A number of people who’ve viewed my Web page have asked me about how I set up my blog, what it cost, if it was difficult, and how I centered myself to write. I am not an expert, but thought I would share a bit about what I have learned over the past year.
Basic Steps
- First you need to get yourself a URL. If you don’t want your own domain name, you can go with WordPress for free, but the address will be more cumbersome and less distinctive. The recommendation to me was to go for a dot-com as that would give me greater visibility. And I wanted something that was easy to remember and also catchy. I chose jauntingjean.com and was able to register it with Bluehost. As I recall, I paid an initial registration fee of about $100 for a year; the renewal fee was a modest $15 to keep my URL.
- Next up is deciding what platform to use for your theme and where you’ll do your writing. This is the site that actually hosts your blog. While a few commenters have been less than complimentary about WordPress, I have now used it since the beginning and been quite satisfied. It is widely used and is free and has lots of features! I know I am not taking full advantage of all that WordPress offers, but for my basic approach, it’s working well. They offer a wide variety of templates/themes for the look and color of your site and I simple chose one of them. That’s why Jots & Jaunts (my blog title) looks the way it does and is red.
- Set up your site. After you have your theme, you should then create a short About Me paragraph—something about yourself and probably what the main focus of your blog will be. Now you’re ready to write your first post. The default is for public display so I always change this to “Private” until I’ve finished writing. Composing on the screen in WordPress is easy and straightforward. Just remember to hit the Update button frequently so that you don’t lose any content. You can also preview your post as you go along to see how it will look to your readers. When you’re satisfied, change the display to Public and press Publish. Voila, your post is now live for the world!
- Adding media. Whenever possible I like to add photos to my postings for greater interest. Most people won’t read as much text on the screen as they would on paper so inserting photos is a way to engage them. WordPress allows you to upload photos from your own files or the Web and you can insert them midst the text in a several different ways and even add captions if you’d like. At the top of your blog text is a tab labeled “Add Media” which takes you to another screen where you can choose media or upload new media–photos or videos. It’s also very easy to select an uploaded photo to be at the top of your post as a header.
- Helpful guides. I did most of my initial blog creation following a guide I found on the Web. That one may not exist any longer, but here are several other sites that offer details on how to go about creating your blog: Your 10 Step Guide to Blogging by Maisha Walker; The Newbie Guide to Blogging by Dustin Wax; and Blogging Basics 101 by Jessica Knapp.
- Publicizing your blog. My initial foray into spreading the word about my blog was the creation of a distribution list in my e-mail account. That list has 40+ names on it and I send the group an e-mail each week with the title of the latest post and a link to the site. More recently, I signed up with Social Maximizer which is a social bookmarking service and paid a few dollars to have several of my posts shared with a bunch of Web sites and lists. In a matter of weeks, I received hundreds of comments on my blog—some of them spam, of course—but, many of them positive and helpful feedback
I also know that I am not fully using SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and this is something I plan to address–eventually!
