Start Your Own Blog

Many of you must have missed the memo. You are probably asking, what is a blog? Well google the word blog and see what you get. I should get paid to advertise for google. Everytime I say GOOGLE, I should get paid a dollar. If someone asks me, “where do I find suchandsuch”, usually my first thought is, “GOOGLE”. I run to google for everything. I use it to check the spelling of words, or to find the definition of some big word I don’t recognize. Someday soon I will post a tutorial on using google. But now it is time for this post.

You googled up “blog”, and now you want one right? You probably found John Chow Dot Com (who should also pay me for saying his name lol). Now you are saying, I want to make 27k a month blogging too. Well hold on a second, and shift your gear to reverse. You need to set a realistic goal. I am sure JC didn’t say he wanted to make six figures blogging. Actually he started blogging for free, then turned his viewers into little workers to make him money. So if your intent is to make money, set a realistic goal for the first six months. Then ask where you want to be in a year, then five years down the road with your blog.

Right now you are on day -14. I say negative because it could take you about two weeks to get your blog in place and make it ready for the big bad internet. You need to think of a few things. What do I want my niche to be. This means, what topic do I want to focus on. You don’t have to focus 100% on this topic, but majority of your posts should be related to it. If you start a niche of “Cooking”, and in a handful of posts talk about rebuilding cars, you may end up losing visitors. Your people came to your site because it was something they were interested in, don’t mislead them.

You have your topic, now think of a dot com address. Jot a handful of them down. Ask someone else to think of a few, without them knowing what you came up with. Remove the duplicates. Ask their opinion on what you have. If they think one is too long, or they wont remember it, or it doesn’t sound right, then remove it. You will always like what you came up with, but you need someone else to think for your future visitors.

You have your niche, and now a few domain names to choose from. It is time for a web host. I honestly prefer 1and1. I have dealt with them building my dad’s website. I have nothing bad to say about them at all, and you get two domain names for free with your hosting. They have really good prices too! I have heard of others, like go daddy, but I know many people that have left go daddy due to server issues. I had my account ready in about two hours after paying!

You have many options on how to present your web site now. You could write the code yourself or use a software like Microsoft’s FrontPage to build it for you. If you don’t have any knowledge of building a web site, I suggest WordPress. It isn’t for dummies though so don’t be fooled. I have a lot of knowledge in creating websites, and it is what I use. It makes it really easy to post updates. Research a little into it, and check out different pages using the different engines and make your decision.

If you chose WordPress then you need to upload the folder to your webserver. I use CuteFTP to upload my content. You need to read the instructions on how to set up the database and the WP config file. It isn’t too difficult. You then login at site.com/wp-login.php and enter the credentials you put into the config file.

Now you have a web page. There are many free themes out there to choose from, or you can create your own. There are also Premium WordPress Theme sites that will make one for you, but some are a hefty price. I recommend waiting and using the income from your site to cover the costs. Also there are tons of plugins and widgets to present the content the way you want it. The finer details will be in a later tutorial, right now we are wanting to get you on your feet.

You need to start the construction process. Get your theme to look the way you want (if making one yourself). Create additional pages for downloads, links, tutorials, whatever you are wanting to do with your site. That part takes the longest for those who are building your own theme. If you use a pre-made one, then it should all be done for you.

So you have the site looking the way you want? Add more content. Make another post for your first visitors. Add links, tutorials, whatever you are providing on your site. You want to make sure you have some content for your first visitors.

In this article I helped you get on your feet. We covered the process of coming up with your site, getting your hosting, choosing the engine powering your sites content, the construction on getting it to look the way you want, and finally what you do when your done.

My next post will be on how to come up with something to blog about, using news sites and other blogs.