CT Biz Blogs

The great thing about blogging is that it’s much easier to create a blog than it is to create a web site. You can start a blog for very little money; your biggest investment will be time. And, especially at first, you don’t have to spend more than a few hours a week on your blog.

This is an overview of the things you’ll need to start blogging.

1. A blog hosting platform. In order for your blog to be “on the internet,” you’ll need to find a blog hosting platform, or a web service provider, who will host the pages of your blog on their computers. These computers run special software called web servers which manage the delivery of web pages upon requests from web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. I’ve written a bit about blog hosting platforms in What are some of the ways to create a blog and How to create a blog on Blogger. I’ll be writing more – this is a big subject.

 

2. A name for your blog. Signs Never Sleep” is one of the best ones I’ve come across. It’s clever, but not too clever – you know it’s going to be about signs somehow! You want a name that reflects what your business is, without ambiguity.

 

 

3. A web address for your blog. If you’re serious about your blog, you need your own domain as soon as possible. This will give you stability and credibility. Stability, because, if you decide to host your blog elsewhere, you take your address with you. It never changes, no matter what computer of whose hosting service your blog is on. If you’ve got a web hosting service where your blog is housed, then you’ll need your own domain as a matter of course. 

Credibility, because, well, Jakob Nielsen, web design and usability guru says it best in Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Mistake #10): http://useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html

Letting somebody else own your name means that they own your destiny on the Internet. They can degrade the service quality as much as they want. They can increase the price as much as they want. They can add atop your content as many pop-ups, blinking banners, or other user-repelling advertising techniques as they want. They can promote your competitor’s offers on your pages. Yes, you can walk, but at the cost of your loyal readers, links you’ve attracted from other sites, and your search engine ranking.

This is important. Your blog is part of your business marketing strategy. You need to have consistent branding and as much control as you can afford. You can have your own domain, even if you have a blog on Blogger. It costs about $8 a year to have your domain name. I’ll write more about that in the future; remind me if I don’t.

4. Some ideas on what to post about. You don’t have to write full-blown articles, unless you really want to. Andrew Ewalt does, for example. But some blogs are much more anecdotal and informal, such as The Soap Blog. It all depends on what you want to do.

 

 

5. Some notion of what other bloggers are saying. You can’t blog in a vacuum. There’s already a blogging community (the blogosphere), and already informal rules of etiquette. The best way to learn about them is to read blogs. And the best way to participate is to comment on other blogs. It’ll help establish your reputation.

 

I could write more about each one of these points; in fact, it was hard not to. But I don’t want to overwhelm you if you’re new to blogging. This post is long enough. I’ll elaborate and expand in future posts. Feel free to ask questions, talk among yourselves, and stay tuned.