How to blog and what are some tips to blogging. This is one of the most often asked questions, that are asked in groups on LinkedIn or some of the other forum boards and of course, everyone has an opinion.
If you have been meaning to ask this question, let’s answer some questions here.
First of all, a blog to me is like a client magnet – when you share your expertise through blogging (writing posts) – writing articles, giving tips or just sharing your experiences soon you will begin to have a following. Your followers will start to leave comments, share their stories and suggestions. To me, a blog is the HUB for all your social media activities, it is from here that you start your Social Buzz.
Some people may want to consider using Facebook as a place to blog, I personally don’t recommend it as you are building traffic for FaceBook, not for yourself. Yes, share your blog posts on Facebook by all means.
Share your blog posts in as many places as you can..
When you are setting up your blog, I recommend using a service provider so that you are self-hosting your site. With companies like BlueHost, GreenGeeks or DreamHost these are very reputable service providers. You want to be sure that you can access customer service when you are stuck. There will be a learning curve, however, you will be better for it.
Even if you hand over your site to a website developer to create for you and then you are going to manage it yourself, you will want to still have a company that you can ask help from. There is nothing worse than having someone in total control of your site that you need to go through all the time unless you really don’t want to know how to manage it yourself. There have been some horror stories.
It’s not any different that when you buy a car, you need to consider it has an engine, what kind, and who can you go to when you need help if it fails, or when something is broken? As a driver of your car, you need to at least know and understand how it all works.
Pick WordPress only because it is easy to use, it’s a free platform..it’s the software that supports your blog. Then you will want to get a theme. The theme is the part that makes your site pretty. A template it’s called sometimes. I recommend that you get a paid theme, because once again you will get some support to help you when you get stuck. Most themes these days that are FREE, are like having a trial version, they only work to a certain point and of course no support.
When I started out I used Thesis, now there are many many themes. Now I use Kadence Themes only $45. and they have a forum.
A basic blog is about 5 pages – you will need a home – which is your blog posts, an About page (who are you what do you offer) products/services, a media/news page, some people have a page as a landing page or squeeze page. More on this later.
When you blog, you will want to share information and write to your audience. What do you readers want to know more information about? Who are they? Pick a niche and write to them. What are their challenges, what pain can you solve for them and what solutions are they seeking? You can just ask them. Of if they are an audience that you know about because you’ve been there, then it will be easy to come up with some posts.
How often should you blog? It used to be to develop your audience it could be every day, however, as time goes on you will not be able to keep up with this schedule. I would say at least 2x a week. There are several ways you can cover this to work for you.
This ought to get you started..if you got any ideas or comments that you would like to share..post in the comment section.
P.S. I’ll share more tips about blogging. What would you like to know?
