10 Things You Need To Do Before Setting Up a Blog
Feb 16, 2008 Blogging Tips
Setting up a new blog is not as easy as everyone may think. Planning ahead is a vital step. You have to consider a lot of things - your blogging niche, layout, organization, minute but important pages like your about page, archives, contact page, etc.
So how do you plan ahead?
It’s simple! Draft everything. Setting up a blog is like writing a composition or essay. You have a rough draft first before you can arrive to your final work.
1. Look for a reliable hosting. By searching the web (use the keywords “top 10 webhosting”), you can find good reviews of the top web hosting companies. But prior, you have to decide how do you want your blog - self-hosted or freely hosted? Blogger and WordPress.com will give you a freely hosted blog. But if you are planning to be a dedicated blogger, it’s better to get a paid hosting account.
2. List and compare the domain registrars you are planning to register your domain with. An ICANN-accredited domain registrar is best recommended. Pricing can also be a factor in choosing a domain.
3. List the possible domains that may work with your website. It can be unique and reflective of your blog content.
4. Know which blog platform is best for your blog. Currently, WordPress is used by a larger percentage of bloggers.5. Choose a good, interesting and profitable niche. There are several topics available for you to choose from, but only few of them will give you traffic and at the same time, money. But your niche should be one of your interests.
6. Determine a good blog title. The blog title is the first thing that your visitor read. Similar to a composition, a blog title should be captive to strike interest. Further, a blog title says what’s your blog about.
7. Know how you can properly organize your blog. List the possible categories and the pages for your blog. Categories should be relevant to your chosen niche. Important pages in your blog include about page, archives or sitemap, and contact page.
8. Choose the best layout for your site. Themes or templates are available in free and premium versions.
9. Know the possible ways to advertise or promote your blog. Directories, exchange links are the best ways to get back links.
10. Know how to build readership. Know the possible ways on how to attract readers for your website. The simple answer for this is post interesting topics.
These things are mostly the preliminaries before setting up a blog. These are just overview. I will post detailed discussion about each one.
Enjoy your new blog!
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Tags: Blogging Tips, Setting Up a Blog
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