How to start a blog

Blogger vs. Wordpress

The first decision when making a blog is whether you will use wordpress or blogger. What platform you choose does not really matter, and you can be just as successful in both. In my opinion, wordpress is a “better” platform for blogging, i haven’t used it myself, but i know that it is easier to customize your blog on wordpress. Wordpress also allows you to buy premium themes, which look amazing. It is also a little more difficult to use wordpress, because it is a little more advanced than blogger. 

Blogger is very simple, and it is easy to start using. The problem is that it is hard to make your blog look good, because there are not so many options when choosing themes on blogger. However, blogger allows you to include adsense in a neat way.

Blogger and Wordpress are both great, i use blogger, but i think thats because it was the one i started with. Check out both of them, before you decide which on to use.

Your niche

The niche(what your blog is about) of your blog is very important, you should have an idea of what your niche should be before you choose your blog platform. Your niche could be anything, but you should try not to be to general, like me. You see, if you write 20 blog post about, lets say cupcakes. And you tag all your posts with cupcake, you will get a decent ranking on that tag. But if you make a blog like mine, you don’t really have any main tags, they are different between each post. 

After choosing your niche, it is time to start blogging.

Write good blog posts

The quality of your blog is decided mostly from your content. Having quality content is very important to get your readers interested, and to make them revisit. If you have bad content, then people will not read your blog. When writing a blog post, you should ask yourself: “Does this inform/help my readers in any way?”. If you can say yes to that, you content is good.

Update regularly

How often you write blog posts is your choice. The more blogposts, the more to read for your readers. But make sure you don’t write 3 bad posts instead of one good, just to get as much content as possible. You should try to update your blog every day, but it may take to much time (Like it did to me). At first i wrote a blog post everyday, but now i have to cut it down to maybe a couple posts a week. Updating your blog is also important for google hits, because each time you update your blog, you blog will get a higher ranking. This is how google separates updating sites from old sites.

So make sure to update frequently, with good content.

Share your blog

When you have started your blog, and written about 5 blog posts it is time to start sharing. Share each blog post on facebook, twitter, stumbleupon, reddit, digg, and delicious. Sharing is the only way to get readers to your blog. You can have the best content in the world, but if you don’t tell your readers about it, they are not going to visit your blog. 

So after writing about 5 good blog posts, you should share your blog an your posts everywhere.

I hope you learned something from this post, and good luck on starting your own blog!

30 questions to make you think

1. What would you do differently if you could start your life from scratch?

2. What would you do differently if you knew nobody was judging you?

3. If you could make a statement to the entire world, what would you say?

4. When was the last time you did something new?

5. If you had no fear, what would you do?

6. What advice would you give the “5 year old you”?

7. What is the most amazing thing you have ever seen?

8. What is your number one priority?

9. How many hours a week do you spend in front of your computer?

10. When did you last judge someone you didn’t know?

11. What do you wish you had invented?

12. What does a perfect day look like to you?

13. What fascinates you?

14. When did you realize life is short?

15. What makes someone a hero?

16. What would you write a book about?

17. How do you define success?

18. What would you want someone to say at your funeral?

19. What do you plant to grow a seedless watermelon?

20. Can lying ever be the right thing to do?

21. What is the purpose of education?

22. If you had $1 million dollars, what would you do?

23. Who is the strongest person you know?

24. How do you tell when you are out of invisible ink?

25. What is missing from your life?

26. What came first, the hen or the egg?

27. What would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way?

28. What does it mean to be human?

29. What gives your life meaning?

30. If nothing is perfect, how come practice makes perfect?

How to read better

You probably think you are reading fast enough. You probably are, but reading fast is one thing. Reading well and fast is something else. Being able to understand the most important from a text without having to read it all. Without having to read it twice. There are quite a few things which will improve your reader skills. 

Titles

Assuming you are reading a well written text, the title is the most important line of the text. The author has to conclude all he/she has written in one sentence, so make sure to read the title well. Read it, think about it, analyze it, try to imagine what the text is about just from the title. You should also read the sub headers. By reading all the headers first you will get a better idea of what the text is about. This is actually scientifically true as well. When we read a couple of headers, our brain automatically starts associating and thinking about the subject. Bringing memories and knowledge you already know to the front of your head. So by reading the headers you will get a better idea of the text, and it will make your brain think.

Pictures

After you have read the titles you should observe the pictures. If the pictures are properly used they should give information regarding the same subject as the text, but give you some more information than the text. Observing the pictures and reading the image text will also help you to start thinking about the text.

When you have finished all the pre reading stuff, you should already have a good idea of what the text is about. Now it is time to actually start reading it. No matter what you are reading the first sentence is important. It gives you an idea about the text, just like the title. When you start reading the text itself, how to do it depends on your purpose of reading the text. It is often a good idea to skim the text first, at least if it is short, and you need to read it thoroughly. Skim the text, grabbing some information here and there. After skimming all the lines, you should read the text again. This time you will read it very closely, understanding everything you read. Thinking about what the sentence you are reading means. When you have come through the text, after reading it very closely. There is nothing more to do about the reading, unless you want to read it again of course.

After reading

After you have read the text, it is time to reflect. Think about what you just read, and what it means. If you are reading a text for educational purposes, for a test or something similar you should make notes of what you just read. Write down a title, and a few words on each subject of the text. If you read the text almost perfectly, you should be able to write down a summary of what you read. If you have to go back to the text to make a summary, you should follow the tips above again. The reflectional stage of the reading should make you remember the text. Here it is important to take time to think, and really understand the text.

I hope at least some of these tips helped you, good luck reading whatever it is you are reading. If you are a student and you are tied up with homework, this post may not be enough help to free you schedule. See my blog post about finishing your work here.