Another Pointless Blog

So from the huge success of my last post I have decided to do a nice follow up one of how to make an awesome blog from scratch! For those who don’t know what a blog is I googled a proper definition for you. Blog: A BLOG is a publication of personal thoughts, experiences, and web links. It is updated frequently and is usually a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the web or in the media†. So here is my “step-by-step” guide of how to create an awesome blog from scratch.

The Start

The first thing we need to do is to choose a good blogging platform. I use WordPress and this is generally the preferred choice among bloggers. Although I have never used Blogger myself I have heard good things about it and it is definately worth a look as well. Both offer free hosting on their servers however, if you grab your own space on a server then WordPress is the way to go. If you would like some free space for your blog I co-own Koncept Webmasters which offers free hosting for those willing!

Note: For the duration of this guide I am going to focus on WordPress because that is the blogging platform I have come to know and love.

Customization

Once you have WordPress setup (if you are installing it on your own server, just download the files from here and follow the instructions included) you can get into the fun part of making your blog great. The first thing to do would be find a suitable theme or style for your genre of blog. You can simply Google WordPress Themes in or go to the WordPress site and find hundreds.

The next step: Plugins, same as before, you can Google in WordPress Plugins or go to the WordPress site to find hundreds of plugins. Plugins require a little more time and effort than themes to find. There are many different plugins and you want as many as you can to help you without overloading or cluttering your blog. I use an Adsense Plugin, All in one SEO Pack, CommentLuv, FeedBurner, Gregarious, Subscribe Remind, WassUp and finally WP Lightbox 2. All these plugins help me run my blog effectively and are very general plugins that almost any blog can use. If you click the individual links you can go to the creators homepage and read about them.

Publicise

Now we have our blog looking smashing with fantastic plugins, the next step is to publicise, and do it well. Sign up to services like Feedburner, Technorati, StumbleUpon, Digg, Blog Engage, Digital Point, Blog Catalog, etc. You can also work on getting some subtle yet effective advertisement regimes. Adsense, EntreCard and ADSDAQ are the companies I use.

Content

…and you’re done! Just keep writing quality content and eventually visitors will come. I know for me it’s being a long and daunting process, but I’m not giving up and my traffic is dramatically increasing every month. I’m no blogging expert, but this is working pretty well for me. The most important rule of blogging is to ALWAYS write quality content and don’t feel pressured to write so often as to produce terrible posts. Good luck all you bloggers out there! As always please comment and subscribe

Thanks,
Matt.

 P.S I’m Australian so Publicise is spelt with an ’s’

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