Blogging Tutorial
What is blogging? Just in case you are an absolute beginner, blogging is the process of keeping a web log, or blog, about something. Generally, blogs started as a series of short posts on a regular basis, often daily, on some topic. Early successful blogs would consist of a series of anecdotes about the crazy world of corporate cubicles, for example.
Today, when people refer to blogging, they are generally referring to the very large group of people that routinely write about things online. A large number of providers exist to let you post your thoughts - many of them for free. As you probably already know the idea is that when you create content, especially fresh content, then it will attract traffic. Internet traffic is directly related to the ability to earn revenues, for somebody, somehow.
How Do I Start Blogging?
If you have never blogged before then you should find a free blog provider. This is a no risk way to learn all of the important concepts. Here are a few free blog sites that you may want to try:
WordPress: A fairly full featured free blogging platform that allows users to post with categories, management links, issue trackbacks, manage template settings and control commentary. The ability to import posts and comments from some other platforms is provided.
Blogger: While still lacking trackbacks, Blogger is a simple and popular platform that works well for beginners who are just learning to blog. If you get serious about blogging you will outgrow it, but only if they don't add missing features before you do so. I still have some free blogs here.
LiveJournal: This is another interesting free blog site which seems to be based more on developing communities and finding like minded people. It would also probably be more fun for a beginner, so that you could get some readers and supportive feedback easier.
If you are thinking that you will want to become a commercial blogger in the long run, then I would suggest that you get a WordPress blog. Later on you can download the PHP software and install it yourself or simply host your domain at a WordPress hosting site. WordPress is full featured and allows complete customization since you do have access to the source code. A ready made plugin library has already been created for you to pick and choose from as well.
Your First Few Weeks
Okay, you've signed up for a free blog, you've learned how to adjust your template (the display features) and you have created a few posts, but nobody has left a comment and you don't know if you have any readers. To track your visitors I highly suggest you get a free counter from StatCounter. I use them. They are free, they are reliable and they are invisible. You will want to learn how to adjust your settings so that you don't count your own IP address as a visitor to your site.
Once you have installed a free counter, you need to get some people to view your site. One way to do this, which is also free, is BlogExplosion. This is a blog surfing community that sends visitors to your site in exchange for your own visitation of other sites. They have a lot of extra bells and whistles which you can use to waste your time, but don't bother. You want to do two things. Join their forums and read up on strategies other beginners are learning about and get your new blog listed. You will have to post articles to your blog for a while before they will list it, so that readers will have something to do once they arrive.
Tools like BlogExplosion are not the holy grail. Basically, you will quickly outgrow them as you may outgrow a free blog. However, while you are a beginner they are great place to pick up pointers and to coerce a few people to look at your blog and give you comments. Between the comments you get, the other blogs you see and the forums you should be reading, you will gently be taught a lot about the blogosphere, as the larger world of blogging is routinely called.
Getting Visitors or Blogging Traffic
When you are just getting started this can be one of the most frustrating aspects of starting a new blog. Sure, you think you are a good writer and have lots of interesting content, but even if you are, you still have to get your work in front of people that are interested in the topics you are discussing. The best way to do that is find where people that have the same interests as you hang out. Are they using online forums? If so, then you should join those forums and participate responsibly. Do they have their own blogs? If so, then you should find those blogs and become part of any communities that are already established.
Beware, I do not recommend that anyone new to blogging or the webmaster industry buy bulk traffic. I also do not recommend buying PPC traffic from any source other than the big three. Google's Adwords, the Yahoo Publisher Network and MSN all have the ability to drive real visitors to your site. If you buy bulk traffic or other PPC click traffic the odds are very good that you are being visited by disinterested viewers, or worse, proxy hidden automated software bots. You really don't want to waste time or money doing that and you certainly don't want to risk having automated robots clicking on your own ads. You can lose your advertising accounts due to quality issues of this type.
Important Social Bookmarking Tools
Have you submitted a link to Digg yet? Have you bookmarked items to Del.icio.us? Social bookmarking or networking sites are a great way to get your blog entries in front of at least several dozen people. Make it easy for people to add your site to their social bookmarking systems. If you manage to create something popular you will get mentioned and linked to in other blogs.
