Introduction
It is absolutely essential that you get your blog up and running as quickly as possible. As soon as you realize what specific topic, or niche, that you want to write about – start writing. This will help you build up a body of work that shows the world that you are an expert in your niche. If you already have expertise in a particular topic, and already have a body of work that you have already written, you need to break that work down into a format that is blog friendly.
I am still amazed at the number of my business associates and clients that are still avoiding blogging as a way to promote their business. None of the steps to setting-up a blog are difficult or costly. There is a learning curve to it. And it will take several months to fully learn all aspects of blogging and how to do it successfully. But the benefits that you and your business will gain can be enormous.
Here are ten of the essential basic steps that you must follow in order to set-up your blog and quickly get it running.
1. Open A WordPress Blog
Do not waste your time on any of the other blogging websites. This one is by far considered the best and most user friendly that is available. It is very simple to use, and has many free add-ons available. Most bloggers use this site, so there is plenty of help and advice available on the internet. WordPress.org is self-hosted. WordPress.com is hosted (this means that your url will have the WordPress name attached to your URL).
2. Write Your Profile And Add A Face Photograph
You must put a lot of thought into creating your profile. Use your LinkedIn profile to help you write this. Give some specific information about yourself, but do not exaggerate. Do not oversell yourself by being boastful or arrogant. Write several sentences giving the essential, but relevant, information that a reader might need to determine that you have the relevant experience to be writing about your blog’s topic. Include a nice photograph of your face.
3. Write Your Blog Posts
Your blog posts can be written about anything that you want to write about. Some post will be like a formal essay. Some will be a two sentence quick tip. But always remember, that each post must support your niche. Any information that you post on your blog must benefit your readers – your followers.
4. Keep Your Posts Short
If you are going to write a longer post, you should make it at least 400 words, but not more than 1,000 words. Each one should be about one specific topic. If your article is long than this, you should try to break it down into two posts. EzineArticles has written some great free ebooks about this that you should read. EzineArticles has written some great free ebooks about this that you should read before writing your first blog posting.
5. Add One Image To Each Post
Add a small image to each post to keep them visually appealing. This image will also be used when another blog, or blog listing service, displays your article. The image’s topic doesn’t necessarily need to be directly related to the post’s topic. But it should probably be visually attractive, or eye-catching.
6. Use Bullet Points
It is essential that you keep all of your posts easy to follow, and easy to read. No matter how serious a topic is, you must take the reader by the hand, and guide them through your article. Not only is this common courtesy, but essential if you expect your readers to continue to read your postings. By having a blog you are putting yourself out into the world, and telling people that you want to share information with them, and hopefully help them. Show them how much you care about them by truly helping them understand what you are writing about.
7. Add Header Tags And Bold Text To Each Important Heading
This will tell the search engines what is important in your article. When a search engines crawls your site, it will give a higher priority to the headings and bolded text of each section of your article. This is very easy to do when you use WordPress. It will simply be a matter of highlighting each paragraph’s header text, and then clicking on the header button and bold button.
8. Add Google AdSense Advertisements
This is very easy to do, and an easy way to make a few extra bucks from your blog. Don’t expect to make much money from this. It is simply a hands-off way to help off-set any expenses that are involved in maintaining your blog.
9. Promote Your Blog
You must always be open to finding new ways to promote your blog. This can be as simple as listing your blog with a “blog listing service”. Or using your “Amazon Author Page” as a way to connect with your readers. So far I have found twenty-five legitimate places to promote my blog. And this does not include the websites where I have added comments (only do this on websites and blogs that allow a link back to your blog).
10. Improve Your Blog
This is a never-ending process. You must constantly strive to make your blog look and sound like you know what you are talking about. This also includes making any corrections to your past postings. Your readers will be scrutinizing every word that you write. Be quick to admit that you made a mistake about something that you wrote about, tell them why you made that mistake, and fix it right away. The readers want to trust you, and learn from you. Make sure that you give them plenty of reasons to do this.
This article was written by Joseph C. Kunz, Jr. and originally posted on KunzOnPublishing.com