Most important points to know before starting a blog in 2012-13

Now that a person is influenced with blogging and has planned a blog . Whatsoever the cause behind operating a blog, be it the love for this activity or any other reason . Blogging in 2013 is full of challenges. Blogging as an activity has seen extreme growth in last few years , that too in largely populated nations of the world, contributing to the actual number of active bloggers and thus creating competition. This is not a reason to be disappointed because with the increased number of  bloggers , the number of internet users and blog readers has also increased. The thing that will make the difference in all this scenario is the quality of content and promotional strategy by a blogger. Building a successful blog is not impossible but a blogger must understand the basics of building a blog. This article is part of Better Blogger Series 2013 and will talk mostly about the fundamentals of blogging and most important points to know before starting a blog in 2012/13.


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Must know and most important points to know before starting a blog in 2012/13

Blog Identity and ownership

Before starting a blog I strongly recommend that you must use your own domain and a domain name that is relevant to your primary topic. Do not imitate the name of a popular online or offline entity as this will not result in visitors but will result in negative user experience because users will look for something and will get something else. Create your own identity by using unique and relevant domain name. It is also important to use the same name on social media websites and create profiles using it.

Must know before blogging for money

If you have started a blog considering that a blog will give you big money in immediate future , rethink blogging as a solution for this need. Blogging is a long term goal and even full time bloggers may need up to an year to build a successful blog as well as earning money from it. Also to know is that a blog is not a guarantee for money and even when a blogger will reach the level of initial earning from a blog , the earning will not be very regular and will be fluctuating.

The most common and most important fundamentals of blogging

#1. Content orientation

Content orientation or the primary topic of blogging is important because a blogger must be capable of writing useful quality content about it and also that the topic has to be of interest of a larger audience.

#2. Content quality

Content quality is something that can not be replaced with something else. Working hard to create quality content is difficult and if a blogger thinks that there is some solution to the quality and usability of content , just forget about blogging. There can be some way to make search engine send traffic but that will not be permanent. Only the readership that a blogger attracts due to the content will last long.

#3. Create some unique style of writing

A blogger has to have some unique style of writing and presenting content. Usually the way content is represented can make it more useful for readers.

#4. Blog promotion

Blog promotion is  self service process. This itself is a skill to make some buzz about your blog and to offer some useful content so that readers turn back to your blog regularly. Building a readership of even up to 500 bloggers can make your blog to the league of top blogs, just understand this.

#5. Building network of readers and followers

As mentioned is the earlier point in short , building network of readers is essential . A blogger should always try to optimize for search engines but must not rely on search engines for visitors. The better way is to have smaller goals for smaller periods rather that expecting some magic and hundreds of visitors in no time. Associate readers with your topics , provide quality content and keep up with them, while you do this just see that how tremendously this will change your blogging experience and results.

#6. Understand web-mastering and SEO

I have not seen a successful blogger not knowing the basics of web-mastering and SEO. There might be few blogger who write for large internet publications but just understand that they are backed by a capable team of webmasters.

#7. Have long term goals of blogging

Set long term blogging goal at the time of starting a blog , say for about 6 months to 1 years and then set up smaller sub goals as you go ahead and learn more things.

#8 . Do the research before doing anything
New blogger tend to experiment with many things , I personally did a lot experimentation in my early days of blogging , that still is not extreme history. The basics of blogging are about few things that are not very difficult to learn and start . A blogger must be comfortable with these basics of blogging and involve with other experimentation as they go on.Without experimentation a blogger may not emerge as an experienced blogger but the only strong recommendation that I have is that any experimentation should not be done by ignoring the basic and after doing every possible research only.