The 5 Things They Didn't Tell You When You Started a Blog

In the beginning, it always sounds like a simple idea. I want to start a blog. Anyone can. But, there are some things no one tells you. I will tell you what I learned.

The "five minute installation" at wordpress is not "five minutes" but more like a four hour torture session. It's designed to check if you are serious about this blog thing. After four hours, I found the fantistco button on my cpanel and I was up and running. No one shared that helpful hint with me. I just saved you four hours.

Your theme is more important than you imagine. It is your reader's first impression. More importantly, it's not easy to change after you have posted for awhile. Spend more time on a theme than I did.

Traffic analysis tools like google analytics are required but I will issue a warning. It is the first person in the morning to tell you that you have no friends. Don't even think about visitors. Here is how it works. You wake up hoping that someone found your site in these early stages. Maybe they will subscribe too. But the stats say three visitors. They also spend less than two minutes on your site. It's more like a drive-by stop. Google analytics should just say "good morning, you are still a loser today. Why don't you write another post for you and your mom."

How many times have you heard "write content and the readers will follow". It sounds easy. In the beginning ideas flow on the blog. But, finding good ideas to write about everyday is not easy. I let search traffic guide me. Isn't that how the Google algorithm finds the best site. Hopefully, I can do that and convince new subscribers and at least one-third of my current subscribers( my mom) to return and read because the posts are good.

Another axiom is "contests are an easy way to get traffic". Who wouldn't want a chance to win a free prize? Don't count on a thousand visitors. But, isn't that what John Chow did. Then a week later the two people who signed up for it are laughing at the fifty-fifty chance at your free prize. The funny part is that you had to tell your mom that she can't enter. Now, you have alienated one third of your subscriber base already. One thing that helped me was that I found contest blogger. It's a great site that features blogs and their contests. It's one of those great sites. After you are done visiting, you kick yourself for not thinking of it first.


Author: Mike Gentleman writes about current hot search topics with a sarcastic tone at his website Whassupjack

Make Sure To Blog About Your Passions

An important thing to remember as you are making your decisions about your blog is to choose a niche or subject that you are passionate about. If you decide to blog about a topic because it is popular or it gets lots of traffic but you lack passion or an interest in the subject then you are doomed to fail.

For example don’t choose to blog about sports if there is nothing worse to you than spending the weekend watching game after game of football. Experienced bloggers will definitely agree that blogging without passion is a chore rather than a joy.

Even if you choose to blog in an industry that you have a great deal or knowledge about or if you intend to research and learn as much as you can about the particular area, there is a vast difference between that kind of blogging and blogging with passion. When you blog about something that you know a lot about, it is fun and exciting in the beginning but it does become work. After the initial excitement wears off, it becomes a daily chore to keep doing your research to ensure that you are up to date with all of the most recent breakthroughs in your chosen area of expertise.

Conversely, if you are blogging about something you are passionate about then it is probably is part of your life anyway and you would be trying to find out any new innovations even if you didn’t have to blog about it. Going back to the football example, if you are an avid supporter of your chosen team then you probably watch every game already and know all of the players and all of their stats. In this situation blogging will come naturally and easily. You will find yourself thinking automatically, “Oh that is something I can blog about”, or “That is something that I can share with my readers,” or “That is something that I can go out and find and write on my blog about this.” It just all flows so much easier when you have a passion for it. If you blog about your passion then you will never struggle for things to blog about.

Richard Branson sums up the topic of passion exquisitely. He says that he doesn’t look at work as work and he doesn’t look at play as play. To Richard, it all is just life. So, when you are passionate about your work, it is not really work. You might spend 20 hours a day doing it, which is a bit extreme, but you probably don’t look at it as if you are working if you are passionate about what you do.

The other thing about passion that when you are writing or speaking about a topic that you are passionate about, your readers or listeners can tell immediately. There is more excitement in your demeanour and oftentimes it is infective. When you blog with passion your content is more powerful and unique. You give more of yourself. When you are passionate other people are more interested in what you have to say. There is more energy and more of a connection between the blogger and the reader. This advice holds true for blogging but it also holds true in the rest of your life as well.

