Starting a Blog That Will Rock The World
Why
Start a Blog?
There are numerous reasons to start
a blog. I couldn’t possibly list them all and I won’t try. What I’ll do is
share my thoughts on what I’ve learned thus far on the blogging journey and
hope that inspires you to start blogging.
- You’ll Inspire Others – This is by far the greatest thing about blogging. Nothing compares to the tweet or email saying thank you for writing an article that inspired change and progress in the life of a reader.
- You’ll Become a Better Thinker – blogging forces you to think, then type the thoughts into the computer. It’s much more involved than I just made it sound, just go try writing for a while! It takes deep thinking and concentration. You will think deeply and with more clarity as you write about your passion.
- You’ll Develop New Skills – If you commit to starting a blog, you will become a better writer. Writing is a serious life skill and a key form of communication! In just a couple months my writing has improved tenfold. In addition, you might learn about web design, search engine optimization, marketing, and much more. It’s a brave new world!
- You’ll Become Intentional – Blogging is a reflective process. If you choose to reveal your identity to the world, the world becomes your audience and your accountability partner! There is no fooling around with that. Blogging forces you to think about your actions, your words, your thoughts, and your goals.
- You’ll Meet New Friends – I’ve had conversations with brilliant people through my blog. I love getting emails from strangers! Sometimes it’s just a hello, sometimes it’s an offer to review an awesome product or a new book, sometimes it’s an opinion that encourages ongoing dialogue. Seriously, the internet is full of awesome, talented, passionate people who blog. You should join the club!
- You’ll Evolve – Blogging doesn’t just change the reader, it changes the author. I can’t believe all that I’ve learned in the few months that I’ve been blogging. Comments left by readers force you to consider their position and opinion. You’ll develop a well rounded mindset if you’ll learn from the feedback of others.
- You’ll Become More Confident – Or at least I did. Blogging as myself has forced me to become comfortable in front of an audience. I lay my opinions on the table for the whole world to see. It’s a liberating experience that teaches me to be proud of who I am becoming, even if others disagree with my thoughts.
- You’ll Make Money – This is almost a joke, because it takes awhile to turn a profit. But if you’re good, passionate, and dedicated, the dollars might follow! There are lots of dollars to be made online for everything from marketing to social media consulting to blogging. Get in the mix!
My
Advice
I’ve learned more than a few things
since starting a blog a few months ago. And to be fair, I still know very
little. But I think I’ve learned enough to offer a little advice to all you aspiring
bloggers. Take it or leave it.
- Find Your Niche – Your niche is the topic area that you will write about. Find your passion. Your passion is your niche. When you are passionate about a topic, the articles and videos will flow. If you don’t have a passion, it’s time to start looking.
- Be Valuable – There are thousands of sites talking about personal finance/frugality/investing/minimalism. The only way this blog will continue to grow is if we provide great content. Content is still king in the digital world! You’ve got to have something of value to say or people just won’t listen.
- Be Unique – Content is important, but so is your voice. Stating facts in numbered format is boring! People want to laugh, cry, and get angry when they read a blog! Creativity is a thing of beauty. You’ve got to think of ways to be outside the box. That’s what we’re trying to do here with articles like Adventures in Crazy Town!
- Be Real – People want honesty. There isn’t any replacement for brutal, open honesty. Unless you legally cannot, put a picture up. People want to connect with a real person, not a bunch of words.
- Be Transparent – Start a series about yourself. Tell what you do, how you do it, why it matters, or what it will cost. We are writing our Minimalist Living series to inspire other people to stop wasting money and start living on less.
- Do it with Family - I would try to find a partner in blogging. It can cut the workload on half while doubling the satisfaction. I’m partial to family, but a partnership can be formed with anyone that you trust. Writing with my wife has been such a rewarding experience. We get to brainstorm together, talk about new projects, and help each other edit articles.
- More Time – Starting a blog will take way more time than you realize. It takes forever to learn how to design the site and find the right plugins. Researching an article and typing it all up also takes time. Expect things to move a little quicker with experience, but it all takes time!
Starting
a Blog
You can choose the free blogging
option at WordPress.com, or you can choose to have your own paid hosting.
Why should you pay for the blog if a
free option is available? Well, you shouldn’t if you’re only interested in
writing little articles for your family or friends. But I don’t know of any
well known blogs that are on the free servers.
If you intend on making money or
growing your readership, you don’t really have a choice. If you want to have
complete control of the appearance, plugins, and advertising on your site, it’s
only possibly through a self hosted (paid) WordPress site. In addition to
hosting one or more WordPress sites, you can store files on the web hosting
server and do a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s usually well worth a few
dollars per month.
If you are ready to begin blogging,
here is what you’ll need to do.
Get a Name and Hosting
Think of a Great Domain Name – The domain name is your title on the internet and you
don’t want to be stuck with a terrible name. We spent a few weeks brainstorming
and came up with Cash Cow Couple (We’re brilliant, I know). You
want this to be something catchy and unique but related to your niche that
you’re going to write about. Your chosen domain name will be free if you go
with Bluehost for your hosting.
