Blogging for Beginners, Part II: The Take-Off Roll

A lot of blogs -- such as The Journal of The Jester-in-Exile -- evolved from online journals that ended up becoming the lectern behind which the blogger speaks of issues this blogger is passionate about. I think that this is a constant among bloggers who have been posting for at least a year or two -- posts change from casual to carefully crafted, topic choice eventually changes from "what I watched on Pinoy Big Brother last night" to "I want to talk about something really important to me, I have a lot to say about it, and I feel that I have sufficient authority to speak about it."

In hindsight, if I had known that my blog would turn out this way, I probably would have been a bit less gung-ho, and would probably have did a bit of preparation and design.

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So, how shall we start?

I'm going to use Blogger in my discussions, but I may delve into Wordpress from time to time. See, Blogger is to my way of thinking the best platform for beginners, and it's quite the user-friendly platform (not to mention that it's free and supports Google AdSense; apparently the free Wordpress does not).

Step 1. Choosing a name.
Nope, it isn't exactly easy to choose a name for one's blog; see, it's not quite different from choosing a company name. A unique identity -- branding, as Angelo and Yuga would call it -- would ensure one's blog has high recall.

Beyond the creativity (and copyright limitations, of course) in choosing a blog title, there are a few tips and tricks I've been taught:

- One should try to keep the blog's URL to be as close to the blog title as possible. This will make it easier for your readers to find you (d-uh, to find anything and anyone in cyberspace, people Google).

- The blog title should not be longer than seven characters or so, especially if it's appended by ".blogspot.com", as typing a very very long URL just might make a potential visitor say "ah, the hell with it" and go somewhere else. Also, avoid using special characters -- they aren't fun to type either. Numbers may be fine, but they tend to mess up the URL, or at least visually and in terms of memory recall if these numbers have no recall value on their own (you know, like 13 and 69).

- If you have to use hyphenation, limit the number of hyphens to ONE. Apparently, spam blogs tend to have titles that have two or more hyphens each. Better yet, try to avoid using hyphens in your URL.

- Some words when used as part of the blog title just might ensure that your blog is found among adult-classed Google search results.

Step 2. Choosing a theme.
For a lot of bloggers, the themes they choose are seen to be reflections of their personalities, and I don't think that this is a bad thing at all. However, search engine optimization and monetized blogging meisters seem to agree that there is a set of general guidelines for a visually-appealing blog:

- A two or three-column theme that's not cluttered to look at helps in ensuring that visitors don't get turned off and leave.

- Text size, color, and font scheme should ensure readability.

- Light-colored or neutral "clean-looking" themes tend to appeal to visitors, especially for text-heavy blogs. Readability is key, especially for text-heavy blogs.

- The header title or image must not be too large as to occupy more than a third of screen height (more on screen heights later).

- If you have ads, try to put them where they can be seen but don't get in the way of reading your posts.

Step 3. Installing widgets.
The start-up of a blog is the best time to install widgets. Some widgets that I think are rather indispensible (I'd even go as far as to say that these are basic needs for any blog) are these:

- A visitor counter to monitor where visits come from and how many are there in a given time period (I use Sitemeter; it's a very user-friendly service).

- A blogroll for other blogs and sites that you visit on a regular basis (I use Blogrolling).

- A search bar on your blog, so that if your visitors want to find stuff that just might be in your past posts, they have a tool to use. Google and Technorati are pretty good widgets.

A comment shoutbox may or may not be useful to you -- some bloggers don't like having shoutboxes because they are open to abuse by trolls, but they can provide a useful service. Other widgets that may be useful would be RSS feeds, links to your social networking sites, Twitter, MyBlogLog, among others.

Step 4. Filling up your "About Me" page.
A well-written, concise profile will let your readers what sort of person you are (or at least who you are online). Generally, visitors will want to read blogs by peole who apparently know what they are talking about (not some wet-behind-the-ears person who has no idea about his topic), and what better way to give the blogosphere the idea that you are a blogger with something to say, if not by a short description of who you are?

Step 5. Creating your "Hello, World" page.
Not too many people appreciate the value of a "Hello, World" page. This first post of your blog is actually very useful -- it will let those visitors who have stumbled upon your blog to know what to expect.

After all that, you're good to go. 'Nuff said.

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See you later, folks. We'll be talking about posting tips and tricks in our next post.

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