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10.14.08 What to Do When Starting a New Blog  By Rohit BhargavaStarting a blog is not for everyone. There are lots of reasons not to blog, including having the time to keep a blog up to date, having something to say, and the fact that blogging is becoming an increasingly crowded space making it far tougher to stand out than it may have been in the past. Why would I start a post about successful blogging with all these cautions against blogging? Mostly to make sure that if you are going to start a blog, you are getting into it without a false expectation that it can solve all your problems or how much work it will be. Assuming you have the right idea in mind, the question I get asked most often is how you can make your blog as successful as possible. Here are some tips for new bloggers on what you may want to focus on in your first 90 days of blogging: DAYS 1 TO 15: 1. Find a good niche. Think hard about what you want to write about. It has to be something you are passionate about and interested in, otherwise it won't work. The more specific you can get, the better. You can also broaden it later, but in the beginning you need to find a subject that you can own. 2. Choose a name and URL. This is a tough thing, but just as many companies these days do, you should let available URLs drive how you name your blog. If you can't get the URL, don't use the name. And make sure you plan to put your blog on a specific URL, whether you are using Typepad or Blogspot or any other service. Trust me on this, you'll eventually wish you built your blog on your own URL, whether you think so today or not. 3. Grab a template and launch quickly. The biggest paralysis new bloggers have is wanting to get their new blog just right. In the first few weeks of your blog, the most important thing is to find your voice - so forget about design just launch it with a ready made template. Chances are remote that search engines will list it that quickly, and you'll have a few weeks to get it right. 4. Add Google Analytics. Google has a free tool called Google Analytics which gives you some great metrics on your blog all for free. It requires you to do a bit of tricky cutting and pasting to add certain code to your blog, but it is totally worth it to do it early so you'll have metrics from the first days of your blog to compare to and see how far you have come. 5. Create an editorial calendar. Some football coaches head into games scripting out their first 10 plays as part of their gameplan. You should do the same. Figure out the topics for your first ten posts, and then write them steadily. Not only does this get you thinking ahead, it also gives you a sense of how many posts per week you can realistically write. DAYS 15 TO 30: 6. Reevaluate your blog title. At this point, you will likely have several blog posts to look at and a better sense of what you enjoy writing about. It's the perfect time to check the title of your blog and theme that you set earlier and make sure it still accurately describes what you want to write about. If it doesn't, now is the perfect time to fix it. Continue reading this article. About the Author: PRohit Bhargava is the Vice President for Interactive Marketing with Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. http://rohitbhargava.typepad.com |
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