How to Get Blogs working for you - By: Maneet Puri

Blogs are the new trend of the season and are fast gaining popularity in cyberspace. Starting a blog is no daunting task and with no investment at all, you can publish content and share it with your audience.
By far, Wordpress is the most popular blog engine that offers many plug-ins that you can add on to your website.

Advantages of having a Blog

- You can put on valuable content on your blog that will attract heavy traffic which you can direct towards your website.

- Traffic comes in easier to blogs than it does to websites courtesy the various resources available to bloggers

- Search engines place higher value highly because they post quality content on regular basis

- Blog engine provide several free plug-ins to improve your website and user experience on it

- It can also be used as a content management system

How to Start Your Own Blog

- Always get your own web hosting and domain name. Avoid using any free hosting services because they are not reliable.

- Once you get the web hosting fixed and set up a domain name, install the blog engine on your server. If you don't have any experience of working with website and servers, it will be a difficult task for you. A good idea will be to hire a freelancer coder or get the web hosting company to install it for you.

- Follow whatever installing instructions that is on the blog engine and you should be able to get your blog alive with the default theme on it.

- You can download free themes from the internet to customize it or if you are familiar with coding and stuff, you can design your own customized theme.

- Install some plug ins that will be useful for the website

- Place your blog and get started with it. Browse through to learn how to make new posts, how to write etc.

- Before you launch your blog, draft out at least 10 posts so as to plan a regular posting schedule. Start with posting on a weekly basis and as you get along and become more comfortable with the writing and posting, increase the no. of weekly posts.

- Ensure that you have a lot of bookmarked websites that are related to your subject of blog. Also you should have lots of ideas for posts and content that needs to be included in blogs. At times it gets very difficult to think up of topics to write about. These bookmarked sites will come in handy then.

- Review your blog for a final time. Check if all the elements are looking good, all the plug ins are installed and there is a ready content to be posted.

Other Tips

- Getting your own domain and hosting will not only save you a great deal of stress but also gain you credibility.

- You can create the blog as a sub domain of your website. So that there is a consistency and your business branding is maintained. This would be especially good if you want to promote your website through the blog. If otherwise, you can register a separate domain for your blog and keep it as a separate entity altogether. This allows you to sell your blog later on if at all you plan to. Even in this case, you can link your website to it.

- Define a clear objective for your blog. If you just want to drive in more traffic then focus on that. If you aim to get sponsors or generate revenue work towards that. And if it is just a personal space, keep it that simple.

- Always deactivate and delete old plug-ins that you no longer use. Retaining them will just slow down the speed of your blog.

- Check through the clog for any broken links regularly.

- Exchange links with quality websites only. Linking with anyone and everyone will get you more spam.

About the Author

Maneet Puri is the head of LeXolution IT Services, a website design services India company that offers an extensive range of web design services including web design & development, website maintenance and internet promotion. He is a known name in the industry and counsels his clients for outsourcing their work to offshore boundaries.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Maneet-Puri/34624

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