Know how to Blog!

In my opinion, this is one of the most important post-setup tools you can use to ensure long term success of your blog. Feebdurner allows you to take your wordpress feed, or content, and filters it through to feed readers, so that it can be read by anyone using any of almost 2000 applications.

For example, I use Bloglines, which is an online, free, feed reader. I subscribe to about 100 different feeds, (blogs), and every time any of these blogs is updated by the author, I see the new post in my feed reader. Bloglines in an online tool, so I can read the feeds, or blogs, wherever I have access to a computer, or mobile phone. I certainly do not have to remember to visit the 100 blogs individually to stay up tp date with their new content.

This is important for you, because if someone like me visits your site, and wants to read your blog regularly, you would hope that my feed reader and your feed are compatible. Feedburner takes care of that. It also monitors your traffic, including how many people are reading your blog not by visiting your domain, but by opening their feed reader.

Signing up is easy and free. You simply enter your domain, and Feedburner will do the rest. You will have to verify that the feed does actually belong to you, and FeedBurner gives you some straightforward methods to do that.

Once that is completed, you will need to use the Feedburner WordPress plugin to get the full effects of the service. Once again, FeedBurner walks you through the process.

About 24-48 hours after you sign up your blog with FeedBurner, you will have access to some telling statistics, not least of which is how many people are signed up to read your blog. Just remember, every blog started with a readership of one (the author him/her self)!

There is far more to FeedBurner though. Once you sign up, you will see that you have many tools that help you

• Optimize
• Analyze
• Publicize

your blog.

Let’s discuss some of the most important:

Feedflare: Allows you to add certain options at the end of each post that allow your post to be shared among readers. You can choose which options to make available. Some popular options are: Email this to a friend, Save this to del.ic.ous, Digg this! Etc.

Email subscriptions: Not everybody uses a feedreader, and not everybody will remember to visit your blog regularly. This options allows readers to sign up for an email subscription of your feed, without you having to do any work. Whenever you update your blog, Feed~Burner will email your new post to those who asked for it. You can see an example of this feature on this site.

Headline animator: Create and customize an animated banner that cycles through your feed’s five most recent items. It’s an easy way to promote your content anywhere you can place a snippet of HTML. Very good to put on another site, or in your email signature.

There are many ways to bake a cake, so I am only going to cover how I got MY WordPress installed. You will be amazed at how easy it is.

As I mentioned in my post about choosing a host, mine is GoDaddy. They offer a painless method of installing WordPress. (I am sure many other hosts do too, but I can only write about my own experience. If your host offers a similar service, please leave a comment below).

Once I registered my domain name with GoDaddy, I also purchased their Delux Hosting plan, for $7 per month.

This hosting plans comes bundled with Metropolis, which offers 30 free applications I can use on my site. The only one that matters to me at present is the WordPress application.
I log into my account, click on Content Management,and then on Metroplis.

From there, I choose Wordpress> Install.

I am asked to choose which directory to install WordPress. Because I do not want all the wordpress files in my root directory, I choose a folder which I name wordpress.

I then choose some admin names and passwords

And then I wait for GoDaddy to do the work. I get a confirmation email that the process is completed about 15 minutes later.

I can now log into my account using the url
www.knowhowtoblog.com/wordpress/wp-admin/

I am done!

Well, not really.

I still want to tweak the installation slightly, because I want my blog to reside in my root directory, not my wordpress directory as I previously stipulated.
In other words, I want all the files to be in

www.knowhowtoblog.com/wordpress/,

but I want my blog to be seen at

www.knowhowtoblog.com

There is a set of very clear instructions on how to do this in the wordpress application. Here is a copy of that document:

Giving WordPress its Own Directory While Leaving Your Blog in the Root Directory

Many people want WordPress to power their site’s root (e.g. http://example.com) but they don’t want all of the WordPress files cluttering up their root directory. WordPress allows you to install the WordPress files to a subdirectory, but have your blog exist in the site root.

