No matter what your intentions are for starting a blog, and no matter the great ideas you have that you think will make a great blog, it's good you ask this one question before you start.
What type of blog should I start?
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Starting a blog is easy. You can get one up and running in less than five minutes. The easy way to do this is to use one of the free blogging platforms like Google Blogger or WordPress.com. It's all easy to setup, because the steps involved are not complicated. Here's what it looks like.
Let's use Google Blogger as an example in three steps.
Step 1-Open a Gmail account: Open a Gmail account and get access to so many Google services, one of such service being Blogger itself. With one Gmail account you can access lots of Google services without having to open separate accounts for each of them.
Step 2-Go to the blogger: This is Google's free blogging platform where you can create your own personalized blog, add content and publish it so it can be found on the internet.
Go to blogger just type blogger.com into the search bar of your web browser.You can also go to the top right corner of your Gmail email account. Click on the 9 square-shaped dotted dropdown menu, to the left of the account image icon.
Step 3-Create your blog: Once you've click on the dropdown menu, scroll down to the Blogger icon. Click on it and it will open the blogger.com page. From here you can start the process of creating your blog from scratch, with ready made themes that are available.
Now that you are familiar with the steps necessary to create your own blog, you can get started immediately. But you might be asking,
"What type of blog can I start?" Well, the simple answer is, any type of blog. This is because essentially, what you are going to do with your blog, is inform people about something.
This is the whole essence of starting a blog. And that is to give meaningful information, and useful advice that will be of value to readers, or your audience.
And so you can start a blog to talk about,
- something you like doing out of passion, such as going on excursions, taking photos, etc.
- something you have expertise on, like for example, your profession as a mental health expert.
-sharing your firsthand experience about something you have acquired and used. For example, a gaming console, etc.
-creating awareness about something, to educate others.
Talking about these things in your blogs is essentially you giving out useful and helpful information, so others can learn from them and if necessary, take some kind of action to achieve something on their own.
What to know before you start
Do you long to start your own blog? Do you have something to share with a hungry online audience always looking for fresh new and inciteful content? Well if this is you, then here are some things you need to know to get started.
1) Choose how you want to blog
When you want to start blogging you can do so by choosing in what ways you want to blog. This simply mneans that you can choose to blog by,
-Following your passion
You can start a blog out of the enthusiasm you have for something you like doing,which in most cases, can be considered as a hobby.So for example, you could have a passion for taking photos of nature, or a passion for listening to rock music.
You can create a blog with this passion of yours, and share your knowledge and experiences with others on this passion..
-Following the trend
If you are always on the hunt for what's trending, you can set up a blog and talk about the latest trends. This way of blogging means you have to constantly create content around the latest developments in health, technology, etc.
-Follow your expertise
Are you a mental health expert? Are you a professional web designer, or write professional content for others, as a service? All of these and many more are what you can use to start a fresh new blog.
2) Have a clear guideline or program to follow
One of the things you can do if you want to start a blog is to have a clear guideline or program where you outline what actions you want to take. Here are some of the things that you could outline in your program.
-Be clear about your goals
What are your goals for wanting to start a blog? Is it to make money or simple to share information about your daily life experience? Many bloggers start out without a clear goal in mind. They start because a friend of theirs started one and seems to be doing well.
But having to start something simply because someone you know is doing it, will only end up with you being disappointed and giving up on the whole idea of blogging. So first ask yourself the question, "what do I want to achieve with this blog?" Once you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, then,
-Determing your niche
Starting a blog requires you to know what niche you want to venture into. In a niche market, your content caters to a particular audience who all share the same interest.
For example, a product like Tea with Ginseng extract in it,would be a product for an audience that loves their tea to have Ginseng in it. This might be a rather small audience whose enthusiasm for ginseng, knows no limits.
-identify your audience
If you are starting a blog, it is important to identify your target audience. Identifying your target audience means you want to capture a particular section of the population and focus on creating content directed at them.
This will require you to narrow down your search for such an audience based on age group, interests and other demographics.
-Choose a platform
If you are going to start a blog, things such as identifying your audience and determining your niche, all play an important part in the blog creation process.
However another aspect,and probably the most important aspect, is the platform on which to create your blog. With so many blogging platforms around to choose from, you can opt to use one of the many free platforms available or, dive into opting for a self-hosting package.
Knowing the difference between the two options is necessary because,you have to figure out your needs, and which of the two will suit those needs. For example, you will need to figure out if you are going into blogging for the long haul and would want to eventually make money from it.
-Remain consistent
Consistency in blogging is simply you creating content at a desired frequency and sticking to it. Frequency is where you decided how many times you want to post content in a given day, week or month, throughout the year.
One of the main problems bloggers have is remaining consistent in their blogging. This is because you may sometimes come to a point where you are unsure what content to create or write about.
Andf even if you know what content to create, sometimes, you may be hit by writer's block, or you may think that the topic is saturated and so won't be an interesting topic to write about.
Conclusion
When you want to start a blog, know what you are getting yourself into. Because once you start, you will have to engage time, energy and resources to keep it up and running.
If you are thinking of starting, know that you can set up a blog and talk about your love for mountain climbing, or talk about the latest trends in fashion, health, technology,etc.
Know that you must have a clear program and goals you wish to achieve. You must also post consistently to keep your audience connected. Most importantly, understand that your content must serve the purpose of giving good value to your audience.
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