In the olden days, those whose voices were heard by many in the media had to be rich, influential, work at a news paper or radio station, or a combination of all of the above. However, thanks to modern technology, anyone with an opinion can make it heard by a worldwide audience. You still need a method of communication, in this case, the internet.

People are well aware of what the internet is capable of. Even old people are getting into YouTube, Skype-ing their family all over the world and forwarding those stupid emails. Lots of people also read blogs, or at least know that a blog is like an online newspaper that anyone can run (if you didn’t, you do now). If you were to get your own blog, you can be your own editor.

I’ll leave the dreams and possibilities up to you, and instead I’ll be focusing on what you need to start up your own blog.

Finding a web host

While determining a web host can sometimes be the last thing in the web design timeline, I’m placing this first as it could change how you go about the rest of the steps.

There are many free services available that provide blogging accounts: Wordpress, Blogger by Google, Tumblr, LiveJournal, the list could go on for pages and pages. Each service has its own pros and cons, but if I was to choose one, I would go for Wordpress. I encourage you to look around and see which one suits you the best, but my choice is still Wordpress.

If you want more complete control over your blog and are willing to pay for it, you purchase your own web hosting and host your blog yourself (this is what I do, hosting my own Wordpress blog). Like blog providers, there are also pages and pages of paid web hosting providers such as Dreamhost, BlueHost, GoDaddy, HostMonster, as well as free web hosting providers (although these may force ads on your pages). A quick search in your favourite search engine of choice will provide you with many options.

Once you have decided how it is going to be hosted, it is time to move to the next step.

Determine your target audience and find out what they already like

Who do you want to appeal to? What are their interests? What do they like?

Do you want to write in a niche which not many other people write about (but that could also mean that not many other people are interested in it)? You could write about labradors.

Or do you want to write on a broad subject (but risk getting lost in the sea of blogs that also write about the same thing)? Or you could write about dogs generally.

These are just some of the questions that you need to think about when you start your own blog.

Get to know the competition. See what others are writing about, see how they’re writing their posts.

Write what you know about

Writing about something that you have no idea about or you’ve read about on Wikipedia is like trying to fly a commercial aeroplane after only being a paper plane throwing champion.

People who are reading your blog will also be interested in some of the things that you are, and they will also know about what they like as well. You could try and fudge your way into getting people to believe that you know what you are talking about, but they will most likely see through your lack of knowledge and not read your blog again. What you want to do is retain readers and keep them coming back.

When writing, make sure that you use correct spelling and grammar, too! Nothing screams “UNPROFESSIONAL!” more than improper spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Get your name out there

To make blogging worthwhile and fun, you need to get your name out there and get people reading your posts. But before you start showing your new blog off to people, make sure that you already have some content on there, instead of having a “Hello, here we are!” post and nothing else. Give the readers something to read as soon as they get there. If you tell them to “check back in a few days”, chances are that they won’t.

With all of the various social media platforms available today (Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc.) it is not difficult to get first-time readers. However, you may not be able to easily find your target audience on these sites.

Search around for other blogs that are writing on the same things that you are, read their articles and comment on them. Most blogs allow you to post your web address as well, allowing any visitor to click on the link. Because you are “in enemy territory”, so to speak, there will be people there who obviously like the content on that blog and you may be able to get people to read and subscribe to yours as well.

They were the “dos”, here are the “don’ts”

Don’t steal or copy content from other websites unless they are your own. Apart from increasing the potential for a reader to stop reading your site because they have already read what you are posting, it’s not fair on the original author. Think about how you would feel if someone did that to you.

Don’t expect people to come to you. You need to be proactive (at first, anyway) in getting people to come to your blog. After you have established yourself and your blog and written some original quality content that your readers like, they will begin to tell others about you. Word of mouth is the best (and cheapest) form of advertising.

Don’t be lazy. Post regularly, post consistently. Readers will come to expect new content after a certain amount of days (or hours, if that’s what you prefer). Give them something to look forward to.

“What if I still have no idea about what to do?”

There are plenty of sites out there that provide tips on blogging and starting up your own blog. Many blogs exist that are exclusively about blogging better. These blogs also have many free and paid for eBooks available that give you tips and tricks on making the most out of your blog. One of my favourites is ProBlogger and their “31 days to build a better blog“. Again, a search using your search engine of choice will yield plenty of results, such as “Kick your blog in the butt“.

“Why would you tell us this if you’ve got a blog yourself?”

I was listening to a podcast by author Michael A. Stackpole called “The Secrets” in which he gives away the “secrets” of writing that authors usually learn in the first 5 years of their careers. He said that by telling other people the secrets, it can both help other people and provide motivation to him to become a better author. I feel that the same could also be said about this post.

A final note: Don’t make blogging a chore

Try and make blogging fun for yourself, so you look forward to writing a new post. While this may not be as easy when you’re just starting out and trying to build your reader base, once you have done so it will be less of a chore and more fun and relaxing.

For me, blogging isn’t a chore. I set out to write this post as a reasonably short post and now, 1256 words later, it’s only just wrapping up now.