Blogging is one of the most popular social media platforms that people use. It is after one of the easiest media to use and a lot of people are already familiar to its concept, which is, an online journal. You might think setting up and maintaining a blog is easy as 1-2-3, but for the benefit of the uninitiated, let’s break down some of the key pointers for blogging.
Platform
There are various blogging platforms available on the Internet right now, one of the most popular choice being WordPress. WordPress is one of the most trusted platform because of its stability and customizability. Time and again, it has proven itself as a blog platform that is easy to use, with a thousand or so readily available themes to choose from, not to mention a lot of easy to install plugins that you can use on it. It has, pretty much, been simplified to allow average people to use it. But again, this depends on your digression. If you think other blogging platforms suit you better, then go with what works best for you.
Hosting
As much as possible, it would be better if you could host your own blog. However, the fact remains, that not everybody could afford to spend extra for self-hosting, thus the popularity of web-hosted blogging platforms like WordPress. What does it matter if you host it yourself or not? You can say it’s the amount of control you have on the blog. Ask any professional blogger about this and they’d tell you that there’s a lot of limitation in web-hosted blogs. Also, you might want to consider the fact that by blogging under a web-based blog platform, you ultimately advertise the platform host, not your own brand. So if and when you do get extra cash to spend, buy your own domain and start hosting your own blog. It would make for a worthwhile investment if you’re in this for the long haul.
Simplicity
Although it is fun to see a blog that’s laced with a lot of graphics, simplicity wins over crowded design. The more design elements you try to incorporate in your blog, the slower the page loads. The more unnecessary widgets you put in on your sidebar, the less your readers would want to visit your site again. Choose a sleek and stylish design that works best with your blog’s theme and be wise in choosing the widgets you install, making sure that add to the value of your blog and not distract your readers from it.
Plugins
Plugins help your blog, so choose the ones that your site with benefit from. A caching-system plugin would be a great item to add to your site. It helps improve your page loading time, thereby improving your standing with search engines. But again, you shouldn’t only optimize your site for the sake of search engine standings. You should primarily take into consideration how your avid readers feel about your site and how fast it loads. You take care of your readers and they take care of your search engine rankings for you.
Permalinks
In most blog platforms, links for blog entries are converted into a series of numbers and question marks. Admit it; even you can’t memorize a character string made of a combination of 20 or so numbers, letters, and characters. Your readers won’t be any different. They’ll have a difficult time remembering your link if it stays like that. Also, by search engine standards, a link that’s made of a jumble of characters doesn’t rank well. Instead of letting your post URLs stay that way, immediately change them to easily recallable links. You can try using your blog entry title separated by dashes. For example, if you’re blog entry’s title is How to Blog for Profit, you can change your permalink to http://www.yourblogsite.com/how-to-blog-for-profit. This way, the permalink is shorter and easier for your readers to remember, not to mention you’ll garner higher rankings from the keyword phrase that’s already in the permalink.
About Page
As much as all the other elements of your blog are important, you should never to set-up an About Page. This gives you the chance to tell your readers what your blog is about. Most especially, this gives you the space to tell people what you are about – who you are, in a nutshell. Not unless you’re aiming to have a mysterious effect on your audience, a great blog without a face or a person behind it is useless. You need to show your readers that you’re just as human as they are. This way, they can better relate and connect to you. It is, after all, the entire point of social media, isn’t it?
Quality
If there’s anything that makes people come back to your site more often, it’s the content your provide them. Give them something worth their time. If you can, establish an authority in a certain subject matter. It may be something that you’re good at work, something you’re passionate about outside your job description, or something that you’re just really good at. Whatever your chosen niche maybe, if you keep writing about it and presenting fresh, quality information about your niche that your readers can actually use, you’ll find yourself developing a loyal following all over the Internet.
Participation
It is one of the key points of social media. The word social wouldn’t be there it didn’t revolve around socializing with other people, after all. Talk to others – ask for help, offer help, or just talk to other people. Credit other people whose articles you used as resources by linking out to them. You did, after all, come up with your content with the help of theirs. You’ll be surprised that once you get into the habit of linking other people for their ideas, they’d start linking you back for the additional information you shared with them.
Comment
Don’t be afraid of comments from your readers. In fact, you should encourage them. You should, however, learn to screen them wisely. Know when a negative comment is meant to help you improve or just to detract you. Constructive criticism, after all, will help you improve your craft. Just the same, don’t be afraid to share your comments on other blogs, too. Whether you agree or disagree with the poster’s idea, you should be polite in conveying comments.
Easy access
Not everybody has the leisure to go to your site to check for new posts. Since this is the case, you need to think of ways to let other people know of your new content. Add an RSS or email subscription button to your blog site. This lets your avid readers gain access to fresh blog entries without having to access your site just to check.
With these pointers in mind, you should be able to successfully set up your own blog. Now, everybody may have their own personal reasons for putting up a blog, but it’ll all boil down to having people take interest in what you have to say.
If I missed out on any key points, I’d definitely appreciate it if you could add it on the comments section. That way, we can all talk about it some more for the benefit of blog newbies.
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