The process to move WordPress into its own directory is as follows:

1. Create the new location for the core WordPress files to be stored (we will use /wordpress in our examples).
2. Go to the Options panel.
3. In the box for WordPress address (URL): change the address to the new location of your main WordPress core files. Example: http://example.com/wordpress
4. In the box for Blog address (URL): change the address to the root directory’s URL. Example: http://example.com
5. Click Update Options.
6. Move your WordPress core files to the new location (WordPress address).
7. Copy the index.php and .htaccess files from the WordPress directory into the root directory of your site (Blog address).
8. Open your root directory’s index.php file in a text editor
9. Change the following and save the file. Change the line that says:
require(’./wp-blog-header.php’);
to the following, using your directory name for the WordPress core files:
require(’./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php’);
10. Login to the new location. It might now be http://example.com/wordpress/wp-admin/
11. If you have set up Permalinks, go to the Permalinks panel and update your Permalink structure. WordPress will automatically update your .htaccess file if it has the appropriate file permissions. If WordPress can’t write to your .htaccess file, it will display the new rewrite rules to you, which you should manually copy into your .htaccess file (in the same directory as the main index.php file.)

I’ll assume you have chosen and registered a name for your blog, and you have decided to go the WordPress route. Now let the fun begin.

You have, of course, read dozens of blogs before you decided to start your own, right? And you have admired a lot of these blogs for their excellent design, right? Well, you too can have a design worth noting, and you can have it for free.

Finding a good theme

1. You can always start by googling “free wordpress themes” and viewing the results.
2. My best place, though, is here, where there are thousands of free themes to look through. There is an excellent search facility, to help you narrow down the options.
3. Visit some of your favourite blogs and check if they have released a free theme. Plenty of bloggers do, because it is an excellent way to market themselves. For instance, CopyBlogger has a truly excellent theme for download.

What to look for in a theme
First, you must know whether you are going to have ads and adsense on your blog. If the answer is yes, you must be careful in your theme choice, because only certain styles work effectively.
If you are going to monatize your blog, I suggest you choose a three column theme (Like this blog), so you can keep your ads and navigation tools more visible. There is also a strong suggestion that ads should be placed on the same color background as the rest of your content, so that they seem to merge more with your blog.

If you are not thinking of monetizing your blog, then you have far more options. In fact, your best bet is to visit here and start browsing and downloading.

Downloading themes
You can download as many themes as you like, and you can also store as many themes as space allows on your server. Swapping between themes is easy (and fun) so don’t be afraid that any choice you make today is a permanent commitment!

1. Download all your themes into a specific folder on your computer (I use wordpress_themes). That way, you will always have them in one place when you decide to start another blog etc. If the themes are in .zip format, unzip them into this folder.
2. Using your FTP client (ask your webhost which one they recommend if you are new to this) upload your themes into the wordpress/wp_content/themes folder. You can have as many themes in that folder as you like.
3. Once all your themes are uploaded, visit your WordPress admin page. Go to Presentation>Themes. You should see a visual representation of all your chosen themes, including the two that came with WordPress.
4. Click on any theme to have it INSTANTLY applied to your blog.
5. View your blog, and see if you like the new theme. If not, repeat the process until you are thrilled with the result.

Some pointers:
All themes can be modified using the Theme editor. If you are familiar with CSS and PHP , this should not be a problem. If you are not familiar with CSS, now would be a fun time to start.

Even though you can change themes at your wish, remember that any specific tweaking you make to the theme code pages do not carry over into the new theme. For instance, even though all your posts and pages will carry over, if you adjusted your sidebar.php page to include your photograph, you will have to place that photograph manually into your new theme.

It is a good and honest practice to keep the design credits of the theme’s designer untouched when you use a theme.

You can find much more information on themes on WordPress official help pages.

Once you have decided that you definitely, absolutely want to start writing a blog, there are still some questions you need to answer before you dive right in. These questions will help you formulate your Blogging Manifesto. A Blogging Manifesto is a small contract with yourself to keep you focused, committed and motivated.

