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So you want to learn how to start a blog. That's great news, a blog can be a useful tool and used for a number of different things. First, if you do not know what a blog is we will teach you so do not worry we will break it down for you. Today in 2018 there are plenty of different blog platforms that you can use to get your blog started for free or paid. We will suggest some platforms that you may or may not already be familiar with. Starting a blog can be frustrating when you do not understand exactly what it is and how you are supposed to be using it.
A blog is basically a journal. You discuss whats going on with your life or business on a daily basis. You also share whats going on in the world or within your industry or niche. Here is the definition of a blog.
Blog (noun) - a diary or journal that is on the internet.
In the begging, it was just people talking about their day to day activities then businesses started using it and it became a great tool to use for making money on the internet. Today you will see everything being blogged about. Suff like sports or new technology that is coming out, how were certain events etc. Today there are a lot of work from home people that blog about family life and the products that they use or maybe couponing etc. It can be something as simple as where to find the best weekly sales.
You definitely should. It's a great way to talk about things you want to talk about with people that would like to enjoy listening. When I talk to some of my friends about analytics and keywords etc they look at me crazy. It would be a lot better for others that are doing the exact same thing I'm doing and can give me some input about ways they may have done something before. You can also use a blog to make money. Be sure to check out the highlighted link. We tell you how you can use your blog to make money.
If you are a business you should definitely already be blogging. With a blog, you can gain more exposure for your business. You can use your blog to update customers with basic information. You can use it to let customers know and see your day to day activities. Also, a great way to build content on your website. If you didn't know already search engines love content, especially new content. This may help your website get seen by more people and in return mean more customers. You can also give your customers how to tutorials. Help them with faq and break it down into a blog post. Then when a customer asks you a question about something you can email them a link to your blog post.
So the answer is yes. You should definitely start a blog.
For us choosing a niche is easy. We have a t-shirt printing business. So some of our customers are graphic designers or artist. Some are creative families that love having cool matching custom t-shirts. Some are sports teams members. A lot of our customers are business owners and entrepreneurs. So we can always blog about things that our customers may be interested.
If you do not have a business then you can blog about whats important to you. If you talk about something that you enjoy, blogging will become that much more delightful. You may start to catching yourself self-thing about your blog and audience all the time. You can blog about something that you went to school for. You can blog about your military experience or traveling experience. You want your blog to be somewhere people can come to have fun reading your stories or learning something about your or your business.
I definitely recommend building your social media audience first. It will make it that much easier to get your blog started. You'll be able to jump right into blogging with comments and feedback that you can respond to. It will be a lot easier to get your followers from social media than a search engine. Today you have a variety of different social media apps and websites to choose from. Facebook is very popular along with Twitter and Instagram. You also have others like Tumbler, google+, myspace, Snapchat, and Linkin. Tumbler is not only a social media site but also a popular free blogging platform. Learn how to promote your Instagram.
As you can see there are multiple platforms to choose from. You can also have a static website with a blog feature added to a template or extension. Wordpress is definitely the most popular and free blogging platform to choose from. They also offer many add-ons and themes to choose from. For a blog, I definitely recommend this platform. Majority of the others are also free but some with upgrade plans. The difference is that while all have independent hosting you may want to set up WordPress professionally on your own server. That means you may need to get a good and cheap hosting account. Some of the hosting services I am familiar with is Godaddy, Hostgator, Bluehost, a2hosting, and in motion hosting. Most offer the same services. You will want to make sure your hosting offers a managed Cpanel. Especially if you a beginner. If you plan on making ad money etc definitely go with a host and WordPress.
Sometimes when you start a new hosting account they will give you a free domain for the year. I recommend reading our post explaining how to choose a website name. Your domain name is important because its how everyone will find you on the internet. Spend some time thinking what you will want to call it because it is not something that you will want to try and change later on down the line. The good thing about choosing WordPress is that there is a lot of tutorials to choose from and a lot of people that can easily make changes to your website just in case you run into trouble.
Seo is very important if you want to be found on yahoo, bing or google. Google loves content so you are on the right start but they also like things categorized. When I say that I mean they want your photos to be tagged and named correctly they want your pages to have the correct titles, tags, and descriptions. Learning Seo can seem like an all day and everyday job so its best to just follow the basics.
You will want to keep your blog updated at least every week. I recommend blogging multiple times a day. It keeps your followers entertained. Search engines love content. It shows them that your website is still alive and ticking. Make sure your blog post is at least 300 words and you include pictures in your post. You want to give your viewers something besides words to look at. If you run out things to talk about just look on social media and see what others are asking or already talking about. Well, that's it for now. I wish you luck with your new blog.
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