Get Hosting – Hosting will be your biggest (and pretty much only)
expense when starting a blog. It is important to pick a well known host because
it will affect the speed of your site and how you rank for Google search
results. In addition, some host providers have down time where your site will
not be viewable by anyone.
There aren’t many options in the
quality, low budget hosting scene. We went with Bluehost for hosting and we recommend
their services. I did a lot of research before starting the site and kept
getting recommendations for Bluehost. They have
worked really well for us and the price was the lowest that we found. In
addition, there are a couple of other benefits.
- We’ve seen no down time since having the site. That is huge.
- You can get your domain name at the same time as your hosting package, it’s a one stop shop.
- WordPress can be installed in one click after you sign up!
- They feature automatic backups for your blog. We found this out a couple weeks ago after the site was acting funny. You never know when something will go haywire, but Bluehost will already have a backup so that you can restore the site.
Go
to bluehost.com and click sign up (or click
the banner above which makes us a little money from Bluehost). The cost is now
$6.95/month (Was $5.95 when I signed up) 
If you have not already registered a
domain, enter your desired domain on the left. You will be registering your
domain and purchasing hosting at the same time. If the domain is unavailable,
you will have to choose another one
If
you already have a domain, enter it on the right. Click Next. 
Input your Account Information and
Billing Information on the next page.
Then
proceed to choose your hosting package. Choose the 12 Month, 24 Month
or 36 Month price based on your preference (the Pro Plan is not necessary).
Uncheck all boxes except for Domain Whois Privacy. This prevents your
real name and mailing address from being publicly associated with your domain
name. If you don’t mind the publicity, uncheck it too! 
You’ve now completed your domain
name and hosting. The hard part is done!
Install WordPress
You’ll want WordPress as your
blogging platform. It’s free and it’s the most supported so that makes it easy
to use and user friendly. Don’t worry, it’s really easy to do.
Watch this video by Amy from
Bloggingwithamy.com. It is all you need.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bxtUhncMEQ
Customize
You are now ready to begin writing.
I wouldn’t start just yet though. It’s far better to set up the site as you see
fit. Usually this means customizing the appearance and choosing some plugins to
make life easier.
The
theme is the core component of your site’s appearance and you might
not want the stock WordPress theme. There is nothing wrong with the preset
theme, but it certainly isn’t remarkable. 
Get to changing the theme as you see
fit. There are thousands of free themes available, just search Google for “free
WordPress themes.” We’ve had luck with Woothemes (they offer free and paid
themes), and we currently use a free theme by MyThemeShop.
There are folks who say the premium
themes (they cost money) help rank in Google and will set your site apart from
the competition. I think that might be true to some extent, but I wouldn’t
worry about it if you decide to go the free route.
If you do want a premium theme, Elegant Themes
offers about the best available at the best price. Elegant Themes allows
you to have access to ALL their premium themes for $39. The price is right and
the quality is excellent.
If you want to try different themes
on, you can do a live preview and check out how your site will look before
choosing a theme.
Choose Plugins
Plugins are exactly what they sound
like. They plug into your new blog and make your life a lot easier. Some are
free, some cost money. Here are my chosen free plugins that you need:
- Akismet Plugin - An automatic spam catcher. Sometimes people will stupid spam comments and without Akismet, you’d have to trash each one. As your blog grows, there are thousands of them!
- Ajax Comment Editor - Allows users to edit their comments for a period of time. Administrators have a lot more features, such as the ability to edit comments directly on a post or page.
- Amazon Affiliate Link Localizer – Automatically converts your Amazon links to affiliate links inside of all your blog posts (if you have set up an affiliate account on Amazon.com).
- CommentLuv - Reward your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment.
- Comment Redirect by Yoast - Redirects commenters who just made their first comment to a page of your choice. On this page, you could ask them to subscribe, like you on Facebook and lots more!
- Digg Digg – Has a floating share bar so that people will share your content on social media sites.
- Google Analytics for WordPress – Allows you to do all sorts of stuff and track useful information about the people who visit your site.
- SEO Friendly Images - Automatically adds alt and title attributes to all your images. Improves traffic from search results and makes them W3C/xHTML valid.
- Social Media Widget - Adds links to all of your social media and sharing site profiles.
- Yoast WordPress SEO - The all-in-one SEO (search engine optimization) solution for WordPress, including on-page content analysis, XML sitemaps and much more.
- WP Super Cache – Speeds up your site by caching pages.
I’d like to know what plugins you
use that I’m missing out on, so please leave a comment below.
Start Blogging
It’s time to write! You can write a
couple of posts and save them as drafts, or you can just write and publish.
It’s all up to you.
Make sure to comment on other blogs
to start building relationships. Relationships are just as important online as
they are in person. Start building a network and things become much more
interesting online.
You should definitely set up a
Twitter, Google Plus page, and a Facebook page for your blog at some point.
You should also set up an about
page, a contact page, and possibly a few other pages that help readers connect
to you.
Don’t get overwhelmed with all the
tiny details or the overwhelming number of themes. So much possibility can
cause paralysis. You’ve got to get started and just continue learning as you
go!
- See more at:
http://cashcowcouple.com/make-money/starting-a-blog/#sthash.lJWn8ME0.dpuf
