Getting Started with Blogging
Introduction
This article is about the general ideas related to getting started with blogging. Article covers, what is a niche and where you should blog.
What is a blog and blogging
Wikipedia puts it this way: “A blog (a contraction of the term ‘weblog’) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.” [Wikipedia, Blog article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog, cited 18 Oct 2009]
In my opinion blogging can be seen as any act of sharing entries of data with others and getting comments from others. Entries can basically be anything you like: video, audio, images or text.
Blog topic and niche
Blog should have some kind of an area where it consentrates, a clear focus. The topic must be clear and you should think about writing only about something specific, a niche. Word niche is used to define a clear segment of a larger market. For example, the larger market could be boats and a niche market could be speed boats.
Your blog’s topic defines readers why they should read your blog and why they should come back. If a blog is about some random issues then the readers won’t come back because they can not expect content of the posts. For example if someone is interested about speed boats and you have one article about them, the reader will have no reason to bookmark your site. On the other hand if your site’s niche is speed boats, the reader will more likely bookmark your site and come back to it to check for further articles.
If you are right now starting to blog then think carefully what will be the focus. Think specifically about the main focus. If you want extremely loyal readers then you should select a niche of some sort. If you are now thinking about writing about motor bikes, then I urge you to think more specifically. Maybe you should write only about Harley Davidson motorcycles to have a clear niche for your blog?
Choosing a site where to blog
Now that you know what you are going to write about you can choose where you will blog. There are two ways to go, using hosting, or hosting the blog-script yourself.
Firstly do you want your blog to be hosted or self hosted:
| Hosted | Self hosted | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | 0$ | Starting from 4$/month |
| Customisation | Limited options, varies between hosters | 100% customisable |
| Setup | Very easy. Everyone can do it | Takes more time and requires some technical knowledge |
| Hosting options | www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.com, and many more | Extremely many options. Just google wordpress hosting. |
If you chose hosted (Free hosting)
I suggest that you use either blogger or wordpress.com, because they are the most know and found to be very reliable services. Summary can be found below
| Blogger | Wordpress.Com | |
|---|---|---|
| Allow user to place ads | Yes | No |
| Allow to add pages in addition to posts | No | Yes |
| Free domain name hosting | Yes | No |
| Amount of customisation | Medium | High |
| Links | Blogger | Wordpress.Com |
Blogger allows you to place ads on your blog and wordpress.Com doesn’t, that is major catch. Wordpress.Com allows better customisation and that is plus. Blogger hosts your domain name freely and wordpress charges for that.
If you choose self hosted (Paid hosting)
I myself use wordpress and I host it my self on a domain. Wordpress script is free so that is a very compelling reason for using it. There may be other free solutions out there, but I have found wordpress to be enough configurable for my needs. Especially all the plugins and themes are a big plus! From wordpress.org you can find a list that shows different hosting companies that have easy integration for wordpress. Check it out