SBSS – How To Start Blogging

BLOGGING

Many of you have heard about content marketing. But how do you get started? What do you need to do? Don’t worry it’s not as scary as it seems. There needs to be thought put into the blog before you begin. I will walk you through the steps of creating a blog. From what platform to use, topics to use and what schedule you should go adhere too.

First you need to think of the purpose for your blog. If it’s for content marketing you will need to blog at least a few times a week. The posts should be roughly 350 words a post. If you can go longer feel free to write as much as you want. There isn’t any cost to writing more on a blog! If content marketing is your goal, will you be able to keep up a blogging schedule of a few posts a week? If you answer no, you may rethink your choice or get someone to help your blogging efforts. If you answered Yes or have help. Let’s move on to the blogging platform.

What Platform do you need? My personal favorite blogging platform is a self hosted WordPress site. If you are not very web savy this may make things difficult for you. Never fear there are some very easy to do.

WordPress.com. It’s the basic site Wordpress offers. It doesn’t have all the plugins or bells and whistles. You can get a feel for the service and can eventually move it to a self hosted if you want to later.

Blogger.com – Blogger is where I started. Its super easy and you can be set up in the matter of minutes. It is very much like using MS Word. To me it’s a bit limited but if you want to try it out with little capital investment this would be a great way to start.

Self Hosted Wordpress – If you know your way around the web and have a sever already this would be easy to install. Over the years the set up is simple. If you use a hosting company like HostGator it has an auto install feature. You won’t have to worry about SQL Databases or anything. This one you will need a domain or sub domain. The Domain should cost you around $12. But this one gives you the most flexibility with themes and plugins. This is my personal choice.

No matter which platform you choose you can get started in the matter of minutes. Each are simple to use. Like I said if you are tech savy go with the self hosted, if you are not go with the wordpress.com or blogger.

What Content to Write About:  That can be anything. The best thing to do is write about what your potential customers are looking for on the net.  Topics can include

  • Top 5 or top 10 lists.
  • Events your company is putting hosting,
  • volunteer opportunities
  • Great employees.
  • Tutorials and How to Articles
  • Frequently Asked Questions for your industry

Getting on a schedule is key. The best thing to do is take a document very similar to the Social Media Editorial Calendar. Customize it and use it to plan out posts. You will need at least one image for a post. If you do a tutorial and screen shots, that will take a lot longer to do. Also, this will be helpful if you have a few people writing. You can keep track of who is doing what and if the deadline is going to be met.

I hope this is a good overview of blogging. There are several posts per topic under this post. I will go into more very soon!

Tim is the founder of Element33. A social media agency specializing in education, management and strategy for small businesses. He comes from a traditional marketing agency but has embraced all things digital. He considers himself a marketing nerd and believes that all marketing is tied together. This means no matter what silo you are in, social, email, seach, etc, changes in one will affect the other!

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