Effective Methods To Start Blogging

Written by Owen Jones Tuesday, 19 April 2011 09:00

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

The word 'blog' is short for 'web log' and adding an article to your blog is known as blogging. Blogs have become a very effective way 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 effectively by inhabitants of countries where the provision of human rights is not a government priority. Just 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 around. There are dozens of free blog sites about and they all offer different features. Blogger by Google is one of the better ones, but there really are loads of different kinds of free blogs.

One consideration 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 just a closed user group (CUG), which could be your friends, your family or your colleagues.

It ought to 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.

Permit all visitors to leave comments on the blog, because it encourages them to come back, but check regularly for spam comments and delete them because a blog full of spam looks neglected.