May 7, 2007 at 11:40 pm (Blog Basics, Getting Started)
Before jumping into the blogosphere and starting your own blog, it’s a good idea to do a little preliminary brainstorming first. Below are a few questions to consider before starting your first blog:
- What is my purpose for blogging?
- What type of blog do I want to write? Filter? K-blog? Journal? Combination?
- Who do I want to host my blog? Assuming you want free hosting, options might be WordPress.com or Blogger.com (for example).
- What do I want to blog about? Can you word this topic into phrase, tagline, or subtitle?
- What would I like the title of my blog to be? (This can affect your URL.)
- Do I want my blog to be public or limit it to a select group who will need a password to access it?
- Would I at some point want to earn some revenue from my blog?
By answering these questions before you start up a blog, you can save yourself a lot of time and thoughtfully create a blog you will enjoy blogging on regularly.
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May 7, 2007 at 10:48 pm (Blog Basics, Professional Blogging Tips)
Right now, there are millions of blogs out there on the World Wide Web, but there are not necessarily millions of readers for every single blog. That means there is a chance of getting lost in digital space. If you just want to write a blog for yourself, then this may not be that big of a deal for you. However, one of the cool points of writing a blog is the idea that you are starting a conversation for others in the blogosphere to join in. Thus, most bloggers want to be seen and virtually heard.
One way to become popular is to fill a void. Just like with any business, if you can fill a need you can usually make some money. Therefore, if you can fill a content void, then you can usually attract readers.
While this may be easier said than done, the idea of niche blogging is to find a rather narrow topic that you have some knowledge, interest, or expertise in, and which is not much (if at all) covered by other bloggers. For example, a political blog would not be a good niche because there are zillions of them on the net. If you are a famous politician, you might get some attention, but otherwise, you will be just one of (too) many bloggers covering a topic that is pretty much done to death.
On the other hand, if you are a gardener and have a keen interest in creating Zen rock gardens, then that would be a much narrower topic. Check a blog search engine to see how many Zen rock garden blogs you can find. Read through some of the hits that show up when you search, and ask yourself if you see a need for this topic. Is there an audience? Is there enough information out there already?
See these articles/blog posts for more on niche blogging:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/16/niche-blogging-benefits/
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/04/19/one-blog-many-cateogories-or-many-blogs/
http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/davak/2007/02/19/is-niche-blogging-a-myth-small-isnt-the-new-big/
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/6_startup_lessons_2007.php
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May 7, 2007 at 7:46 pm (Blog Basics, Class Handouts)
Most people who eventually become bloggers start out by reading other people’s blogs first. Even after joining the blogosphere as a blogger, it is important for bloggers to continue reading other blogs in order to be part of the conversation. Blogging is all about community and cooperation. If you basically blog in a vacuum then you miss out on this and really aren’t part of the blogosphere. But, how do you find blogs in the first place? How do you manage to find blogs on topics you are particularly interested in?
Here are few tools available on the Internet for tracking down blogs:
- http://blogsearch.google.com/ - Yes, you can use straight Google to find blogs, but even better is Google Blog Search. It operates the same as Google; just type in key words of phrases and click “Search Blogs,” and it will bring up a list of blogs in that topic. If you are already familiar with Google as a web search engine, then this is a good place to start.
- http://technorati.com/ - This is a blog database. You can search through the blog directory using key words, much like a typical search engine.
- http://www.feedster.com/ - Using RSS feeds to monitor blogs all over the web, this is another blog search engine.
- http://www.blogpulse.com – Also a blog search engine, Blogpulse, though, also attempts to concentrate on blog trends.
- Other blogs – Finally, a wonderful way to locate blogs on topics you are interested in is by checking another blog’s blog roll or also reading through comments posted on a blog. The blog roll will have blogs listed on similar topics. The comments will often have links back the blog of the person who commented. Usually, this person will be writing about the same or similar topic.
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May 7, 2007 at 6:29 pm (Books on Blogging)
Blogging For Dummies
- Like most the “dummies” books, this one assumes the reader knows zip about the topic; however, I still found a lot of helpful information in here. So far, after reading just about the whole book, the only thing I find fault with is the explanation on trackbacks. It does explain what they are, but the “how-to” still was not the clear to me.
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