Blogging Basics…

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I am asked on a regular basis how one goes about starting a blog. While I really want to help others do what I do, it would take me quite some time to explain it all while talking over the phone or in the grocery line. This is why I have decided to write a post all about starting a blog. I hope that some of you will take the leap and give it a try!

First, I must tell you that blogging is not always easy and it does take time. It all depends on what you want out of your blog as to how much time you want to put into it. If you simply want to start a blog as a sort of journal for yourself or your family, you might not expect to put quite as much time into it, however if you are wanting to review products and offer giveaways—maybe even run ads and make money (that’s right, you can make MONEY blogging!) then you are going to have to put some more time and effort into it. Now let’s get started.

The first step is to decide what you want to blog about. Are you wanting to blog about your children, fundraising efforts, fashion, everyday life, coupon clipping…the list could go on all day, but you must decide what it is you want to blog about.

The next step is to title your blog. This is the tricky part. You must come up with something that you will love now and always because it’s very hard to change that name. Once you have all of your social media and everything set with that name, you really want to keep it—you don’t want to confuse your fans. So, if you plan to blog about your children, but you think you might want to blog about reviews and deals and stuff too then instead of titling your blog something like this, mychildren.com, you might want to make it something a little broader, like dealwithit.com (Ok, I just made that one up, and I’m sure these could possibly be actual sites—I haven’t looked—but the Deal With It site would be broader. It might hit a larger audience. Just make sure you love whatever name you choose.

Now that you know what you are blogging about and you have a name, you are going to want to decide if you are serious about blogging or if you want to just get your feet wet. My suggestion would be to just get your feet wet at first. See how you like blogging and then if you really enjoy it and are doing well, you can always dive in. What I mean is, start off with a free blog platform, such as blogspot.com. I am currently on the paid version of wordpress, however it took years before I moved my first blog to the paid site.

Next up is getting a domain name. This does cost, however it is fairly inexpensive. You can google domain names and you will get a list of places you can purchase one, such as GoDaddy, Google, Hostgator and so forth. We use HostGator (<–affiliate link) for our websites, however I’ll let you do your research and decide which hosting is right for you. This will make your blog look much more professional if you are running off of a free site. For instance, if you have a Blogger blog your link might look like this… sheblogsit.blogspot.com. This isn’t very professional in some companies eyes, and they prefer to work with bloggers that they think are more serious, so purchasing a domain name will give you that edge that you will need to land some reviews and giveaways. Now, if you are simply blogging for fun you don’t have to worry about this, unless you want to.

This is what you need to get started. If you have more questions feel free to contact us. We love helping others get started!

Do you blog? Do you have any additional tips for our readers?