How to Blog (with confessions)

This subject is certainly outside the norm of topics we normally talk about on this site.

But, I like being helpful and the older I get the more I want to impart to people. Hence, because the phenomena of blogging is here to stay, and more people are interested in starting their own blogs, I thought I’d share a bit of what I have learned so far about blogging. Hence, if you are interested in blogging, maybe you can pick up a thing or two of use here. Plus, I’d very much like to hear your thoughts and insights on this.

First and foremost, before beginning a blog it pays to really think through your expectations and goals for it:

• What “market” do you want to blog in? That is, what topics do you want to focus on and why would anybody visit your site versus another to get information on those topics? Many markets are over-saturated. While I like to help people find ways to manage their time effectively, and have some interest in using the Getting Things Done methodology in that regard, the GTD “market” is over-saturated. For me, that is just as well as I don’t want to be just another GTD blogger: I want to help folks find ways to prioritize the stuff in their life, to help ensure they are properly focused, and to give tips to make life a little easier.
• How often do you want to blog? One or two posts a day, a dozen a day, a few a week, … ? My own aims are one or two posts a day (sometimes I do four or five) with an aim of one or two fairly in-depth posts per week.
• Do you plan to write lengthy articles or short articles or some mixture?
• Are you expecting to make money from it? If so, how much effort are you willing to put into to it to monetize it? Be advised that only the rare few make any real money off their blogs. I don’t presently make enough off my websites to feed my dogs … no joke. For now, that’s fine with me, as this is a neat hobby and a way to share my experiences. If it starts becoming more hard work than it is fun, then I could feel differently about it. Anyway, you have to decide what you are really looking for out of a blog.

Then you have to decide what to do about a website and blogging software.

• If you already have a website, you can set up a blog on it using WordPress software. That is what I have done on this site. My brother, who is also into computers in a big way, maintains the overall site dkeener.com which is set up on WebMasters. So I am fortunate to already have an excellent server to run the software on.
• If you don’t have a website, then you have to decide whether to pay for a hosted service, or try to find a free one (Lifehacker has good discussion of free services here), or try to go with something like Blogger.com. If you go with Blogger.com, you can begin blogging almost immediately, for free, but the downside is that you have pretty minimal customization potential for it. If a simple blog is all you want, then it could be what you’re looking for, and you don’t even have to install blogging software. If you want more horsepower and do not want to fool with installing blogging software, you could go with one of the deals that Six Apart offers with their TypePad system. I once used their pro version for about $149/year — not a bad price and you don’t have the headaches of setting up software.

If you do go with WordPress, then you have to choose a Theme and decide what plugins to install and so on. This is not really complicated, but it does take a bit of effort to find the best plugins and a good-looking theme that suits your style. You’ll almost certainly need anti-spam plugins as it will take no time before spammers are trying to insert their advertisements via your comments sections.

Also, if you go with WordPress, or even if you go with TypePad, it pays to have some knowledge of PHP programming and CSS formatting, if you want to do any customization at all. Fortunately for me, I had played a bit with php about 6 or 7 years ago and can read enough of the WordPress coding to make some customizations. As for CSS, I checked out a book from the local library and learned what I needed to from it. None of it is terribly complicated, but if you have never done any programming it does have a bit of a learning curve.

As for the content of your blog: Content Is King. No matter what else you do with your blog, the quality of the content is the key determinant of the amount of readership you will have. Be advised that there is a huge temptation to post things that are of interest to you but that do not relate to the theme of your website. This is the greatest struggle I have with this blog: I am interested in so many things that there is a temptation for me to post on them all. You will probably be faced with the same temptation.

Another important factor to bear in mind is that The Web Is Global. This site is viewed by people from all over the world, and yours will be too.

Also, be advised that you need to exercise care in posting photos and graphics, in that you can’t just grab any old photo off the web and use it. There are some sources where you can get public domain images. But, I have found it best to pay for a selected set of images, which I get from DreamsTime. These are not expensive (one or two dollars a shot), but at least you don’t have to worry about somebody suing you for using one of their images.

Finally, once you post something on the web, it’s there to stay. You can go back and delete it if you really said some things you wished you hadn’t, but somebody may have already quoted you and you may already be cached. I haven’t deleted any posts, but I have gone back to a few and tried to tweak them, knowing that it’s already too late as far as caches and some quotes go. Bottom line: it pays to spend some time choosing your wording up front. Sometimes I’ll draft a post and not post it until the next day or even the day after, revisiting the wording before I post to ensure it is readable and really says what I want to say.

That pretty well describes what I have to say on this subject. If you have any questions, I would of course be glad to try to answer them. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this topic. And, please let me know: does my own interest in a wide variety of subjects make it hard for you to find what you are looking for?