part and scheduling time to commit to the blog can be helpful.
Choosing your topic general recommendations for casual bloggers.While casual can be considered a purpose, some bloggers chose to write for business reasons such as increased exposure, potential leads and more.
More business purpose driven examples of why to blogDirect income examples would include banners and banner exchanges, ads, promotions, registrations and other ways to make money with the blog.Indirect income examples would include creation of business opportunities, potential partnerships by establishing yourself as an expert in your domain.
Some of the things that you may want to take into consideration when choosing a blog platform will include how closely you would like it tied to your website. If you are using a content management system already, some CMS have the ability to include blogging functionality that is already build in such as Drupal and Joomla!. WordPress can be used as a CMS but it is usually easier to leverage WordPress as a CMS if you are building from scratch rather than integrating a blog into an already existing WordPress site. It can be done, it is just more involved.
Inviting guest authors or having a team to help you with the blog can help to take some of the time burden away. It can also allow you more time to write for other blogs if that is what you wish to do.
