What is the reason to have a blog?
There are so many reasons why you would like to have a personal blog. The most common one is that the author would like to share his/her thought with others in his own private spot. Unlike the traditional diary purposely keeping a daily record privately for yourself, blogging is actually the other way around. You are inviting people to come over and read your thoughts and at the same time it also create a bridge between you and the audience for communication through the comment section.
10 Blogging Tips
Although this is your own blog and you can write whatever you like, it is better to have a topic or a goal why you are writing the blogs. Here I highlighted 10 factors just to give you an idea about what you need to consider before start typing.
1. Host Your Own Blog
This part may cost you a little money but it will worth 10 times more than the money you spent. There are some online companies that offer free hosting and your site will look like youdomain.freehosting.com which doesn’t look professional. Another reason is you don’t have the control over your domain. It is also depends on the free hosting company and you are also risking to loose all your content that host in a free web hosting company.
2. Tech Support
If you are not so technical on those web server thing, it is better that you set a small budget aside for any regular maintenance and update of the server or for your own blog.
3. Branding
Unstanding your blog is representing yourself. The design and everything that you put on the website is a type of branding/promoting. You want to make it look professional and nice in order to attract more people to come and visit your site.
4. Set Topic
Think of a topic and you would like to blog about and use appropriate keywords that most people may use for searching. Stay away for any cute titles as robots from search engines don’t know what that means.
5. Determine The Term Of Use
Are your content free of use? Many people assume everything on the web are free to use such as re-posting articles from the others on their website or using other’s images and videos. So if you don’t want any people to use your content, it is better to provide your own term of use to protect your content.
6. Watch Your Language
Although the space doesn’t have any control on what words you can or can not put on your blog, it is recommended not to leave any four-letters word or something that is not really appropriate
7. Count The Words
Make sure your post is long enough to cover all the aspects of the topic but at the same time, you don’t want it to be too short that lack of potential in promoting it on search engines. Many bloggers prefer to post less content (350 to 500 words.) more frequently.
8. Think Beyond Text
Making your article even more fun to read. Utilize photos, graphics, videos, audios and other interactive materials to encourage your audience to read. For every bit of eye-candy, it will increase 16.5% of sales for an eCommerce website, according to kissmetrics.com.
9. Publish Consistently
Remember that blog is a bridge between you and your readers. It is better to keep a habit of publishing so to keep your readers update constantly. Research shows that the best practice is to publish two to three times a week.
10. Responds to Your Comments
Like I have mentioned earlier, the blog provides for engagement through the comments. So it is important that we responds to the comments that left by the readers. This way will also encourage other visitors to leave you comments as well.
In sum, blogging is fun and having your own personal blog is not just providing a spot to express yourself but also providing a platform that to share and exchange the opinions with others.
Do you have your own personal blog? If so, what were your experiences and what would you recommend others to start out?
