I'm starting a new blogging series sharing hint's and tips I've learnt throughout my time blogging.
I have been blogging now for 2 years this July and I now call this my job.
But before I go any further, I just want you all to know that I am no expert. All the tips I share are what I have learnt myself, either by trial and error or from a tip I have read on another blog - which I will give full credit too.
In this blogging A-Z series I will start with the very basics, starting a blog, finding a platform, choosing a name, blog design etc. Then will move on and share my other tips.
And even now after almost 2 years blogging I am still learning new this all the time
*************
How to Start Blogging
If your thinking about starting your own blog the very first thing you need to do is choose a blogging platform.
I use
Blogger which is a free service. The main other ones are
Wordpress.com,
Wordpress.org and
Tumblr. Don't get mixed up with the wordpress blogs - wordpress.com is free, but wordpress.org is a paid for service. Tumblr is also free.
I don't know much about Tumblr. But I have heard it's the most unrealible, but don't quote me on that.
I lot of bloggers start out with either Blogger or wordpress.com. But if your wanting to make money from your blog, then go for Blogger, as wordpress.com doesn't allow this.
There have been a few worries from some bloggers that google may get rid of blogger as they are shutting down google reader and GFC in July. But these are just rumours. At the moment I am sticking with Blogger, I have had no problems with them and if the do shut down then I will then move to wordpress.org.
Again, I don't know that much about wordpress.org. But I do know a lot of bloggers that use it and prefer it to Blogger and the money spent on it is well worth it. There are more plugins available and you can design and customize it absolutely anyway you like and there is also a customer service telephone number you can ring if you get into a muddle. If you don't know much about blogging or html I would say start out with blogger and then when you get the hang of it move over to wordpress.org
After you have chosen which blogging platform you would like to use, your next big decision is to choose your blog name. I spent ages choosing my name. You must choose a name you are happy to use forever. It's no good calling your blog, "Mum to One" then a year or so later you have another baby, you'll have to change your name to "Mum to Two". I do know a few bloggers that have changed their name, but for the first few months after they changed their name I have got confused and thought they were a completely different blog to the one I was following.
Another tip is to choose a name that goes with what you are going to blog about. It's no good calling your blog "My yummy recipes" if your only going to write about recipes a few times but also have lot's of craft posts too. I choose my name "Serenity You" as really it doesn't mean anything, just a nice relaxing name. I post about all sorts and my name doesn't tell you that I post about just a certain topic.
So once you have chosen your blog name you need to make sure no one else is already using it. If you use say blogger your name will be something like "www.serenityyou.blogspot.com". This is what I used for over a year until I brought a domain. Lucky for me, www.serenityyou.com was available. it only cost me around £8 for the whole year and I did this through blogger.
I recommend buying a domain right from the start as I wish I did. Has a lot of my photo's have my watermark - www.serenityyou.blogspot.com, and I hate it as that is not now my url. People can still use this domain and will be redirected to my new name. But I just think it's a lot easier to have your own domain right from the beginning.
So now you have your chosen your blog platform and your name is also chosen and maybe you have brought your own domain, now you're ready to pick your blog colours and start designing your blog. Come back next week for more tips on how to do this.
Linking to some of these great parties
TTCkit
