Recently I have been asked by many people what the best way to get started blogging is. Let me start off by saying I have only been blogging for 4 months now. I have been making websites for years though but just recently got into blogging. In the short time already I have met some great people and made some great connections just from my blog.
Some tips I would personally suggest from my experience are:
JUST DO IT
When contiplating what to do when you are first starting the best thing to do instead of just thinking about ideas and contradicting yourself is to just go out there and do it. Since I started I have already switched from 2 different domain names. WordPress is awesome and allows you to migrate everything over to new domains with no problem. Don’t be worried if a month later you’re unhappy with your domain name, it’s easy to change and forward everything.
KEEP YOUR HEAD UP
One of the hardest things when you start a blog or any website for that matter is getting visitors. You make a few posts and nobody visits, I know it’s hard. EVERYONE deals with it and if you can’t stick it out a few months before visitors come then don’t even bother starting a blog.
WRITE WHAT YOU’RE PASSIONATE ABOUT
If you start a ‘make money online’ blog and your first post has 15 affiliate links and your website looks like you have no idea what your doing it is going to show. The simple and honest truth to being successful as a blogger is to write about things YOU are passionate about. If you’re into hunting and video games that’s fine, write about that. The worst thing you can do is be fake. It will show in your writing and people will know when your sincere or not and your blog will be a huge failure.
DON’T BE AFRAID OF CRITICISM
I personally beleive that criticism whether it be good or bad is one of the best things you can receive. Criticism can help you improve greatly. Why do you think companies are always asking people for feedback on their products? Because they want it so they can change things to better suit consumers needs. Some people are very sensitive about negative comments but if you want to go anywhere in this world you’re going to need to deal with it and try to use it to your advantage to improve.
CHOOSE A GOOD HOSTING COMPANY
In terms of service, reliability and value I would definitely recommend HostGator for hosting your blog. I personally don’t use them for this blog but that’s because I have a dedicated server I use for some of my other projects. I do however have a HostGator server which I use for some smaller traffic affiliate websites and such.
In conclusion I just want to say that anyone considering starting a blog, using your name is probably the best way to market yourself and be personal with your readers. People like to know who’s behind the content they’re reading.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great information…I found this very helpful, thanks!
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Bryn Youngblut Reply:
September 15th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
Glad I could help 🙂
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Very helpful, thx.
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Bryn Youngblut Reply:
September 16th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
No problem, it’s feels good to help people. 🙂
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These are great tips especially the number # 3 – Write what you are passionate about. I believe that some bloggers start a blog just because they want to earn money as they heard that blogging is a good source of income. They tend to forget that blogging is communicating and socializing, and if you are writing about a topic that you are not really passionate about you will run out of ideas.
However, I would like to add something if you do not mind. Patience and time management; as it is not that easy to earn good traffic and trust from strangers. Some bloggers thought that because they ca make interesting posts, others will also be interested.
Time management because there are a lot of things to do other than posting, and promoting a blog is the hardest part. You will need a lot of time and effort to be able to discover the right promotional strategy for you.
thanks!
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Bryn Youngblut Reply:
September 16th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I completely agree, patience and time management is definitely a key. I am constantly changing what I am doing. Promoting is definitely one of the hardest parts, but also keeping good and constant content as well. Thanks for the comment.
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you said: Recently I have been asked by many people what the best way to get started blogging is. Let me start off by saying I have only been blogging for 4 months now.
My query: If you have been blogging for 4 months for now. How come you don’t show any rank on ALEXA?
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Bryn Youngblut Reply:
September 25th, 2008 at 7:30 am
I just moved my domain to this one only a few weeks ago. Check the rank for my old domain which was brynyoungblut.com
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