10 Quick tips to start Blogging now!

Woody Allen once said that "80% of success is showing up"
You are doing the 80% by showing up here, educating yourself about the process and the other 20% I regret to inform you, you will have to do yourself. But don't dismay it's really easy and in some cases its as easy as being yourself! More on that later...


10) Go to a free online Blogging site like Blogger or something similar and sign up for your own Blog.... it only takes 2 minutes and you can open a new tab to do that while you continue reading this page.

9) As you are getting started start to think about the things that make some days in your life better than others. Perhaps you will think of your family, a loved one, a favorite pet, a car you had in high school (or wish you had in high school), a role model in your life, a group you belong to or maybe its as simple as the video game you are fond of these days. These specifics are as varied as there are people and that is what makes humanity so incredible and what makes it possible for people who are -into obscure forms of traditional dance or -weird fashions or -old movies to become leading figures in their respective niches. Everyone has at least one thing they are passionate about and wish they could share with others. What's yours? Don't be shy, just be yourself, you'd be surprised how many things you have in common with others you have not met.

8) Write a quick post, nothing fancy just a paragraph or two to give you something to look at, it doesn't need to be fancy and you don't have to take it too seriously, but the point is to maintain the momentum from that first act of registering your blog and continue til we have something you are going to be proud of. Remember, if you had fun writing it, people will have fun reading it. When you're finished look at what you've done and either continue to the next step or go back and edit your very first post. Congratulations! You just published your words online, for free, to the whole world, and you didn't need to leave the house or even have to get dressed to do it! That might not seem like much, but consider how much further you are than others who only talked about doing what you just did.

7) Immediately write another post. This is to develop the habit of writing and to prove to you that no matter what, there is always something else to write. If you wrote about your vacation, write about something else that was noteworthy about your vacation or just show some more photos with comments. If your blog is about your dog, write another, slightly different post about your dog. Maybe your dog did something funny or got ill or got better or lost or died or got to meet dogs of a similar breed at the park the other day, it doesn't really matter so long as it is something you care about. If you care about and love your dog, others will likely do the same but not if they can't connect with your life and share in its good and bad times.

6) Now you may want to decide whether or not you want to earn money from your blog. If you do not, that's no problem, many people openly and freely share their lives and ideas online and don't earn a dime doing it. If you would however, like to make some money while you pursue your new hobby of blogging. Consider your options: You can very easily add Adsense to your blog and the clever people at google will match your blog content to relevant ads. If your blog is about your garden, the ads will probably be related to gardening products and if your blog is about your husband and his country band, the ads will likely be about musical instruments and country music. You don't have to worry about people being put off by your ads because, if you understand how it works, everything you post will attract people who are interested in the subjects you talk about and all ads will relate to the things you talk about... nothing sticks out and everyone wins. People get connected to relevant products specifically marketed to them, and you get some money for allowing people to get connected on your blog. That's doesn't sound too hard now does it?

5) Consider promoting your own products or content either for free or as a business. Suppose you have the next great novel or an invention you've been sitting on for years. Maybe you just want to tell people about your passion for recycling and want to share your story and spread the idea of recycling. Online blogging gives you opportunites previous generations never had to share and spread their ideas. Imagine wanting to write a book in the 1800s, or wanting to share your invention in the 1950s. Each time period had huge limitations that prevented ordinary people from doing extraordinary things. Fast forward to today and I have the opportunity to connect, help, collaborate, do business with others, educate myself and prosper online. A few centuries ago I would be reaching my life expectancy, today I share my thoughts with people I otherwise would not get to meet in my city. I intend to write books, I've wanted to do so for sometime and I don't care if I get a huge following, but I do know that at least some people would be interested and it is for that reason that I make my work available rather than hiding it privately.

4) Consider promoting other people's products or companies. Whether you like Coke or Pepsi doesn't really matter but so long as you have interests, preferences and favored brands or companies you can help advertise and get compensated in return. Maybe you have a book you wish everyone would read, or a song that speaks to you or a car stereo you think is the best. At some point you wanted to know about these products and eventually you made a purchase and were probably grateful for the information that led up to your purchase. Capitalism doesn't have to be men in power suits pinching bills out of your family's piggy bank, often it is as unassuming and harmless as a friend telling you about something they bought that worked for them and could work for you. If a friend who spends all day driving either because they have to for work or because they are a car enthusiast, I listen to their opinion regarding which tires to buy more closely than I do for my computer enthusiast friends who know a lot about hardware and software but nothing regarding cars or trucks. Your recommendations could be profitable for both you and the companies and products you feel are worth promoting, explore these options and read up on affliate marketing, both in general and for the companies that interest you.

3) Continue educating yourself. About anything and everything so long as you find it either interesting or relevant to you. In order to remain focused or at least inspired you need to keep nourishing the mental soil from which all your content flows. As you may have noticed, you can learn an awful lot in a relatively short period of time by honing your research skills to things that are interesting and relevant to you. If you like your cellphone you can always learn something new about it or to do with it and you can share those ideas with others through your blog. Some people however just write about themselves and are happy to just share tidbits of their life. These people don't need to educate themselves about themselves but they do have to find new ways of generating content and maintaining some level of user traffic (or not, its not a popularity contest but point 2 will explain why its good to have traffic). This may come in the form of a post about their day, what they did what they thought about, anything really. The important thing is to find your own comfort level regarding your relationship and involvement with your blog and to see how you view your blog continuing through time and why.

2) Generate and continue to generate Traffic. If you are only posting for a few people and have no intention of getting any more attention online than necessary, ignore this point, just keep generating content and continue to get the most out of your blog. If however, you are considering to use your blog to make money, it's important to know that the money you can make will usually be more plentiful and will come more often if you have lots of traffic, not less. So spread the word, tell your friends (that would be interested not everyone) advertise on similar sites, use online and real world resources to expand your audience as much as possible without spending a fortune, it is possible and usually a bit of hard work goes further than latest scheme.

1)Keep Blogging! By having a Blog and maintaining it you are playing a part in history! You not only get to tell your unique story and be a part of history but you get to connect with people in every part of the world and your level of involvement can be as little or as much as you want it to be. Maybe you update your blog 3-4 times a day because you want to share your unique diet, one meal at a time. Maybe you spend half the year blogging about your world travels and the other half you don't or maybe you just blog about something different, its entirely up to you.
Blogging can be a hobby, it can be a way to connect with family and friends. Blogging can also be a way of life or a way to expand your business, ideas or interests. But Blogging should never be chore, if you don't feel that blogging is for you, stop. There are plenty of other people who want to share their stories or make some money while connecting with the rest of the world. If you would rather spend your time doing something else, do it. Blogging has many advantages but they don't serve you 'what's the point?'. I recommend you give it a try though, you never know where it might lead or if you'll like it, unless you try. Besides you just did 80% of the hard part, why not do the other 20?