6 Simple Steps to Blogging
If having Time Magazine naming You as their Person of the Year in 2006 hasn't convinced your company to start blogging, the perhaps you should let Lee Odden tell you about the SEO benefits of blogging and how his blog has been the most effective marketing initiative his company has pursued. In a word, bloggin is a great way to brand your company and build a reputation and presence for yourself in your industry and online.
Once you do decide to start, however, you might be wondering just exactly where to, er, start. So I've put together some preliminary steps to follow so you don't jump in over your head before you know what you're doing.
Step 1: Identify Your Conversation
Blogging is more Web 2.0 than websites because they are about conversation. Basically, when you start blogging, you decide to join a conversation that's already going on. So the first thing you have to do is figure out which conversation you are joining. Shortlist 5 huge, 5 medium, and 5 small blogs that are already part of the conversation you want to be a part of. Subscribe to their feed, and start following that conversation.
Step 2: Choose Your Domain
Now while you're familiarizing yourself with the conversation that you're joining and picking up on the ins and outs of how that conversation works, give your actual blog some thought. Before you can build it, you need to have an address. Although Typepad, Wordpress, and Blogger all offer free accounts within subdomains, I would strongly suggest hosting it yourself. Whether it is within a subdomain on your own site, or has its own domain, it looks much more credible when you exercise full control.
Step 3: Choose a Platform
There are many, many choices in terms of blogging platforms. Although Moveable Type has been ver popular, it's being eclipsed by Wordpress. That's right, the same guys that will offer you a free subdomain will also let you download their platform... For Free!!!. Furthermore, because Wordpress is open-source, there is an army of people developing bells, whistles, plugins, and themes that you can use to really customize your blogs look. Better yet, if you're good with CSS and/or PHP, you can take that customization into your own hands. In fact, Wordpress has become so popular, that many web hosting services now offer a one-click installation of it.
Step 4: Prepare Posts
While you're customizing you blog and making it look how you want it to, start writing posts in advance. Basically, you don't want to launch an empty blog. Consequently, you should write about 5-10 general opinion pieces about industry trends. Furthermore, try to link back to other blogs--i.e. other people in the conversation--so that when you launch, they will know that you're there. First of all, linking to your competition is good for blog traffic. Blogging is about conversation, not competition. Secondly, when you link another blog, you will "ping" them. They will know tha