Blogging and I got off to a rocky start, as I imagine it did with most people. Though I was part of the “millennial” generation, I was certainly not the techie type. I started blogging just before my son’s one year birthday for two reasons: One; I had begun to find an enormous amount of support, education, and just plain entertainment from “momblogs” while I navigated the confusing and isolating waters that accompany a new parent with no other mommy friends, and Two; I had begun to think about utilizing my degree in journalism by freelance writing and needed to, well, start writing. I’ve learned a lot since then, in drips and pieces, and have a long way to go and some ideas still up my sleeves and tucked in my bras. But here’s the basics of what I’ve figured out, that hopefully can cut newcomers to the blogosphere a year off their learning curve!

GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN

If you want to be taken seriously as a blogger, get your own domain name and url. This means, yes, you’ll pay a small fee for registering your domain and for hosting it on a server, as opposed to free blogging sites like Blogger that allow you to create a simple blog with one of their templates and you will be always and forever known as www.[cutename].blogspot.com. This has worked for many people, particularly those with little interest in a completely customizable look or ever getting their blog profitable.

GET A NICE DESIGN, SOMEHOW

Not every one can afford to go out and find a freelance graphic designer and/or web developer to put together their blog for thousands of dollars, particularly those new to blogging or just taking the idea for a spin. Most people can afford, however, to get some of the more professional looking templates available from sites like TemplateMonster for less than $100 bucks. But be aware, I did this when I first started blogging and had no idea what to do with all the files and folders that came zipped up for me and ended up wasting money. If you go this route and have absolutely no blogging or website experience, call a friend who does! The way I eventually went, and have yet to venture from, is to get a free (for me, Wordpress) template from the bazillion (is that even a word?) themes out there. I downloaded various themes at various times, but each time I customized the colors, pictures, sidebars, so on so that it was not a theme you could easily recognize (this is not hard to learn). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been to a really cool looking blog, and then another one just like it. It sticks out like a sore thumb. Pick a clean, simple template that has the major stuff in the right places. At first, customizing a blog theme was really hard. Again, I had no, none, zip, zero, zilch experience with html or css. But I eventually found my way over to the files and just started toying with them. I didn’t even know at first that I could bring the style sheets and other files into a text editor and view my changes ahead of time before uploading to my site. Do you know what that means? Yup, I spent sometimes ten hours at a time in the middle of the night when I knew no one (you know, my five readers consisting of family and friends) would be up to see my site going nutso! SO, all that to say, there’s a variety of ways to get a decent design up on your blog quickly enough for you to start adding content. And if you have no idea what you are doing but have a friend who does, call in the backup! So long as it isn’t incredibly time-consuming, you’ll be surprised at how much people love to show you what they know. (P.S. Learn to do things yourself so you don’t keep bugging them with the same questions, though!)

CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT

Quantity

There’s a lot of debate on whether its quality verses quantity when it comes to a successful blog. Some people make great strides with one or more posts DAILY that contain concise tidbits. Others have a reader base conditioned to enjoy well-researched, feature length articles about once a week. I have personally had the darnedest time making up my own mind over at MamaNeedJava. It’s such a modge podge of topics that I figure, ah, who cares what’s in here from post to post, there’s a little bit for every body! But that hasn’t gotten me very far, as I still only average about 800 hits a day! One thing I know for certain is that a successful blog has to be updated frequently. As in, at least once a week. When I’m out hitting blogs and figuring out which one’s to subscribe to, one of the first things I look at is how recent is their last post. If it’s more than a week or so ago, I know this is not a serious blogger. Just the sad facts of life, baby. Sure, there is “writer’s block” and hits and misses in post popularity, but you’ve gotta keep your main page regularly updated.

Quality

Which brings me to another point regarding content, of which there are several. Before you hit that delicious “Publish” button, think about how you would, as a reader, respond to a blog if this post was the first one you read. Don’t assume every browsing blog reader is going to take the time to check out your great “About” page or scan your archive. I need to do a lot better about this myself, but the old saying is true: First impressions are the most important.

Typos

I told you I had several points about content, right? This one is perhaps a pet peeve of mine. Typos, spelling and grammar. Granted, I’m no trained editor. I took advanced grammar in college but like most things I learned in college, little of it stuck, AFAIK. But I did not start blogging with the certain knowledge that I would never run a quick spell check or glance over my posts before showcasing my skill for all to see. I mean, come on people! In the literary world, there is no such thing as great writing- just great rewriting. A poem you read in book might have been rewritten a hundred times, and even in the end, few writer’s feel its completely ready for the deadline. In the blogging world, all that rewriting by and large goes away. It cannot live in the world of fast-paced people’s press, I know. HOWEVER, don’t neglect the few minutes it will take to fix a couple typos. You’ll look like such a better writer for doing so!

SOCIAL NETWORKING AND THE BLOGGING COMMUNITY

This is a new lesson for me in the “year of blogging”, but one that I believe is very important. From what I’ve been reading, social networking is just as important as SEO. In the past month I’ve joined several major social networking sites to see just how this might help bring traffic to my sites. Statistics show that people are turning to Facebook, StumbleUpon, and so on at increasingly ginormous rates. For many successful bloggers, having profiles on such sites, with links to their blogs, has driven up traffic immensely. I’m now watching the effects of my own profiles on such sites and will report back my progress when I’ve come to a conclusion! I will say it is obvious that ignoring them will get your blog nowhere, and joining them can’t hurt! Just remember to be a part of the internet community. Blogging is very incestuous, meaning the more you go linking other blogs and commenting on other posts, the better chances those bloggers will come looking at your site and likely linking to you to return the favor!

FEEDS AND SUBSCRIBERS

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a form of a web feed that can “push” into a subscriber’s feed account or e-mail the frequently updated (hopefully!) posts you publish to your blog. Having a sidebar item, a.k.a. widget, to help your reader’s know exactly where to go in order to subscribe to your blog is very important, and there’s a few other ways to remind them too. Once you get your blog up and running, I recommend creating an account at a RSS reader like Feedburner, and then browsing the different ways you can have readers subscribe. Of course, for a complete newbie, like I was a year and a half ago, there’s a stinkload of information to brief yourself on, from the points mentioned above, to plugins to SEO to ftp clients to text editors to advertising. But if you get started with the above and find yourself just barely beginning to feel like you aren’t treading water anymore, then you just might be ready for the meatier topics! Happy blogging!

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