New Bloggers Guide: Blogging 101

By Luvvie of AwesomelyLuvvie.com

What do People Blog About?

Beauty

Politics

Technology

Entertainment

Personal life

Health/Fitness

Science

EVERYTHING!

The 10 Blogging Commandments

I. Thou Shalt Decide On a Platform That Is Right For You

Blogger

Easy and fast to setup

FREE!

Yourdomain.blogspot.com

Wordpress (.org)

Free but hosting costs

Super customizable

Full website capability

Like buying a house as opposed to renting (Blogger)

II. Thou Shalt Not Have Awful Design

What’s Awful?

Crazy colors

Lots of clutter

Glitter and sparkle

Most MySpace pages

III. Thou Shalt Make Site Easy To Remember

supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.wordpress.com

= FAIL

Buy A Custom URL

Instead of yoururl.blogspot.com, just yoururl.com

Great branding

Shows commitment to site

Less characters people have to type

IV. Thou Shalt Measure and Track Traffic

Google Analytics

www.google.com/analytics

Clicky

www.getclicky.com

Google Analytics vs. Clicky

Google Analytics

• FREE!

• Shows traffic, pageviews, and

referring sites

• Updates every 24 hours

• Doesn’t count traffic from people who

don’t allow cookies on their browsers

Clicky

• Free for basic account but one can

upgrade

• Shows traffic, pageviews, and

referring sites

• Updates in real-time. Shows amount

of people CURRENTLY on site

• Counts everyone

Use both! G-analytics is great for overall look. Clicky

is great for those who need constant updates.

V. Thou Shalt Make Content Easy To Receive

RSS FeedsAllow people to subscribe to your blog to receive via their Reader of choice or

email.

VI. Thou Shalt Promote Thine Blog

Make Your Site Visible

Twitter, Facebook etc.

Comment on other blogs

Guest post

VII. Thou Shalt Have Good Content

Be...

ONE of these. Or more:

INTERESTING!

Useful

Informative

Funny

Current

VIII. Thou Shalt Engage Thine Readers

Create Conversation

When readers comment, REPLY.

Leave blogs open-ended (ask questions)

IX. Thou Shalt Show Love to Other Bloggers

Share Your Space

Link to others bloggers in posts

Create a blogroll

Accept guest posters sometimes

X. Thou Shalt Write In Your OWN Voice

Have Muses But Don’t Duplicate

Imitation can flatter, but it can also be plagiarism

Be Authentic

Blog what you know

Give credit when it’s due

“To thine own blog be true!”

Questions?

Email me: Luvvie@aweluv.com. @iLuvvit