Starting a Great Blog Part 1 – Intro

Have you ever thought about starting a blog? Even if you haven’t, there are plenty of reasons to. It’s a lot of fun. Take a look at some good blogs, and get the feel for blogging:

• Smashing Magazine
• ProBlogger
• The Blog Herald
• Ars Technica

You see? The term “blog” doesn’t mean what a lot of people think. It doesn’t refer to an online journal (there are waaaay too many of those annoying things). Sure, webjournals (as I call them), use blogging services, but they’re not the “Best of the Blogosphere”. They are the rubbish that sinks to the bottom (you can probably tell I don’t think much of webjournals). A blog is merely a website that features articles posted in a chronological format. You probably read blogs without even knowing it. If you think about it, you’ll realize that news sites, like LeakyNews.com or NYTimes.com, are basically blogs. What are they but news stories posted in a chronological format?

Now the question is, what do you want to blog about? Here at Webmaster-Source, we blog about things that interest webmasters. At ProBlogger, they blog about blogging. What would you like to blog about? Bicycling? Bowling? Writing? You can blog about anything…as long as you are addicted to it. You can’t write about something you don’t like doing. To blog, you must find a niche topic that interests you. I can’t help you there.

So, have you got a topic? Good.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow we will teach you about naming your blog, getting a domain, and finding hosting. We’ll also show you how to get hosting for nothing, or next to nothing.

Below are the other parts of the tutorial:

• Part 2 – Domains and Hosting
• Part 3 – Installing WordPress
• Part 4 – Configuring WordPress
• Part 5 – Themes
• Part 6 – Posting
• Part 7 – Spreading the Word
• Part 8 – Monetization
• Part 9 – Stat Tracking
• Part 10 – WordPress Plugins
• Part 11 – Social Bookmarking
• Part 12 – Conclusion