Blogging Basics Guide
My name is John, and I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to my blog. Thank you for taking the time to visit our website. In this episode, I like to share with you, "A Blogging Basics Guide"
I'm a manager at La Vie Nail Spa in Durham, North Carolina. Right now I'm learning how to write a blog, and I'm very excited to share my journey with everyone. I have read many article about blogging, and I would like to share with you the basics that I've learned. Even if you've been blogging for a while, you'll find some good ideas and tips here, but this guide is best for people who are just starting out. This is a guide for people who don't know much about blogging or don't know where to begin. This is a great way to get started with your blog, whether you want it to be your business, advertise your services, or just tell the world about your life. This basic guide will help you about five things: the platforms you can use to set up your blog, the design of your blog, the pages you should add to your site, social media, and making great content. For this guide, I will try to help you set up the framework for your fancy new blog, so that when you're ready to start it, you'll know where to go. Each part of the guide, I will have a small task for you to do, and at the end, you'll have an outline you can use when you're ready to start blogging. Now that you're ready, go to the first lesson to get started.
Blogging Platforms
I'll talk about some of the platforms you can use to set up your blog. In fact, there are a lot of choices. Just go to Google and type "blog platform" to see for yourself. I'll focus on four that I think have the most potential and that I've used a lot myself: WordPress.com, Tumblr, WordPress.org, and Squarespace.
Both Wordpress.com and Tumblr are free and very easy to set up. You sign up, choose a theme from a list, and you're mostly ready to go in less than five minutes. Both WordPress and Tumblr have great communities, so it's easier to connect with others and be found by other WordPress or Tumblr users without putting so much effort into things like SEO or a big social media strategy.
There are bad things about both of these choices. First, there isn't much room to change things. If you want to have full control over how your site looks and feels, you might be disappointed by these options because you don't have much say. You can pay extra for some features that give you more freedom, but that quickly adds up to more than a self-hosted site would cost. Also, if you want to make money from your site or the products you sell, it's hard to monetize them.
You can't put ads on your site, and you can't change it much, so it doesn't look very professional. But the worst thing about both WordPress.com and Tumblr is that, according to their user agreements, your site could be shut down at any time. This is scary to think about after years of blogging that you invested your time. If all you want is your own little corner of the Internet where you can tell your family about your trips abroad or share funny GIFs, you may not need to look any further than the options I just listed. If, on the other hand, you think you might want to turn your blog into a business or make it a part of your business, you should look into self-hosting and using something like WordPress.org or Squarespace.
This sounds pretty scary, for sure. It scared me a lot at first, but I can tell you it's not nearly as hard as it sounds. But if you don't know much about computers, you might want to hire someone or try to bribe someone you know with wine and chocolate to help you set up. WordPress is like a Disney World of possibilities once you get past the start-up costs and slight learning curve. I have tried WordPress before but right now I am on SquareSpace.
Also, there are a lot of online resources to help you manage your site if you run into problems. Squarespace is more of a one-stop shop, where you buy a package that includes hosting and the Squarespace service. Even though wordpress.org doesn't have as many customization options as wordpress.com, it's much easier to make a site that looks great even if you don't know much about building websites. So, it's great for websites but not so great for blogs, depending on what kind of blog you want. This is why wordpress.org is the best option for bloggers. This also means that there are less Squarespace tutorials, troubleshooting guides, and other resources out there, as well as fewer experienced professionals you can hire to work on your site. When I first started my site, john-duong.com, I used wordpress.com. To be honest, I didn't even know that wordpress.org was an option.
After blogging for couple years, I became really interested in making money and making my site look different by using a different theme. With help from YouTube and SkillShare, I was finally have the courage to switch to SquareSpace and start a new journey to write blog in English instead of my usual language, Vietnamese. I knew what I wanted to accomplish with my blog, and my only regret is that I didn't listen to myself and switch sooner. I really like the simplicity of SquareSpace.
Write down the goals you have for your blog. What do you need your site to be able to do? After you've thought about this, and ask yourself if there's a blogging platform that you think gives you what you need. You don't have to sign up for anything right now, but you should think about which one you're most interested in using. After you've done that, you can continue to the next part.
Blog Design
I'll tell you a little bit about how your blog is set up. Now, I'm not a web designer, so I'm not going to tell you how to put themes on your site. There are already some great SkillShare classes for that.
Overall, the most important thing to do is to make sure that your blog is easy to use. Think about what you want people to find and how they should find it on your site. They shouldn't have to look very hard to find what they want. One important part of this is making sure your visitors don't get too confused by giving them too many choices, like putting a lot of information in your header or having a lot of ads or different color schemes. They might get bored and close your tab, never coming back to read your amazing posts again.
Make sure the important parts of your blog are easy to find and clearly labeled. Think about what it is that you want people to find on your site and how they should find it. They shouldn't have to search very hard to find what it is that they're looking for. Remember, show them the way and help them along the way. If you use your blog to legitimize your massage business, for example, it would be better to call the page that lists your services "Services" or "Book a massage" instead of "Let me touch you." Obviously, that is a terrible example I made up. I think you get the point, though. Ask someone who has never seen your site before or someone who isn't as good with computers, like a parent or grandparent, to look at it. This is a great way to see if it works. Can they find what they're looking for?
If not, what can you do to help them? Of course, use pictures to your advantage, especially in posts. People are visual creatures, so good photos that break up the text will keep them scrolling. No matter what design you choose, it should be easy to use. Most bloggers use a clean and simple layout. With something like this, it can feel a little harder to stand out from the crowd. It is an undeniably attractive look. It's used by bloggers because people like it. It's easy to understand and simple.
