Jason Irwin dot Net

Where To Go When Starting Your First Blog

August 30, 2007 Internet, Reviews

According to the blog trackers at Technorati, the blogosphere is continuing to grow, with a blog created almost every second.  In their latest State of the Blogosphere report, they report the number of active blogs being tracked stood at 72.2-million, up from 60-million this past December.  The report goes on to suggest that, on average, the number of blogs is doubling every five months.

But how does someone start a blog?  What tools do they need?  What should they look out for?  These questions are often asked by people just starting out for the first time, and visiting some of the most popular blogs on the internet could make someone think they need to be a professional writer or have consistently killer content.  While both of these can certainly help when it comes to reader retention, they’re not absolutely necessary.

Luckily, there are sites out there that cater to the new blogger audience at the Beginner’s Guide to Blogging at preblogging.com.  This site provides tips on blogging and earning some revenue in a highly readable format, and even offers a simple guide to starting a blog, complete with screenshots and targeted links.  I really liked how Becky broke each step down into easy to digest segments and, since I happened to have a guinea pig available, I wanted to put the steps to the test.

A friend of mine has been thinking about starting a blog for months, but never got around to it.  I had offered to set one up for him, completely installed, configured and ready for content, but he just never wanted to invest the time (which probably means any blog he created would have a lifespan of about 20 minutes).  However, throwing caution to the wind, he agreed to follow the Beginner’s Guide and set himself up on Blogger, then went about adding some content.  Maybe when he gets tired of saying “zOMG” and writing Chuck Norris jokes, I’ll post a link

Aside from just showing people how to start a blog, Becky offers tips on how to monetize the site using PayPerPost, AdSense and other programs, as well as how to direct more traffic.  One post I found particularily interesting showed us how to update our blog’s thumbnail in both Technorati and Alexa.  I’ve wanted to do this from time to time, but never invested the effort into finding out how.  Thanks, Becky!

If you know anybody that’s been thinking about starting a blog but hasn’t committed, or if you’re relatively new to the Blogosphere and want to improve your site and gain more readers, then a visit to PreBlogging.com is definately in order.

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