{"id":219,"date":"2012-08-27T18:40:40","date_gmt":"2012-08-27T18:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/?p=219"},"modified":"2012-08-27T18:40:40","modified_gmt":"2012-08-27T18:40:40","slug":"how-to-start-a-successful-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/how-to-start-a-successful-blog\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Start a Successful Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How<\/a>Have you ever stumbled across a blog and, after reading it, come to the realization that the people who run it are full time bloggers? Jealousy may set it when you\u2019re left wondering why you can\u2019t do that for a living as well. Just starting a blog isn\u2019t enough. You also need dynamic content and a way for your ideal readers to find you. Here is where to begin:<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Follow your passion<\/strong>. Not everyone can blog about their lives remodeling and redecorating their house, or spend each day writing about what goes on in the fashion industry. Find your niche. Do you love your pets? Collect comic books? Are you obsessed with the 1970\u2019s or 80\u2019s? Pick a blog topic that reflects what you love and you\u2019ll discover that you have all of the expertise that you need.<\/p>\n

2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Pick a clever name<\/strong>. Don\u2019t call it \u201cYour name here\u2019s \u2013 blog\u201d unless your name happens to be famous. Come up with something creative that reflects what you\u2019re blogging about. A commonly used comic book phrase, or 1970\u2019s slang are both examples of things that can be twisted to become the name of your blog. Just don\u2019t use one that\u2019s copyrighted or you\u2019ll be in trouble.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Buy your own domain name.<\/strong><\/a> It\u2019s a lot easier to draw in readers if your blog is located at \u201cclever name\u201d.com. Since many blogging platforms offer domain mapping for a small fee (or for free) you don\u2019t have to necessarily host it yourself, just own the domain. Visit WebsiteSpot.com for reliable and affordable blog hosting<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Come up with logo<\/strong>. Your logo doesn\u2019t have to be complicated \u2013 it doesn\u2019t even need graphics! All you need is a colored box with the name of the blog in a cool font. Look up the blogs that you love and get inspired by their logos.<\/p>\n

5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Write your first post<\/strong>. Finally! Once the technical stuff is taken care of, you\u2019re free to write away. Make sure to spell-check and grammar-check the post before it goes live. Your first post should include something in the way of an introduction to your blog, as well as a preview of what you\u2019re going to be blogging about. The specialized content? Save that for your second post.<\/p>\n

6)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Include pictures<\/strong>. Make sure that your digital camera is at least 10mp and that you have its photo setting on \u201chigh\u201d or \u201cmedium\u201d quality. Once the pictures are posted to your blog you can make them smaller so that the page doesn\u2019t take forever to load, but they need of decent quality first.<\/p>\n

7)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Join a blogging network<\/strong>. Once you have several posts under your belt, it\u2019s time to get the word out. Go to Ning.com and find blog groups that fit into your geographic area and blog topic. Feel free to join several of them. You\u2019ll pick up from traffic from any networks that you\u2019re a member of.<\/p>\n

8)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Make sure that search engines can find you<\/strong>. Do a search on Yahoo and Google about submitting a link. It won\u2019t cost you anything, and all you\u2019ll have to do is fill out a small form and tell them your URL. After a period of time, the search engines will crawl your site and it will start showing up.<\/p>\n

No matter what you choose to blog on, make sure that you have fun doing it. The next thing you know you\u2019ll be the one who\u2019s a professional blogger providing inspiration to others!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever stumbled across a blog and, after reading it, come to the realization that the people who run it are full time bloggers? Jealousy may set it when you\u2019re left wondering why you can\u2019t do that for a living as well. Just starting a blog isn\u2019t enough. You also need dynamic content and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[67,79,456],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-website-building-101","tag-blog","tag-blogs","tag-writing-content-quality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.websitespot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}