Compulsive Blogging Part 2
In part 1 of Compulsive blogging we discussed the mindset required and the questions you should ask yourself before taking a stab at being a blogger with a purpose. Now that you’ve made it this far, perhaps you want to know just how you go about blogging so in part two we are going to look at some of the methodology behind blogging. We are already assuming that you know what you’re blogging about and that you’ve gone as far as registering a domain name and secured some hosting somewhere. What we will look at specifically is the means by which you will create the actual blog.
First off you’ll want to decide on a blog software. There are many available, many of which are free and most of which are remote type clients where the software is hosted on a remote server and you blog writing and editing takes place with a web browser. Some of the more widely used and reputable blogging applications out there are:
- WordPress
- Moveable Type
- Typo
- and Blogger
I personally use several blog applications but if I had to choose one it would be WordPress. Some factors that might aid the decision process are the features you might require (i.e. commenting, permalinks, trackbacks, image uploading etc…), the ease of use of the software, the community that surrounds the application, and the availability of plugins, themes or extensions that allow you to create your own unique experience.
Once you’ve settled on a platform and got it hosted you’ll need to cut the tape as it were and christen your newly founded blog with some inaugural blog postings. What I might suggest is a few posts to clarify who you are what you are about. Share your dreams and aspirations about the blog and what you hope will come out of this blogging exercise. Where possible, add a few permanent information pages to your information architecture. Not only will the average visitor look for this but it will also serve as fuel for the ever hungry search engines looking for useful content.
Be sure not to go public with your new blog just yet. There are things to consider and things to test first. Wait until you have at least ten solid posts and a sidebar full of useful snippets of text, links, ads or anything else that makes the page feel well balanced and established. You also need to do some testing as well. Have a look at you new blog from every browser you can get your hands on. How does it look? Does it render adequately on IE6, IE7, Firefox and Safari? What about Opera? You might not care how your blogs looks on other browsers but you visitors certainly will, and they will let you know by not coming back. Also, be sure to check for broken links, typo’s, grammatical errors or format inconsistencies.
Now that your ready to go public with this blog consider your ways of getting the word out. In todays Web 2.0 culture there are countless way to spread messages like this. Consider services like Technorati, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg.com. There are also less agressive means like taking part in social networks like FaceBook, MySpace and Virb, as well as micro-blogs like Jaiku and Twitter.
In the next installment we’re going to address news relevancy and timing and how you should apply that to your blog.