If you build a connection with passion then your readers will come to know, like and trust you and return to read your blog more often. It’s the emotion behind the information that makes the difference. It is easier to maintain a high level of energy in your blogging if the topic is close to your heart.

However, you may be in a situation where you want to become a blogger for business reasons and you may find it hard to find something you are passionate about in the first instance. Being passionate in your blogging is not necessarily related to the actual topic or niche of your blog. You may be excited about the concept of making money blogging or making money while you sleep. In this situation the passion lies in the strategy or business concept rather than in the niche or subject itself.

So start blogging about your passions and success will come naturally and seemingly effortlessly.

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Author: Ann and Katie of http://www.videotimesavers.com.

Why Do You Want To Be A Blogger

Blogging would certainly rank among the top most activity in the web today. If you are one of those who would want to dip his hand into the blogging pot, you are certainly not alone. There are 12 million blogs on the internet from the USA alone and every day over 120,000 new blogs are created. There are 1.4 million new blog posts every day and over 57 million Americans read blogs.

Why are blogs so popular?

22 of the 100 most popular websites on the internet today are blogs. The reason why blogs are so popular is because blogs are interactive websites. Blogs offer the ability to give and receive instant feedback and blog readers can voice their opinion and add to the discussion.

Blogs also provide free information which is recent and changes rapidly and after all, why do people surf the internet? For information, of course. The blogging platform is an extremely easy to use interface where bloggers can upload new information to the internet as often as they like. A blogger needs only the most basic of computer skills to start blogging. If you know how to turn your computer on and connect to the internet, you too can be a blogger. The wordpress and blogger platform are free pieces of software that are by far, the best tool to use for your blog.

But why do YOU want to blog?

To answer this question, first, we need to revisit the history of blogging.

In the beginning, when blogs actually started, they were online diaries. The term blog is derived from “web log”. People used a weblog as an online journal and talked about themselves, what they were doing, their activities and the events taking place in their lives just as they would in a written personal diary or journal. Even today there are a large number of blogs that are online diaries. These types of blogs are of benefit both to the blogger and his/her readers. It’s great to connect with like-minded people and share your opinions and views of the world.

Another group of people that like to blog are the ones that have special interests, maybe a cause that they support, a charity that they support, or a specific hobby that they enjoy. They blog to promote their message, and to interact with other people who share the same interests. They want their blog to serve as a kind of hub of information for their readers or target audience. These bloggers collect information from many different sources and present it to their readers in a central place. These bloggers create a dialog or conversation about their special area of interest and invite others to participate via their blog.

The third kind of blogger is the business blogger. There are many levels of business blogging or making money from blogging. It starts with something simple - for example, you might be an artist looking for a way to start selling art on the internet. A blog is a great way to promote yourself and your art. You can discuss art, your passion, you can talk about the meaning of your paintings and you can also talk about the work of other artists that you like and promote their work as well.

Then, of course on a completely different level there are the people that call themselves professional bloggers. Whether they are selling their own products and services, or simply selling other people’s products, they treat their blog as a business. Their blog is their passion and their full-time job. Although they might not spend 40 hours a week on their blog it does provide them with a full-time income and they take their blogging very seriously.

Corporate blogging is also being more popular. A corporate blog is a way for a large company to keep their customers up to date with new products and information. It also is a way for customers to communicate with the corporation and make their opinions known.

An Important Blogging Tip – Consider Your Blogging Goals First

To help you decide the kind of blogger that you want to be, it is extremely helpful to pause and think about what your blogging goals or intentions are.

Here are a few questions to consider:

Why do you want to blog?

What do you aim to achieve by blogging?

Who are you blogging for i.e. who is your target audience?

Once you have the answers to these questions you are in a much better position to start blogging. You now have formulated your goals and intentions and you have a plan. With a plan and a vision you have set yourself up for a successful blogging venture.

In the blogging world it is so easy to get distracted and to get lost in all the different avenues of information. So, when you really understand what it is that you want to do with your blog, then you can start to build on that. It is far easier to maintain your focus when you have a vision and goals to achieve. If you want to ramp up your success rate then write your goals down and stick to your plan.

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Author: Anne and Katie, http://www.videotimesavers.com.