The 2 great things about blogging are that you can create one for free and you don’t have to know anything about html, css, javascript or website creation at all to start one. That isn’t to say that your free, generic wordpress blog will do exactly
How to Have a Blog
as well as one that’s been set up with a customized look and SEOd to perfection (in fact it won’t, at least not right away), but at least it gives you a place to start getting the hang of blogging with no monetary investment.
Here is how you do it:
1) Go to Wordpress.com go through the sign up process and make sure that “gimme a blog!” is selected at the bottom of the sign up form. Click “next ->”.
2) On the next page you’ll choose a blog domain. For SEO purposes, try to choose a domain name that is related to what you will write about. I won’t go deep into this but, you know that term you’re always hearing: “Search Engine Optimization” or “SEO” for short? Yeah, well, one of the easiest ways to SEO your page is by choosing a title that is also a good “keyword”. A keyword is a word that people use in search engines like Bing and Yahoo. Go to wordtracker.com to see what I’m talking about. Just enter a keyword in the field there and see the list of “keywords” related to your term that people search for. I’ll get a little more mileage out of the blend-o-matic 5000 for now and see what keywords related to “blenders” come up. I get results ranging from “blender magazine” to “frog in a blender”. And you know what, I think “frog in a blender” could be a fun way to represent a blog about blenders so I’m going to see if I can use that for my Blog Domain and Blog Title. Next, choose your language (English most likely, unless there is a different one you prefer to write in…) and then be sure the check mark in the “privacy box” is checked (this way your blog will appear in search engines.). Then click continue and you’ll be on your way!
3) Login to your blog (by clicking the log in button) and then get started by clicking on “appearance” toward the bottom of the left side of the page. Here you can select a pre-made, professional looking theme for your blog. I won’t go into detail about creating your theme here. You’ll need to poke around or read an online guide for more info. Suffice it say that it’s very self explanatory. Just pick one that you think looks good.
4) Lastly, and most importantly, you’ll need to begin blogging! That is, you need to post an article. Think of a topic related to the theme of your blog that you want to write about and get to it. We recommend writing your article in a text document such as notepad on a PC or textedit on a Mac. This way, you can easily save your work in a file on your computer as you go along. Many a blog post have been lost to cyberspace by writing an article directly in the text field of a blog. Don’t ask why, just trust me 
. Once you’ve completed your blog post, sign into your blog and click on “new post” (this button is located along the top left of the page). Copy and paste your work into the field for the body of your text and enter a creative title that has something to do with what you’ve written about. Then click the “publish” button (you’ll find this button on the right side of the screen, it should be blue)
You now have a voice in the crowd. The most important part of blogging is to do it often. If you can post daily, do it. Just try to establish a routine. Post every Monday or every other day. Whatever you do be consistent so that the people who find and are interested in reading your blog will know when they can expect to find new posts. If your writing is good, helpful, fun, valuable, etc… you will slowly start to become a part of people’s daily routine. When you’re a part of someone’s routine, you have gained their trust. When you have gained someone’s trust, they are now a potential customer. Blog long enough and you’ll have a following of hundreds, thousands or hundreds of thousands to market yourself to!
Next week’s article will go over some tips to spread the word about your every blog uttering via your social network and handy system called “social bookmarking”.
Until then!
-Sensei Brian
