5 Tips for a newbie blogger

1. Dont Sweat The Details.

Starting a blog is a complicated process. You need to consider things like editability, usability, interface issues, search engine optimisation, customisation ability/cost/ease, database efficiencies, and the psychological impact of the colours you use. All of these things are really really important to set up a professional, findable blog, with enough traffic to generate profit, or social impact. And almost all of them dont mean a thing to somebody just getting started.

All of the major providers of free blogs are easy to use, prompt you along the way, and help you get started with a minimum of fuss. If your goals are modest, then all of the popular solutions with more than satisfy them, and allow you the space to grow into something bigger and better in the future if you so decide. So dont worry, its really really hard to make a mistake.

some ways to not make mistakes:
blogspot

wordpress


2. Understand what you are trying to achieve.


Making a decision about anything is about trying to create a particular outcome. But you cant create an outcome, if you don't know what you want it to be! The goal of this particular blog for example, is to provide a vehicle to present assigned work and reflections of an online learning unit. In this case, I have not created the blog on my existing host, as a domain name is unimportant, I haven't created any custom graphics, as the artwork isn't important in generating page views. If my goals for the blog were different, I would certainly have made different choices to achieve them.

blogging about blogging, and setting goals.

3. Have some fun!


M0st blogs are filled with half thought out, self serving, drivel. Why? because its fun! it can serve as a release, an act of emotional or artistic expression, and if nobody cares what you have to say, they probably wont read it anyway! In the concept of net 11, the focus and cause of this blog, there is a somewhat limited scope for drivel, however, that doesn't mean that my other blogs aren't...

4. Add Bling to your Blog: experiment with layout and widgets.


Once you have the basic mechanics of posting and setup sorted, the layout/design settings of most blogging software is a fun place to spend a couple of hours (or months). Blogging software has options for all sorts of different layout methods, options (such as adding advertising, or rotations of your media from other sites such as youtube or flickr). Once you feel that the options provided to you by free solutions are limiting what you can achieve design wise, its time to move to your own hosting/domain.

a guide to common widgets

5. Understand the power of RSS

The best way to understand how blogs work is to read blogs. RSS readers are built into most mainstream browsers, and allow you to "subscribe" to a blog, or other web content. If you find a blog that you enjoy, hit the subscribe button, and you will be updated with all the headlines from the blogs you have subscribed to. Encourage your blog readers to do the same, and your blog will start feeding, and being consumed by others. Exploring blogroll options is a great way to generate back links to your site.

a great intro to RSS