Creating your first blog!
First what does blog stand for? Blog means web-log: blog. So your hearing how exciting it is and important to have a blog? Well I was in your same shoes not to long ago and have become a true believer of blogging.
So, Why did I not get into blogging a long time ago? Well honestly I just didn’t see the importance to do it for myself. While I constantly blogged for the companies I worked for, just never did my own. So I am here to let you on in a few insider tips and tricks to creating a successful blog, the corporate way and the professional way.
This tutorial will give you all the basics to creating a blog and some advanced techniques.
Chapter 1: Blog Introduction
Chapter 2: Setting up your Blog
Chapter 3: Customizing your Blog
Chapter 4: Blog SEO
Chapter 5: Before you publish
Chapter 6: Spread the word
Chapter 7: Navigating the blog Chapter 8: Conclusion
Chapter 1: Blog Introduction
1.1 – Find out what blog is best for you! There are many different types of blogs. I would recommend whichever you feel comfortable with and even try both of them, if one does not work as well for you, drop it and stick with the one that you are comfortable with.
1.2 – A great blog has a nice but clean and easy to read design. What is a blog for? a blog is for a user to post topics that he feels led to share. What if your readers have a heard time reading the post, this is why a nice easy clean design is a must for a new blog.
1.3 – Have an idea of what the blog is about. Are you going to be doing “how-to” for people or is your blog just something to post ideas you have? Maybe your blog is a place for you to post information about whats going on in your family so that your entire family can view and make posts.
1.4 – Find a good theme that fits you and what you are trying to accomplish. There are flash themes which require a little bit of flash knowledge and then some themes that you should be able to just “plug and play”. That means, your theme will give you the look and feel you want and that’s all you have to do. I am a strong believer in creating a customized theme. I can help you with this or you can find many people to help you with this. Usually a custom theme will cost $80-$100.
Chapter 2: Setting up your Blog
2.0 There are many online blogs out there. You need to find one that fits your needs best and works well with what you are trying to do. There are many blogs out there are free and some cost money but submit your blogs to other linking blogs.
Chapter 3: Customizing your blog
3.0 From chapter 1 you should have found a blog theme that is setup for whichever product blog you have chosen. Much of these can be found for free while some people look for a more custom specialized blog template that usually costs around $50-100.
3.1 Every page is built with php, xml and CSS. You do not need to change any of the php or xml!! If you do not know anything about php or xml do not touch it!! your blog will not work if you do. Although changing CSS is easy and ok! I would say though to watch some YouTube videos on CSS if you do not know much about it.
3.2 In WordPress under Appearance, click on Editor. You will have to find the style.css file. This is where you are going to be able to do some changing. If you want to change colors just find the tag that controls the color you are interested in changing and change old color (#242123) to your new one (#ffffff). Again, a good idea is to have a strong grasp on CSS, and I recommend having the “web developer” plug-in for firefox. You can edit the CSS for ANY web page in the world and see what happens when you change things in the CSS without it saving when you close the editor.
Chapter 4: Blog SEO
4.0.Somethings are very easy to change while other things you may not understand. To change some SEO you will have to download a bunch of plug-ins. Do a little research and download some that people recommend.
4.1 The key to Blog SEO is doing everything right, and think about EVERYTHING. A lot of things need to be changed for a blog to be optimized! Although I find that the biggest thing left out in a blog is people being lazy and simply just not “optimizing” the page or post. Fill out all the info. Make sure your tags are there and that the post is keyword rich.
4.2 Quickest effects most important?
Permalinks Optimize your Titles for SEO Optimize your Descriptions Optimize the More text Image Optimization
Chapter 5: Before you publish
Every Blogger should have a checklist before he posts onto the web. Here is the best checklist to use.
Bloggers Checklist.
Chapter 6: Spread the Word
6.0 Get involved in social networks and article submission sites such as this one. Find a group that is related to your blog and join and be ACTIVE! Many people will enjoy reading about what you have to say so share share share.
6.1 Facebook – Facebook is an excellent source to spread the word and find people to share your ideas with. I will be creating a Advanced Facebook article for users later, but if you are already on Facebook, use it! Groups are a great resource to share ideas and keep up on new things within your category. Every post on Facebook or MySpace should be informational and interesting to read. Also do not just always post about the same topic or subject. Change it up.
6.2 Twitter – A recent article showed that twitter has been the fasted growing social network on the web. Why is twitter growing so rapidly? Because it is easy to use. All you have to do is create an account, then post topics about what your doing. Although a lot of people say, “why do I want to read what someone is doing every minute.” Twitter should not be used to post that you are reading on the deck. Twitter should be used to post links to your last blog article. Twitter should be a tool you use to spread the word about something really cool that is going on, or maybe something really bad if it has a purpose.
Chapter 7: Navigating your blog
7.0 This should be a whole post by it self but I am going to dab on each part of how to navigate through your blog on WordPress.
7.1 Dashboard – sends you to the main page of the blog admin panel.
Posts – where you edit, add and delete posts. You can also add or change categories here
Media – Add images and videos here that can be put into your posts
Links – always link to your friends and other great blogs. They will return the favor and it will help you out in the long run.
Pages – If you have an important post sometimes its better to create a page than just add as a post. This is where you add edit and delete pages for your blog.
Comments – If you want to see all the comments that have been made on your blog this is the place to do so.
7.2 Appearance – Add new themes, edit themes or delete themes through the appearance panel. Distinct Design specializes in theme customization.
Plug-ins – Plug-ins run WordPress. Make sure you use lots of plug-ins for SEO and any other tool you may need. Plug-ins are free and an excellent source for your blog.
Users – If you are going to have multiple writers or admins you will need to setup an account for each person. This is the place to do it.
Settings – Change the blog URL or tagline, timezone, date format, and much more. This changes how the posts will look in the blog.
Chapter 8: Conclusion
8.0 Some of the most important features in a blog is having fresh content. Juicy Content is what the SEOs call it. Have 1-3 posts per week and keep up with whatever your blog categories are about. If you are running posts about new cooking recipes, have a recipe every week or every other day.
8.1 Make sure your blog is optimized for the web as best as possible.There have been some great SEO articles. Follow their advice and the search engines will find you blog!
8.2 Submit your articles. Just because you posted on a blog, doesn’t mean that people will find it. Post articles in article submission sites. If you need help with this contact Distinct Design. Digg.com is a good resource for this.
8.3 Good bye! I hope you enjoyed reading my article on creating a blog.
