Starting a Blog Week: Questions 3 and 4

This is the next installment of my article Five Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start a Blog.

3. How often will I post?

Decide in advance how often you will post on your blog. If you’re intimidated, start by posting once a week. No, you won’t get oodles of followers this way, but you will gain confidence in your skills. It’s important to find your comfort zone before you worry about site traffic.

If you’re pumped up about blogging, go ahead and post more often. Frequent updates attract readers. Many bloggers post every day of the week. Some write every weekday. I post three times a week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It works for me. Find out what works for you by experimenting.

The number one complaint I hear from writers who’ve been blogging for less than a year is they started out posting every day then ran out of ideas and stopped for long periods of time. What do you think readers want more—a great blog with posts every day for two months then nothing for weeks or great posts twice a week every week of the year? Be consistent. If you stop posting, you’ll lose readers. It’s okay to take a few weeks off if necessary, but let your readers know when you’ll be posting again so they’ll come back.

I also strongly recommend you write your posts at least a day in advance. This gives you time to edit. You don’t want to post sloppy work. Take time to put your best work on your blog. Writing your posts in advance is also a great way to avoid long breaks between posts because you can schedule them.

4. How much blogging knowledge do I have?

When you start a blog, there is a learning curve. You have to sign up for a service (such as Blogger or Wordpress), decide on a URL, pick out a template, play around with the layout, and figure out how to post. It can be stressful, but it’s very fun and rewarding. Don't worry; your blog service will have a guide to get you started and an extensive help section.

If you don’t know the first thing about blogging, start small and add bells and whistles as you go. Don’t worry about learning everything in three days; you’ll just stress yourself out. You can use an easy to set up template from a site such as http://www.thecutestblogontheblock.com/, http://www.shabbyblogs.com/ , or http://btemplates.com/.

When you become comfortable with blogging basics, you’ll naturally desire to expand on your skills. You’ll wonder how you can add great photos and links to your site. A quick Internet search will show tons of blogs with detailed posts on these subjects.

One more note: the address people type in to get to your blog is the URL. It will look something like yourblog.blogspot.com or yourblog.wordpress.com, depending on which service you use. My blog URL is http://jillkemerer.blogspot.com. When you sign up with a service, include the name you want to be published under in your URL. This means either your real name or your pen name. Why? Readers Google author names, so it will make your blog easy to find when you’re published.

Join me on Friday for the final installment.

And...

Write Already! It's Wednesday!

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