Saturday, February 6, 2016

Starting a Blog

This is something I feel I have an expertise on. Granted, my degree isn't in blogging and I'm not sure there is one on "writing casually about thing I enjoy talking about," but I've been blogging for a really long time so I think I know at least something about it.

The first thing you need to think about when considering starting a blog is a topic--or a broad subject. It could be something as simple as writing about your daily life, to beauty, to music, but you need a subject to try and gain followers. Of course, you can totally just write about whatever you want if you don't care at all about people reading and responding. I have found, though, to keep people reading and returning, having a category to write about specifically tends to work best.

Once you've decided on that, you have so many different places you can start one. Personally, 10/10 recommend Wordpress. Blogger isn't bad, and you can use Tumblr, but I think Wordpress is the easiest to work with and you can typically get a pretty nice and short URL to link people to opposed to other places. I'm super biased, though, because I've been using Wordpress for at least 8 years now I think. It's great.

Blogger is okay and the customization for its appearance is definitely similar to Wordpress, but I felt it was still more complicated. With Wordpress, you can basically design the graphics you want in it (or Google image search them if you want to live life on the edge with copyright infringement--which I do not recommend) and go to the customization area, upload them and bam.

Tumblr is roughly 10x more complicated. I honestly feel like, if you have zero knowledge on how to build and code a website from scratch (aka CSS and HTML), it's super complicated. That said, if you have knowledge of those two things, Tumblr is fantastic. I have one that I almost never update! (Seriously, I update maybe once a year if I remember.)

Once you've done that and you've decided where you want to start it, come up with a name--short and sweet. The shorter, the easier to remember the better. Remember, if you're looking for people to read it, you'll want it to be memorable. I had one for a while that was simply my nickname.me (.me is like a .com or .net) and it did pretty well. There's also famous people that have things like Zoella (Zoe+lla) and SprinkleOfGlitter, which is longer but still rolls of the tongue.

Then you're going to want to create your blog. Make sure the design isn't totally crazy colorful and easy on the eyes. Color is never a bad thing, but you want people to want to stay and not run away from the blinking lights and neon colors.

Write that first blog post--an intro. Who are you? If you don't want to use your real name, what nickname do you want people to call you? And don't choose something silly--you don't want to come off like a weirdo after all. Talk about what you're planning to blog about, what your goals are and say hi to those reading it. It may take a while to acquire readers but, once you do, you can connect with them through comments and replying to those comments and it's a great feeling to interact with people that enjoy what you're doing.

Finally, be sure to always have fun. If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong. Hobbies are all about fun!

Now, get out there and blog!~

No comments:

Post a Comment