Effective Methods To Start Blogging

Written by Owen Jones Saturday, 23 April 2011 13:38

Everybody has something to say and most people are passionate about something that they would like to talk about. Individuals would like to take this desire to talk a couple of stages further - they would like to tell the world about it. That was impossible less that twenty years ago, unless you managed to be on TV or were syndicated in the world's press. Now, of course, anyone can do it.

Everybody has something to say and most people are passionate about something that they would like to talk about. Individuals would like to take this desire to talk a couple of stages further - they would like to tell the world about it. That was impossible less that twenty years ago, unless you managed to be on TV or were syndicated in the world's press. Now, of course, anyone can do it.

The Internet makes it possible for everyone to have their say. The young and the old, the rich and the poor can discuss what they like on the Net. You can use a website as your soap box or you could use a specialized website called a blog. If you cannot have your own website for any reason, you could open a free blog at one of the many web sites that offer free blogs.

The word 'blog' is short for 'web log' and adding an piece to your blog is called blogging. Blogs have become a very effective means of spreading one's point of view. The latest form of blogging is micro-blogging, which is the generic description for Twitter.

Blogging has been used successfully by peoples of countries where the provision of human rights is not a government priority. Only recently, dissidents in Iran, Iraq and Myanmar have kept the world up-to-date about repression in their countries through blogs. The blogs were often reprinted in the world press and reported on the International news.

If you want to blog for free, search Google for 'free blogs' and take a look about. There are dozens of free blog sites around and they all offer different features. Blogger by Google is one of the better ones, but there really are loads of different types of free blogs.

One thought is whether you would like your blog to be open or closed. That is, do you want anyone to be able to read it or do you want only a closed user group (CUG), which could be your friends, your family or your colleagues.

It should not take longer that thirty minutes to set up your blog. Some providers want to approve new blogs, but others do not. You could be blogging within the hour, so compose an article welcoming people to your blog and post it to the blog. Make it 'sticky' if you can, so that it is always the first post that people read when they arrive at your blog.

Make your posts informative and attempt to keep them topical. They should neither be so short that it is not worth coming to read them nor so long that they get boring - 400 to 500 is judged to be about right.

You will have to advertise your blog or no-one will know that it is there. Do this by posting your articles (with your blog address attached) to a couple of article directories. It is free and will give your blog a real boost in circulation. You can give up doing this when your blog is self-sustaining.

Allow all visitors to make comments on the blog, because it encourages people to come back, but check frequently for spam comments and delete them because a blog full of spam looks neglected.