12 Web Notes

No matter if one is blogging for fun or money and regardless if it is an experienced blogger or a beginner the “Blogging for Beginners” article written by Darren Rowse must be read.

In a series of articles Darren covers all important basics of the blogging. Considering the collection of Darren’s articles is quite comprehensive I will only add a few comments based on my humble experience and will try to resume the tons of information for quick reading by the more impatient readers. Starting from “What is a blog?” and “Is a blog right for you?” Darren illustrates a picture of the blog and the blogger. Before start a blog, one should know that the blog is just a more specific type of web site based on content management system, where the content is stored in a data base located on the host and is dinamically generated while the web page loads in the web browser window. To create this content, no need of additional tools and the only things required are: access to Internet and Inspiration. To create and edit the content (called posts) a special password protected web page accessed via the web browser is used. Most of the questions listed in “Is a blog right for you?” apply to any other form of web site. They focus mone on the person’s ability to write and willingness to do it often. The blogs are more like on-line journals shared in the web and the blogger is supposed to write new posts more often. The blogs also provide a functionality for the visitors to leave their comments to the posts.

One blog may cover many different topics organised in categories. When the blogging is for fun, it is most natural to post about topics that are interested for the blogger. If the primary purpose of the blog is to make some money, then it is worth considering how to choose a niche topic for the blog. Apart from the questions whether the topic is popular and what is the competition in that niche, it is important also to be able to provide quality and unique content and fresh information to capture the readers’ interest.

An important part of the preparation to blogging is to choose suitable blogging platform. There are both paid and free platforms where the paid platforms cost an average of $10 per month. Most of the hosting providers also include some blogging packages in the hosting account, so for the cost of the standard web hosting, it is possible to create both: standard web site and add a blog to it. Some of the free blogging platforms are WordPress, b2evolution and Drupal. There are also free blogging solutions that provide hosting platform, sub domain name for the blog and the blogging software itself, but they usually have some limitation. Detailed information about choosing a blog platform can be read here.

To easy the handling of the blog and to add some advanced features to the blog specialized blogging tools are used. They are commonly known as blog plug ins and for every blogging platform different plug ins are created. It is always good to know what plugins the other bloggers use.

In this post we cover the basic things one shall consider before starting to blog and it is more about the technical preparation for blogging. How to design, maintenance and handle the blog will be covered in separate post.

This is it. I just found an interesting discussion where a few people share their experience on how do they promote their blogs. While reading it, looks simple and easy but obviously take time. I am going to try these techniques that I read about, so I will highlight some items from the discussion and will leave a link to it for reference, just in case I (or you) would like to check it again.

Mat Huggins who attempts to make money online is the initiator of the discussion and has come up with brilliant idea on how to get reciprocal links with other business related blog authors and publishers. He offers a mutual blog review program. Although, this step alone has increased the number of his visitors, Mat is checking other resources too. A subscription in FeedBurner has developed a number of readers in very short time. Technorati looks like a must have subscription too.

Another forum member eborg9 suggested also MyBlogLog and joining some of the communities there. Eborg9 is running an entertainment blog and he say ” Along with everything else, the content is really driving more traffic my way. Post everyday. It works!”.

So far I started with MyBlogLog actually but I am going to find a few groups with similar interests there then the next items in my list will be FeedBurner and Technorati.

I am going to update this post every time when one of these items give results or if I find anything else that could help the blog promotion.