The most important thing about having a blog is to establish your brand and let your readers get to know you. This applies mostly to blogs that are related to your business. As the author of the blog, you can tell your readers about yourself in the About page. Your readers will also come to know you through your style of writing and what you write about. If you have something meaningful to say, people will listen.

Get Started

If you don’t already have a blog, it’s time to take the plunge and get started. Remember Nike’s popular slogan? Just do it. You can learn along the way as you build up your first blog. There is a lot of freely available information about all aspects of maintaining and marketing a blog.

In the beginning, you can take a look at some of the popular blogs in your niche and take note of what you like about them. Basically you are trying to capture the best elements of those blogs and try to incorporate them in yours.

Blog Regularly

Even if you are not a Pulitzer prize winning author, you can still get better at writing as you practice. Try to blog as regularly as possible. If you stop for long periods between your posts, you may start to lose your readership. You can even write your posts beforehand if you know that you are going to be away on vacation. Then you can set up automatic scheduling to post to the blog.

Build a Community

As your blog readership grows, you will hopefully get more people interacting with you through the comments. Definitely install Akismet to catch most of the comment spam. Try to answer all of the valid comments quickly and you will make your readers feel that you care. Another option to think about is building a forum as part of your blog. Again, due to the problem of spam, forums require moderation and if you don’t have time to do this, you’ll have to find some volunteers or pay for help.

Another way to build a community quickly is by holding a blog contest. You can offer attractive prizes (like lots of cash!) or ask other bloggers to donate prizes in exchange for something you have to offer. You could offer to review their blog in your blog and give them a backlink. You could offer them your own product in exchange. Those are just two quick ideas.

Folks like Darren Rowse (Problogger) and Shoemoney have built their brands largely due to the popularity of their blogs. You have to find your own unique angle to it. For Problogger, it was teaching people about blogging and making money from it. For Shoemoney, a lot of initial interest was generated by showing a huge affiliate check and talking about tremendous success with ringtones.

Don’t delay, start thinking about how you can establish yourself in a crowded marketplace. The sooner you start, the better.

Technorati Tags: building your brand, blogging tips

Popularity: 39% [?]

Want to start a blog and not coming up with enough ideas? Take a look at the blogs listed on Blogger Stories. You may just get some fresh ideas.

But beware, you may also get caught up reading the blogs and before you realize it, half the day is over.

There are tons of ways to get ideas for blog posts. When you see something that catches your attention, do yourself a favor and write it down in a notebook. Call it your “Blog Ideas” notebook. The next time you’re out of ideas, you can go back to your handy dandy notebook and use one of thoese ideas.

Technorati Tags: ideas for blogs, blogger stories, blog ideas

Popularity: 61% [?]

With the growing uncertainties in the global economy, many people are looking for other options in order to supplement or entirely replace their income. Gone are the days where you have job security. I don’t think any of us that come after the baby-boomers can expect to spend our entire working lives in one company and expect the company to take care of us.

However, I should point out that starting a blog and getting it to the point where it is successful enough for you to be able to derive income from it is not an easy task as some would have you think. On the other hand, the good news is that it isn’t impossible either.

First things first

For many who are looking to blogging as a source of income, the best way to learn making a blog is to start with a free service like Blogger and WordPress. Play around with it and learn about the basic principles of how to administer a blog before you go on to host a blog on your own domain.

There are plenty of free resources online (such as on this blog and on other blogging-related sites), but if you’re the type who likes to hold a book in your hand, try getting something from the Dummies series.

If you choose to start with Blogger, make sure you read the help pages to get you started or to move you along when you get stuck.

If you’re more of a visual learner, check out the videos online that teach you how to set up a blog with Blogger. There is also a video tutorial I found on setting up Wordpress.com.

Blogger.com Resources:

Google’s Official Blogger Help - you will find most of the answers to your questions here.

Google Groups on Blogger - you can also get help here.

Blogger Forum - this is not an official Google site. You can ask others for help.

Lost Blogger Password - lost your password? Look it up.

Free Blogger Templates - don’t like the default design? Get a new template.

WordPress.com Resources:

WordPress.com FAQ - this is a good place to start.

Get Ideas - take a look at other WordPress.com blogs and see what’s possible.

WordPress.com forum - get help from others.

Lorelle on WordPress - WordPress blogging tips. This is a PR6 blog hosted on Wordpress.

Enjoy blogging!

Technorati Tags: making a blog, blogging for beginners, Blogger, blogspot, WordPress.com

Popularity: 27% [?]

I use Entrecard and MyBlogLog from time to time to see who is visiting my blog and to check out new blogs. I’ve seen a whole lot of new blogs trying to break into the “make money blogging” or “I want to be a problogger” scene. The growth of these types of blogs are phenomenal.

Obviously a lot of people are unhappy with their day jobs and are hoping to make money at home just writing their blogs. Maybe it’s the perception cast by some A-list make money bloggers that it’s easy and require little effort. Hey people, stop believing that. Easy isn’t going to make you a full-time income. It takes dedication and knowledge.

I predict that most of these startup blogs will fail and fizzle out in the next year.

image credit: Aihibed (Flickr)

Let’s go through these top 5 biggest mistakes starting from #5.

5. No About Me page. Who reads blogs? People. And people want to know more about the person behind the blog. So why not write a little bit of background about who you are and why you’re blogging.

4. Flaky posts. Rule #1 of blogging - give a reason for people to read your blog. Don’t expect to just rehash stuff you read on other blogs and hope your readers will come back. Find your own voice. Give your unique opinion on the issues.

3. Ugly blog design. All right. Ugly is in the eye of the beholder. But I’ve seen some outright hideous colors and design choices (or lack thereof) on some new blogs.

