I am taking some time away from my continual search for jobs. I have tried many variations of admin job searching in the classifieds of my local newspapers website. I must take a breather, and try to help everyone that wants to know more about blogging, and how to get started.
My blogs may not be as good as others, but I have noticed that you can never be as good as someone else on the internet. Everyone does things their own way, and that puts everyone on a level playing field. I have compiled some usefull information that may help others that are looking for help in getting their blog running.
Get a Self-Hosted blog. (WordPress seems to be the easiest to operate, and move in the future.)
WordPress actually is easy enough to install, and use that the standard person with a very good speed ISP can actually run WordPress from their own computer. I don’t recommend this because of the bandwidth that will be used in serving the site. In my case I have a Comcast Business Class Service, and my bandwidth is huge. Some of my blogs are hosted through Surpass Hosting. Check them out. They have very good prices.
Purchase a Domain Name.
Domain names are what bring you traffic. Find a domain name that will work into your “Niche”, and search engines. Example… My DisneyContestBlog site brings in traffic just from searches like “Disney Contest”, “Disney Blog”, and “Contest Blog”. My wife has MomsBlogs4U which gets searches from “Moms Blog”, and “Mom Blog”. I put another domain up strictly for reviews. Can you guess the name? ReviewsBlog4U. The domain name means a lot so think about your name before you start.
Join Social Networking sites.
I recommend joining sites that will create friends, and help you with publishing your information to the outside world. Sites that are almost “Musts” are: Twitter, BlogCatalog, and FaceBook, and EntreCard. If you are a mom, then search the web for “Mom Blog Groups”, and do searches for groups that will help you.
Blog as much as possible.
When you first start you want to publish as much as possible. It takes time for your site to be searchable. This also establishes yourself with your future audience. People will get to read, and if they are interested, then they will return.
Submit to search engines.
When you first setup your site I recommend getting into the Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Developer, and a few other sites. These sites will help you get necessary keys that go into your WordPress installation so that search engines can grab your xml files. If everything is working right, and you have been doing good work then a search of the internet will hopefully find your site in the best positioning of sites.
Setup Feedburner.
Feedburner is a way to monitor who is a subscriber to your RSS feed. RSS feeds are just like people viewing your site. People can download RSS feeds for while they are “Offline”, but they are still viewing your site.
I will put up another helpful setup of information in the next week. In that informational I will go further into monetizing, and how to establish contact with PR reps, and companies. I will continue on helping. If you want to get a little further quicker, then you can join our newly running forums at MyBlogsHome Forums. Join, and post your questions, or whatever you want. We will be doing some advertising, and some other things that will help the members in gaining some traffic, and readers.