You, on the other hand, should just pick a style that works for you. It's important that the design you choose connects with your readers and lets them know what your blog is all about. Look at what other bloggers have written to get ideas. In fact, I think you should look at other blogs that have similar messages to yours all the time. I read so many technology & motivation blogs that I've lost track of how many I follow. They give me a lot of ideas and inspiration.
It's important to know what's going on and to know people. Use Pinterest, or even Google to find 10 blogs with similar interests to yours or the one you'd like to have. Choose 3–5 blogs whose designs you like use.
The Pages for Your Blog
Let talk about what pages you might want to add to your website. I'm going to focus on four of them, along with any other pages that are important for your blog. These include a page for new visitors, a "about" page, a "contact" page, and an easy way for readers to get to your archives. When people visit your site for the first time, you can make it even better by giving them a page just for them. This is the perfect place to tell them more about what they will see on your site, how often you post, what kinds of posts you post, and so on. It's also a great place to add a call to action, which is basically a task for people who are interested in what you have to say. You can say something like, "If you like what you're reading, sign up for my newsletter here" or "Check out my YouTube channel for more fun stuff." This is a great way to build your community with visitors who fall in love with your content. Your "About" page will be one of the most-read pages on your site. When I read a great post from a new blogger, I'm always a little interested in learning more about them. Put a picture of yourself and a little bit about yourself on your "About" page. There's no need for it to be formal. It's better to have fun with it, just be you.
Focus on your interests and why you have this blog. You can also include a call to action here, like "find me on social media so we can be friends." How will someone who visits your site and wants to talk to you do so? This should be clear through your blog's social media icons, contact page, or both. I'm not a fan of contact forms, and I'd much rather see an email address listed. However, you can put on your site whatever you feel most comfortable with. Last, I can't believe how many blogs I visit where it's hard to get to all of their old posts. Make it easy for people to find your old blog posts. If they like what they see in one of your recent posts, they'll probably want to find more like it, so make it easy for them to find similar posts or look through everything on your site. For example, if you write a lot about beauty, fashion, and movies, make it easy for people to find those kinds of posts by tagging them when you write them or putting them in different categories. You should start a draft of your "About Me" page. I chose this for you to work on because, to be honest, it's hard to write about yourself like it did for me. If what you write changes in the future, that's fine. But if we start now, it will be easier to make changes in the future. When writing your About page, think about your passion(s) and the parts of your life that led you to what you're doing now. Why you like to do X, Y, or Z, and some funny things about yourself. As soon as you have a draft, continue on to the next part.
Social Media
As a blogger, you have to spend a lot of time on social media. It's a way to get your work out there, find new ideas, and connect with other bloggers or people in your field. It can also become too much very quickly. There's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Periscope, and who knows what else will come out in the near future.
There's a lot to keep track of. You shouldn't try to keep up. That's right. Focusing on one to three social media channels and doing them really well is much better than trying to do them all badly. Think about the kind of people you want to reach to figure out which social media platform to use. How old are they? How do they find out about new things? What do they enjoy doing, and what do they find hard? How do they find blogs to read? From there, give each platform a little thought. Instagram is a great place to share beautiful photos, but image captions can't have clickable links. Snapchat is fun and great for young people, but the app doesn't have a way to find users in a certain industry or group. Twitter is good for people who are busy and want to get news quickly. However, tweets only last for about 30 minutes before they get lost in the Twitterverse. As you can see, all social media platforms have their pros and cons. It's up to you to figure out which ones are best for your readers and which ones you enjoy the most. Just know that for whatever you do decide on, make your bio and picture on all the platforms consistent.
In other words, use the same bio and picture for all of them. This makes things easier for your fans who want to follow you on more than one social media site.
Tips for Creating Great Content
In this last part of the guide, I'll give you three tips that will help you start making great content. First, read your posts aloud before putting them online. When you talk to yourself at the computer, you might sound like a crazy person falling into a hole of insanity. But people really like posts that make them feel like they could sit down with you and talk. This will help, even if your posts are short or mostly pictures.
As you read a post out loud, ask yourself, "Does this sound stiff?" Have you used words or phrases that you don't normally use? Use how you talk in real life as a guide to make your posts feel more like you. Second, don't try to be good all the time. Being perfect is dull. People want to know about the things that went wrong, the mistakes, and the flaws. In fact, it's your flaws that make you unique and interesting. It's the honest truth. So instead of trying to look perfect on Instagram, just be yourself, because that's what people will really connect with. Finally, Set aside time, even if it's just 10 minutes, every day to write, even if you don't plan to publish most of what you write. This will help you get better at expressing yourself in writing. I use to post everyday on Facebook, from short to long story post for the past 7 years , I've found that I can write much faster than I could even a year ago. This is because writing is something I do every day. It's a skill I've learned because when I first started to write, I'd spend hours worrying about a simple 600-word post. Now, it's easy. Know that it won't always be easy, but writing every day will help a lot.
Congratulations, I did not think you will read on all the here and finish my Blogging Basic Guide. I just want to say, almost anyone can start a blog if you really think about it. So, the fact that you've taken the time to write down a plan puts you way ahead of the game. Your next step is to really start a blog. When it comes to a blog, you can only plan and plot so much, and I'd say that 95 percent of what you learn will come from actually doing it. Just like what I am doing right now, I'm sharing what I have learned. If you wait until you have the perfect blog to start one, you'll wait forever. So, instead, get started as soon as possible.
Once more, congrats. Don't forget to tell me the final URL of your site, because I can't wait to see how your hard work turned into your new blog.
