- Share This Post
- 19
- submit
- 11
-
Sparkle (2)
Over the last few months, I've had several calls and emails from people who were interested in starting their own blogs, asking me if I had any tips for someone who was just starting out. Most recently, a friend asked me for some advice via email, and two days ago, I sent a horrifyingly long (and very likely incredibly overwhelming) tome in response, containing my initial thoughts on things to consider when starting a blog.
It is entirely possible that I'm a little too passionate about blogging.
Anyway, on the off-chance some of you out there are toying with the idea of starting your own blog, I thought I'd share my thoughts here. Incidentally, while I certainly don't begrudge anyone who wants to make money on their blogs (because, well, I do), the advice I give here is intended for someone who is starting a blog because they feel they have something to say that they want a wider audience to read. Obviously, there are private blogs out there, or blogs intended for only immediate family and friends; but this advice is for someone who has a passion around a certain subject and loves to write. The monetization/branding thing is a whole separate topic, I think, and not one that I intend to address in any way here.
So! On with the show.
First of all, consider your purpose. From my perspective, I think the best blogs are written by people who have a distinct purpose for writing their blogs. For example, if you're thinking about starting a food blog, it makes sense to flesh out the type of food blog you're thinking about writing: do you want this to just be a personal archive of your favorite recipes? Do you want to make this a place merely for friends and family? Do you want this to be a huge blog that has lots of followers? Will you do restaurant reviews? Will you feature gourmet food? Ethnic food? Good home cooking? Similarly, if you intend to merely blog about your life, you can dig a little deeper: will it be an advice blog for people who are similarly situated? Will it be a humor blog, where you wryly note the funny things that happen in your life? A spiritual blog? A photo blog?
In other words, it can be good to have an idea of where you'd like this blogging venture to go from the start -- although, to be perfectly frank, the way I blog now is far different from how I started, as a new mom blogger. In any event, while chances are likely that your blog will morph and evolve over time, it sometimes helps to have an overall vision in mind that you can tweak as you go along.
Ultimately, however, it's a good idea to write about something you're passionate about, as opposed to something you just think "the world needs." Like, you might think that there aren't enough blogs out there talking about natural hair dyes (as a completely random example), but unless you're really passionate about natural hair dyes, I'd recommend thinking about another subject. The best blogs to read are the ones written by people who you can tell loved writing every word -- and if you're not passionate about your subject (or you don't love to write, for that matter), your blog will fall by the wayside, anyway.
Secondly, on considering blogging platforms: There are lots of different "platforms," or online blogging applications out there that are really awesome. For the very simple and very clean (but really allow for limited customization), there's Posterous.com and Tumblr.com -- these are quick-and-dirty platforms that are free, very easy to use, but allow for very limited customization of design. I actually use Posterous as a place to dump the photographs with my iPhone -- you can see it here.
For more in-depth and customizable ones, you might want to consider Typepad.com, Blogger.com, Wordpress.com (and lately, Wordpress seems to be getting a lot of ... well, press). In order to customize them, you may have to pay a fee -- but they are surprisingly inexpensive, and generally very easy to use -- if you can use Microsoft Word and most email applications, you can use these blogging platforms. I started with Typepad, and it