1. What is my blog about?
2. OK, but what is it really about.
3. Hmm, can I be more specific?
4. How much time am I going to devote to this blog every day/week?
5. What is the reason behind starting the blog?
6. What will be the major source(s) of your content
7. Will my blog be anonymous?
8. What is my goal with this blog?

What is your blog about?
For example, the answer to the first question might be

“I am writing about the upcoming summer olympics.”

But what about them? Are you writing about the venue, the athletes, the sponsors, the viewers? Trust me, you cannot cover it all, and it wouldn’t be wise to try.

So, after some thought, you might narrow your topic down to

“I am writing about how the US athletes are preparing for the Summer olympics”

That’s the answer to question number two. Now let’s try again.

There are dozens of disciplines in the Olympics, and covering them all would be a daunting task. Plus, your readers are unlikely to be interested in every sport anyway. So what drives YOU? By now, you might decide that you are actually writing about

“How US gymnasts are preparing for the upcoming Olympics in Beijing”.

Much better.

Now, not only do you know what your focus is, but you also know who your audience is. Once you find other people who are interested in the above topic, provided your content is excellent, you should have no problem adding them to your reader list.

Now is also the time to take an honest view of whether you are qualified to write on your chosen topic. My approach to this blog is a good example: I could easily make this blog not just about how to start blogging, but also about how to make money from blogging. But I am still learning about how to monatize a blog well, and until I am confident that I can pass onto my readers something that is unique or learnt from personal experience, I choose not to write about it. At least not yet!

Time.
You should not feel pressured to blog multiple times per day, unless your blog topic is so timeous that it requires that level of input. You should also not post less than two to three times per week, to allow for consistency and growth of audience.
And you should write at least ten good posts before you start to market your blog.

Reason for writing
Now we are getting down to the nitty gritty. Are you doing this for fun? Do you want to draw attention to a topic? Do you want to market yourself? Do you want to quit your day job and rake in the money? All of these are valid reasons (yes, even the last one), but they all require a different approach to marketing and writing. It is important that you know why you are doing this, so that you can do your work justice. By the way, writing for pure ego is also OK!

Sources
This need not be written down in stone, but it is a good idea to think about where inspiration will come from once you have depleted the ideas that are in your head right now. There are various ways to fill in the blanks when you hit bloggers block, but for your pillar posts you need good sources or excellent personal thoughts based on experience.

Anonymity
At first you might be surprised at how many really are. After all, isn’t the point of blogging to boost the ego? Not always. Depending on your day job, your employer or your topic you might decide that at least for now, it is better to remain invisible. I suggest that you even if you do decide to go this route, that you at least give your first name, so that readers can put some sort of identity behind your blog. By the way, my name is Eve.

Striving to a goal
It is a good idea to set yourself realistic targets, so that you can monitor the success of your venture. You can set a goal of a specific number of readers, a range of ranking, money made per month etc. This goal should be flexible, as you need to be responsive with your expectations according to how well you market your blog.
Do not make your goals unrealistic, and remember that most number-driven goals rise exponentially. In other words, it is far more difficult to reach your first 1000 readers than it is to reach your next 1000 readers. (Kind of like making your first and second million!)

Now you are ready to create your Blog manifesto, which is a contract between you and you, regarding your blog. (Fill in the blanks)

I (your name) am responsible for (blog’s name). This blog is about ( enter blog topic) and is targeted to (describe your ideal audience). I started this blog (enter reason).
I will make new postings (write in your frequency of postings) and will add at least (enter number) pillar posts every (enter time frame).
My main sources of information for this blog will come from ( enter valid sources).
I will monitor the success of my blog regularly, but not osessively. My immediate next goal for this blog is (enter your goal).

Type this up, print it out, and leave it where you can look at it every day. It should keep you motivated and focussed.

Good luck!