Blogging can be fun and rewarding. But let's face it. Most of the people who set up a blog site don't even make it past the one month mark. What happens to their blog? Nothing. It becomes another statistics among the long list of forgotten blog sites. The two main reasons: lack of time and lost of interest. There are two reasons why people set up a blog: to share their knowledge and to earn money - the latter being the most popular reason and that's what these tips are focused on. If you are a newbie and is thinking of setting up your own blog to monetize later, the following tips may help you save a lot of frustrations.
- Know your topic. If you're a beginner, make sure you already know what to write for before you even attempt set up your own blog. A lot of newbies will set up a blog, write different topics that come to mind, and then abandon their site after a week or a month because they lost interest in their topic. Write what you like. Write what you know. If want to create a blog for a particular subject that you are not familiar with, do a thorough research first. Document all the things you did while learning the subject then post those as your initial blog articles.
- Content is important. Make sure you have a fresh supply of interesting and readable content to create a readership and not just some trashy article. When you start a blog, make it a point to write an article or two everyday. Don't copy and paste from other sources as you may infringe someone else's copyrights. If you can't write that many article, at least write four new articles every two or three days or let someone else write it for you like hiring a freelance copywriter. This will be for traffic building. After a month or two, you could reduce the quantity to about 1-3 articles per week. That is, if you are blogging for a profit. Although there are tools out there that can generate content for your website automatically (and mind you, they're not free), I still suggest writing your own articles. If you are writing for a hobby, then I think this tip is an exception, although it is a good practice.
- Design is important. Although from a personal point of view, content is more important, a good design adds visual authority to your content. That is, if you want to get people to be interested in your blog, you must deliver a lasting first impression. Humans are visual creatures. If the website design is bad, people will just hit the Back button almost immediately. Humans also have a very short attention span especially online so make sure your website design (or blog theme as we call it) is simple yet attractive.
- Learn basic HTML. Yes, HTML or HyperText Markup Language. Whether you like it or not, somewhere at some point you would need at least a basic knowledge of HTML, particularly if you are going to setup a hosted blog. If you're like other people who think HTML is difficult, don't worry - it's not. If you don't have time to study, then find some time to do so. Blogging is a lot easier if you know HTML. Trust me. I highly recommend this, although it's not necessary when you start up a blog.
- Devote some time. If you are planning to make money from your blog, I suggest you start planning on how much time you are going to devote to maintaining your website. Otherwise, you will just be wasting precious time (not to mention money) on an endeavor that you will not be reaping any benefit afterwards. If you are going to do blogging on a part-time basis (yes, blogging is a full-time job for many), one to three hours of your daily life committed to maintaining and promoting your blog will be enough.
- Prepare to spend some money. Even though I am an advocate of free information, chances are, you will find your way at some point where you need to buy something (like a software) that will help boost your website traffic. That's a fact.
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