There are millions of blogs in the world and everyday thousands of new blogs are born. It is not that all the people join in the venture with money in their mind. However, I have to say that a significant portion of people who come to this field has something special in their mind. They want to be successful. Yes, many people are looking for money or else you would not find so many blogs on earning money. You would not find so many spam blogs whose only focus is to bring money with spamming. Of course, many people just love to share their thoughts.
What is a Successful Blog?
How can you define success in blogging? Money is an important factor- no doubt about that. The bloggers who earn full time income have become celebrity in Internet. As for me, I count blogging success with the following factors:
Huge Traffic
Large Number of Feedburner Readers
Many Comments
Google Page Rank
Many back links accord to Google
I guess that most of bloggers would agree with my idea of a successful blog. If you have these things then naturally, your blog will have good revenue.
Most of us dream to be successful in anything we do. The same goes for blogging. If you are not interested to make your blog a successful one then may be you can ignore reading the rest of this entry.
Anyway, in this entry, I am going to tell about the initial stage or setting up a blog in the right way so that it can become successful over the course of time.
First Read Some Ebooks before you start blogging
One of the best things about blogging is that you can find a lot of useful content for reading. I would suggest that you read some of them. I would suggest you to go here for this:
Here, you can find a list of 26 ebooks and the entry has provided links to download them at free of cost. My favorite is Who's There? By Seth Godin. So, if you do not have enough time then you can just go through the book of Seth Godin. This has given me an idea to write an ebook for new bloggers.
Blogspot, Blogspot Custom Domain, WordPress, Self Hosted WordPress
If you have no idea about them then no problem. They are just blogging platforms. Most people prefer Self Hosted WordPress blogs but I like Custom Domain with Blogspot/Blogger hosting from Google because it is quite affordable. All you need is just buying a domain and it costs only $10 per year (less than $1 per month). In fact, Blogger requires hardly any knowledge of technology and web design. WordPress is a bit more difficult but you can customize it almost anyway you like. Anyway, just remember that you cannot put advertisements in free version of WordPress but you can do that in free version of Blogspot.
I hope to write about them in the coming days. So, come to this blog regularly.
Your First Few Posts
In your first post, you should write an introduction about yourself. Many visitors would like to know about you as long as the blog exists. You do not need to give too many private details but you should write some information about your background. You should also write about the blog- what will be the blog about, what the readers can expect to have etc. You can also put a page for contacting you.
The Real First Posts
Now comes the real posts about the topic of your blog. Just remember that at first it is very difficult attract visitors to your blog. When your blog gets older and richer with more entries then you will regular get some visitors through Search Engines like Google. So, I would suggest that at first if needed post less frequently but try to post quality content. At least give decent of time and effort for your first few entries.
Sitemeter and Google Analytics
I am a fan of Sitemeter and Google Analytics. You should open your accounts there and both of them are free. They would give you all kind of information about your visitors and this information will be helpful for you each and every day of your blogging life.
Technorati Profile
Technorati is perhaps the most popular search engine for blogs. It tracks millions of blogs and inform you about the other bloggers are linking to your blog. Opening an account in Technorati is free and it should not take more than 10 minutes.
Feedburner
Feedburner is very helpful for the readers. If anyone wants to keep track of your entries in a Feed Reader or from their emails then they can do it through Feedburner. Feedburner is also free and if you have a Google account then just sign in with your Google account and it would not take much time. By the way, put your Feedburner subscription links in a place that people can notice well. For example, in this blog, I have put in right column and thus, it can be noticed easily by most visitors.
Membership in Social Bookmarking Sites
If you are a user in Internet then you must have heard about Social Bookrmarking Sites like Digg, Reddit, Stumble Upon etc. You should become member in these social bookmarking sites. However, remember that it is time consuming. For saving time, you can go to SocialMarker.com and it will really save you time. Social Bookmarking sites will help you to promote your content to a wider audience.
A few words about Advertising
I am all for earning money through advertisements. However, I feel that you should not put advertisements in your blog from day one. First upload some content and get some visitors so that it becomes easier for you to get some regular visitors. Then, put the ad codes.
I hope that this entry will help you to kick start a successful blog.
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