2. Hosting on Blogspot. Don’t be cheap. It costs less than 10 bucks to get your own domain. Or you can use a GoDaddy coupon and get it for $6.95. If you’re planning an exit strategy of selling your blog one day, it’s a LOT harder to sell a blog on a blogspot domain.

And #1, drumroll please….

Too much advertising on the site. I’ve seen new blogs that already have Adsense, 125×125 ad spots (albeit unfilled), Chitika, Widgetbucks, and banners and widgets to the wazoo. Stop trying to monetize your blog at the outset. Build up a number of good posts first and increase your incoming links, traffic and reputation (however you want to measure it - Alexa, Technorati, etc.)

Technorati Tags: mistakes new bloggers make, ugly blog design, blog advertising, advertising overload, blogging advice

Popularity: 33% [?]

Here’s an article from the Christian Science Monitor that talks about bloggers who are making money from their blogs. It’s from Feb. 2007 but the principles still apply today.

Bloggers Can Make Money But Most Keep Day Jobs

Here’s a quote from Darren that I like:

Several highly successful bloggers also caution that there’s no free lunch. “I worked anything from eight- to 16-hour days over the last three or four years just trying to do this,” says Mr. Rowse. “And a lot of people don’t see that.”

Technorati Tags: problogging, make money blogging

Popularity: 52% [?]

If you’re want to start blogging but you’re not sure what to blog about, consider charting a journey towards a goal. It could be any type of goal, for example, financial (make $XXX dollars by 2010), health (lose 20 pounds in 6 months) or creative (get article published in Inc. magazine).

One excellent example of such a type of blog is the personal finance blog or pfblog where the author chronicles his journey towards achieving $1 million dollars in net worth. The blog is very popular and has over 35,000 readers subscribing to its feed. It has also been mentioned a few times in the popular media (i.e. magazines, newspapers).

The blog is monetized by Google AdSense, affiliate products and also text link advertising. But if you’re starting out, don’t worry about monetizing it at first. Concentrate on the main message you’re trying to convey and focus on building readership.

Why does the PFblog work?

1. There is a progress update in the header of the blog. This keeps readers interested. They will come back again and again to check on the progress. This means repeat traffic which is a good thing.

2. The is a clear background statement (the “About” page) where the aim of the author is clearly stated.

3. Related posts are listed (he uses “Best of PFBlog”) where new readers can catch up to the current progress.

4. Simple layout and uniform color scheme.

What I don’t like about it is that it is a bit crowded with too many things on the page and a LOT of advertising. There are two blocks of Google AdSense ads right below the header. You can see how he is aiming to get at the $1 million net worth.

If you want to take this idea and run with it, brainstorm about some unique goal that you think will attract readers. The more outrageous the goal, the better. I’ve heard of one guy who wanted to visit 1000 bars in one year. For example, your goal could be to meet Paris Hilton in person and have dinner with her. You can chronicle how you would go about achieving that goal. Think people will want to read about it? You bet!

You can get more ideas by asking people what they want to achieve in life.

Technorati Tags: PFBlog, what to blog about, starting a blog, chart your journey

Popularity: 18% [?]

Sometimes when I look for things to blog about, I like to put a link to the site I found here so that I won’t forget about it and go back later to read it in detail. I like to surf and blog at the same time and I’m too lazy to write down long URLs. Here are a few links and resources about making money with blogging:

Steve Pavlina has a very long post about how to make money with your blog. It should be required reading for anyone who wants to start a blog and make money doing it.

Darren’s Problogger should also be required reading.

By far the most difficult thing to decide for those just starting out is what to blog about. You want to choose something that you have interest and at least some knowledge in. If you’re an expert already, then you’ll have lots to blog about. If it’s something you don’t know much about but have a thirst for learning everything you possibly can know about the subject, then that’s another good candidate. Choose wisely and you will have a blog that will last the test of time.

Popularity: 12% [?]

This applies to those using WordPress for their blogs. I just discovered what permalinks are for. Now when you install WordPress, the default URL for your blog post looks something like
http://yourdomain.com/blog/index.php?p=123.

But I’ve noticed on some other blogs that their posts titles show up in their URL, such as
http://yourdomain.com/blog/make-sure-you-read-this.

Now I was looking for a way to do this and I finally found out about permalinks.

You can find this in your WordPress control panel under “Options/Permalinks”.

What I did for this blog was to change the permalink structure to
/index.php/%year%/%postname%/

Now the URLs to my posts will read like
http://moneymakingblogs.com/blog/2005/post-title

which is a lot prettier and makes more sense that the “?p=123″.

This is going to help for search engine optimization as well.

Technorati Tags: how to use permalinks, WordPress

Popularity: 15% [?]

The first step to a money making blog is, of course, creating your blog.

This blog is installed using WordPress. This is my first time installing WordPress and it took me less than 10 minutes to get everything set up. If I can do it, you can too!

Another popular Blogging software is Google’s Blogger. My other marketing blog is created with Blogger.

The advantage of WordPress over Blogger is that WordPress allows you to specify ‘categories’ for your posts which makes it easier to organize relevant topics. It also makes it easier for your readers to find your posts.

Another difference is that Blogger lets you decide whether to host your blog on their server or on your own server. With Wordpress, you have to install everything on your server. With one of my sites that I have a blog on Blogger, both the blog and my homepage are on the first page of Yahoo search results.

I find that Blogger templates are easier to modify compared to WordPress. You don’t have to go with the default template provided with the blogging software. You can always customize your blog to match the look of your site. Besides, having a generic looking blog is boring.

Technorati Tags: how to make a blog

Popularity: 9% [?]