New Bloggers Guide: Blogging 101
By Luvvie of AwesomelyLuvvie.com
What do People Blog About?
Beauty
Politics
Technology
Entertainment
Personal life
Health/Fitness
Science
EVERYTHING!
The 10 Blogging Commandments
I. Thou Shalt Decide On a Platform That Is Right For You
Blogger
Easy and fast to setup
FREE!
Yourdomain.blogspot.com
Wordpress (.org)
Free but hosting costs
Super customizable
Full website capability
Like buying a house as opposed to renting (Blogger)
II. Thou Shalt Not Have Awful Design
What’s Awful?
Crazy colors
Lots of clutter
Glitter and sparkle
Most MySpace pages
III. Thou Shalt Make Site Easy To Remember
supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.wordpress.com
= FAIL
Buy A Custom URL
Instead of yoururl.blogspot.com, just yoururl.com
Great branding
Shows commitment to site
Less characters people have to type
IV. Thou Shalt Measure and Track Traffic
Google Analytics
www.google.com/analytics
Clicky
www.getclicky.com
Google Analytics vs. Clicky
Google Analytics
• FREE!
• Shows traffic, pageviews, and
referring sites
• Updates every 24 hours
• Doesn’t count traffic from people who
don’t allow cookies on their browsers
Clicky
• Free for basic account but one can
upgrade
• Shows traffic, pageviews, and
referring sites
• Updates in real-time. Shows amount
of people CURRENTLY on site
• Counts everyone
Use both! G-analytics is great for overall look. Clicky
is great for those who need constant updates.
V. Thou Shalt Make Content Easy To Receive
RSS FeedsAllow people to subscribe to your blog to receive via their Reader of choice or
email.
VI. Thou Shalt Promote Thine Blog
Make Your Site Visible
Twitter, Facebook etc.
Comment on other blogs
Guest post
VII. Thou Shalt Have Good Content
Be...
ONE of these. Or more:
INTERESTING!
Useful
Informative
Funny
Current
VIII. Thou Shalt Engage Thine Readers
Create Conversation
When readers comment, REPLY.
Leave blogs open-ended (ask questions)
IX. Thou Shalt Show Love to Other Bloggers
Share Your Space
Link to others bloggers in posts
Create a blogroll
Accept guest posters sometimes
X. Thou Shalt Write In Your OWN Voice
Have Muses But Don’t Duplicate
Imitation can flatter, but it can also be plagiarism
Be Authentic
Blog what you know
Give credit when it’s due
“To thine own blog be true!”