Tips on How To Start A Blog

My heartfelt appreciation to Mrs. Anne V., Founder/Writer of http://www.stretchyourpeso.com who is able and willing to share with us her knowledge in blogging. She is very generous and joyful in teaching us all she knew about the topic which she share with her beloved husband's advocacy.

Below are the important points to do’s for the newbies and wannabe bloggers:

There are three platforms that can host your blog/website for free perfectly for beginners.

• Blogpost (www.blogger.com) – this is more user-friendly specially to those who are not computer programmer or has limited knowledge in the computer. This website is highly recommended. It is free and I find it very user friendly.
• Wordpress (www.wordpress.com) – this website is so slow in uploading even if the article is just very simple. Hence, not recommended.
• Weebly (www.weebly.com) – this website is just new and you can expect lots of bugs.

How to create your own blog/website.

1. Gmail Account for your blog. All you need is an existing gmail email address/account. If you don’t have, you should create one at no cost. This will be used to sign up to a Blogger account. Use Google+ profile to make your blog connected with your Google+ account. When you have already google+ account, in your browser, type www.blogger.com ,Voila, your blogsite will be automatically created.
2.  Blog Name and Suggested Topics. Once you have created your blog, you will just choose a name for your blog. Blog name should be catchy, and represent something the owner stands for. Pray and think for a perfect blog name and make sure that no dot com already registered in your chosen name. It should be unique. Upon choosing the name, you have to figure out what your blog’s niche is. Niche means job, purpose, category. Example: Stretch Your Peso – lifestyle blog (tackles health, life hacks, savings, parenting, homeschool, products/service reviews, etc) It could be just health blog only, entertainment blog, trend blog- concentrating on one niche only. You may need to change the name as you just found the perfect name for your blog, you can edit and change in settings anytime. For the first timer, try test blog, say personal blog. For me, my trial blog is AlmaRabino.blogspot.com, there I am sharing everything about my personal observation, journey, etc. Then, if you are very confident in blogging, you can change the name to a professional blog name. You need to start simple and personal first. Then tell your family and friends about your blog, they are your first readers/viewers. You should be passionate in what you are writing so it just flows. It is easy to write if you like the topics. I suggest making a mom blog. Then focus on product/service reviews, just insert other articles like tips from a mom so you have fillers. If you go out, eat at a restaurant, it is an opportunity to rate/review the food/service. There are so many viewers of product/services reviews. People nowadays check blog reviews of restaurants before going there to save time, money and effort. Blog reviews saves our readers from wasting time and money on products/services that aren’t good. But blog should not only reviews, it should have other topics as well. Just be careful in writing reviews for big brands, they might sue. It is best practice or make a policy that if we did’nt like product/services, we won’t write about it. It’s just a waste of our web space and time.
3. Blog Dashboard. If the chosen blog name is available, just click create blog and presto, you have now your blog. The face of your blog is called the dashboard - virtual office of your blog. Here, you can find Earnings where the Google Adsense linked if you can aready have ads in your website. You have to apply for the Google Adsense and sometimes they will be denied just like visa application. In order for you not to deny, there should have no deadlinks in the blog so when Google scanned the website, it will not be look like under construction. You have at least 30 quality published original - content - articles with minimum of 600 words per article and all button or menu in the blog is working.
4. Blog/Website should have active social media like facebook page, Instagram, twitter. Active meaning there should have post of more than once a week. Specially if its just started.
5. For more details and step by step blogging guide, you may refer to this link. https://support.google.com/blogger

Thank you for reading. I hope it will help those who wants to blog but don't know how to start. Happy blogging!