STARTING YOUR BLOG PART ONE

 

We have a post on introduction to blogging were we dealt with some issues concerning the whole concept of blogs and why they are important. You may want to check them out before proceeding. It will broad your horizon and give you more insight on how to start your blog.

  
Starting Your Blog

Starting a new blog might seem a little overwhelming at first, but planning some things ahead of time can make the entire process a lot easier. In this lesson, you'll learn how to develop a new blog. You'll make decisions about:

• Your blogging goals
• The topic you want to blog about
• How much time you want to spend blogging
• How much personal information you wish to share on your blog
• Your blog's design

Identifying your blogging goals

The first step toward developing your blog is to know your blogging goals. The two main questions to consider in order to understand what your goals are:

• What's the main reason you want to start a blog?
• Who do you want to read your blog?

Deciding how much personal information to share

Before you write your first blog post, you should already know how personal you want your blog to be. Some bloggers choose to blog with their real names and include personal details about their lives. Others blog with a pseudonym, or fake name. If you're either a private or open person, the decision on whether or not to reveal personal information on your blog probably seems pretty straightforward. However, there are a few things everyone should consider when deciding how much to share.

Blogging openly

For example, if you're like Linda Ikeji and want to use your blog to promote yourself or build a career, you'll need to include at least some personal information. You don't have to include many personal details—just enough that someone looking to learn about your work would be able to find your blog and get in touch with you if necessary.

Blogging anonymously

On the other hand, if you have a more personal blog that you may not want to link real-life information like your full name and location to the things you write. Then there is no need to share identifying information on your blog.

Blogging cautiously

Whether you choose to make your identity public or be completely anonymous, you should be cautious about sharing personal details online. As you decide how much you feel comfortable sharing, keep this in mind: Once you post information about yourself online, it's almost impossible to be totally anonymous later, even if you remove the information you shared.
Unless you have a real need to share personal details, I recommend starting out by sharing a minimal amount of information about yourself. As you get more comfortable blogging, you may choose to share more about yourself with your readers.

Before you share any kind of personal information on your blog or other social media, it's important to make sure that you're not compromising your safety.

Designing your blog

Much of your blog's design will depend on the blog service you choose to host it. It's difficult to plan the appearance of your blog in too much detail before you've actually signed up with a blog service. However, there are a few components of your blog's design that you can decide on ahead of time.

Blog name

Your blog name is important because it's the first thing people will see about your blog. There's no single rule or formula for coming up with a good blog name, but these tips can help:

• Make it relate to your topic.
  This can help you attract readers who are looking to read about a specific subject.
• Make it interesting.
  "Teemah’s Cooking Blog" is a descriptive title, but it doesn't really make you want to read it. Think of the blogs you read. Which ones have names that sound interesting to you? What do these names have in common?
• Make it easy to remember.
  The best way to do this is to make it short—three or four words at the most. If you choose to use a made-up word for your blog's title, make it even shorter, and be sure it resembles or contains a real word. Engadget and Gizmodo are two examples of blogs with made-up but memorable titles.
• Make it something that can work as a logo.
  One way to test this is to visit Wordmark.it, a site that lets you preview any word in every font you have installed on your computer. While you'll probably want your final logo to include some color or other graphic design elements, this can be a good way to test out your title.

TO BE CONTINUED....