It would probably be wise to start out with a throwaway account at each of these tools. Just pick a random nickname and use a temporary free email address. You can be a knob and make mistakes without worrying. If necessary, after you've learned your way around these tools, then you can create a permanent account if you need to. As these tools let you extract RSS feeds of the items you like you should consider choosing articles for the purpose of adding those feeds to your own web properties.
Blog Carnivals and Memes
One simple way to get some inbound links is to participate in existing blog carnivals and memes. A blog carnival is simply an organized group of blog posts that are submitted to someone who summarizes them. Participants included will get a link from the hosting blog and included participants are supposed to provide a link to the carnival post. After participating in a few carnivals you may want to host an edition of the carnival. A web site set up to help manage blog carnivals is the aptly named BlogCarnival site.
Memes are similar, in some respects, and create a series of posts on a topic that link to others. Basically, you participate in a meme due to a request, which involves linking to your site from another blog. You then write a post on the topic, linking back to the person who linked to you (tagged you) while linking to a groups of bloggers that you already have a relationship with. This provides an extended chain of topic specific posts and can be interesting depending on the meme topic. After participating in a few memes you might want to try launching your own meme based on the topic of your blog.
Can I Make Money or Blogging For Money?
When you are ready to move from free blogging to professional blogging, rest assured, you will know the various options available to you. If you haven't been blogging long enough to be aware of most of the monetization options available, the odds are very good it isn't time to use them yet! Nothing will kill your blog readership faster than blasting cheap advertising all over your blog in the hopes of making big dollars off of few visitors.
I'm going to recommend you simply go with WordPress and then read on for tips and strategies specific to blogging for income. In particular, once your hosted blog has some PR, look into Text Link Ads. Recently, paid posting through companies such as PayPerPost or ReviewMe has become quite popular also. Before you get PR you might want to add a few tastefull Adsense spots.
However, this is not going to happen quickly, so make sure you don't simply quit your day job and leap into the fray. As sure as you are of your writing skills, your devoted readers and your ability to continue to draw traffic, Internet income is not actually income until you deposit the check. Never trust it to be consistent or even reliably paid.
To be a professional blogger, you will eventually have to make your impact on those people that are already established. You will have to know who they are. Take a look at the Blog Network List, this is who they are. These are a good chunk of the movers and shakers in the online community. There are others, and if you've found important hubs, put them in a special bookmark folder or subscribe to their RSS feeds so you can visit them easily and often.
Now, over time, examine the blogs in this list. Some of them will be in areas that you are comfortable discussing and other won't. Sort them into these categories. Now, within those categories, some of those blogs will support comments and or trackbacks and others won't. Categorize them. This is the equivalent of a rolodex, it is a who's who of your blogging universe, it's where you find things to write about and it's where you drop your name to be noticed.
Now, go about creating interesting and useful content. I'm pretty sure that if you have already been blogging, if you've set up your own hosted blog using WordPress, and that you've changed your templates and added AdSense or other advertising, then you now know how to mine the resources I've just given you above to build your empire. All it takes is your ability to generate quality content and commentary. That is the true missing ingredient that will divide the wannabee internet get rich quick schemers and the bloggers of note.
Please remember me when you are rich and famous. Perhaps bookmark this page or better yet, provide a link to it from a suitable location. The net does work better when we all help each other.
Submitting to Blog Directories
There are quite a few blog directories that you will want to add your blog to. Basically, the more links you have to your blog the higher it may rank in search engine result pages. This of course implies that you will get more visitors and potentially develop a larger readership - assuming you provide quality content. Some of the directories available include:
There are always new sites, so keep your eyes open for more!
Want Personal Assistance?
As a bonus for reading this entire page check out my blog. I am going to use it to provide free personal assistance to a small number of people. If you are a beginner at blogging then I suggest you take a look. At the very worst you'll get some free tips and advice that you can choose to use or ignore. The only thing I ask is that if I'm able to help you that you'll link to one or two of my projects on your sites. |