What are the first, elemental steps in starting a blog and getting online? It should be easy, but you want to be driving hundreds of visitors to your blog each week if it is going to be successful. Here are our first 8 steps into setting up a successful blog.

Step 1 ) Decide What To Blog About
It might seem a daft point to mention, but it sets the scene for the entire blog. Maybe you just want to start blogging and are not sure what to blog about? Maybe you have a specific area to talk about. Whichever, decide on the theme you are going to blog about and work from there. Work out what the aim of your blog will be.

Step 2 ) Decide What Tool To Use
Are you afraid of anything technical or eager to get your hands dirty? Decide whether installing self-hosted WordPress is for you or whether you need an easier option. If you want to host a WordPress blog, then look for a suitable website host to work with.

Step 3 ) Choose A Name
Now that you know what you are blogging about and the system to use, choose a name. Even if you are using a system such as Blogger, it is well worth picking your own website domain name to use with it. It can be far easier to remember and return to a simple URL than a longer one, plus if you are getting into paid advertising, your own URL can be worth a lot more.

Step 4 ) Get Going
Download WordPress and install it or sign up to Blogger or your chosen system. Whichever you are most comfortable with. Follow the basic set-up instructions you can find relevant to the system you are using.

Step 5 ) Start Posting
You are almost there – you can now place your first blog post and finally be classed as a blogger! Make that first post, but before you hit the post button, take a chance to read through the post a couple of times and make sure it is correctly written.

Over the next few days and weeks you are going to start posting a lot more. Don’t let it put you off that you are probably making posts that no human will read yet, time will come!

Step 6 ) Read Other Blogs
Browse other bloggers’ work in the same or similar fields. See how they post and what they are talking about. Which of their posts have attracted the most comments? Are they about subjects that you can also talk about and maybe get your own share of the traffic?

Step 7 ) Join In With Other Blogs
When you read a post that interests you, write a meaningful comment. Not just ‘Nice post, thanks’ type comments and don’t put in any links to the posts. Write something in the comment that will flatter the blog owner and will interest them and their readers. If the comment is good enough they and their readers might click on your name to visit your website and hopefully leave a comment in return!

Step 8 ) Show Off Your Talents
Now that you have content and a few readers, start trying to improve the search engine ranking. Select your best posts, rewrite them and submit them to the top article directories. This should send you a few more visitors, as well as improving the number of inbound links and Page Rank.

There are other changes you might like to make along with these first steps to setting up a blog, such as checking the security settings. If you want to now more about starting blogging, call into our blog!

Keith Lunt