Setting Up a Blog
I finished writing about registering a domain name and choosing a web host. It is time to set up a blog. In your case, I just hope that you already registered your own domain name and found a web host to host your blog. If you noticed, I skipped writing about free web hosting. Why I skipped writing about free web hosting? Well, it is just an option.
You see, if I would like to earn money from blogging, I thought that I should make an investment so I will also take problogging seriously. If I know that I invested something, I know that I need to get a return from that investment. If things are free, sometimes we take things for granted. But if we know that we have invested some money too not only our time and effort into something, we tend to do more things.
But before writing on how to set up a blog, let me remind you first what I wrote before. When I wrote about starting a blog, I mentioned about a niche or topic which I have been thinking that I could discuss on my blog but opted to probably just write about anything that I would like to write. I even have an alternative that instead of starting a new blog, I could just improve my current websites and blogs and update them regularly.
Why am I reminding you about it? While you were reading that blog entry on planning and starting a blog, I hope that you also already thought of the main topic or main subject that you would like to discuss on your blog. I hope that you thought about that even before you registered a domain name because that is what I normally do. When I registered ProBlogit.com I already know what I would like to write on this blog.
I have been thinking of problogging for quite some time now. In order for me to be able to start problogging, I need a space to write my thoughts. So, I registered a domain name. Yes, exactly this one, the ProBlogit.com which is currently being hosted at Dreamhost.
How to set up a blog?
All I did was, logged-in at the Control Panel at Dreamhost and instead of installing WordPress manually, I used the One-Click Automatic Installer of Dreamhost. Then, I created a WordPress theme based on the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) of my two blogs. I just tweak it a little bit and was able to create a WordPress theme just within a day. And voila, this is the result.
In your case, if you do not have your own design, you can just choose from all the WordPress themes which were made available to you by Dreamhost. If you cannot decide yet, make use of the default theme first. Eventually, you will be able to find a nice theme to your liking.
If One-Click Automatic Installer is not available at the web host you have an account with, ask someone you know to install WordPress for you. If not, read about it at WordPress.org Codex, Getting Started with WordPress, especially this one, Installing WordPress. If you still cannot get it, ask me and we will talk and discuss about it. 🙂
Once WordPress was installed and running, instead of writing immediately, I created some very important pages first.
About Page. Probably this page is the most important page in a blog. I created this page as this is what the readers check to see who is the author or writer of the blog. It is my identity and it gives me more credibility. It gives the readers an idea about me.
Contact Page. If the readers have questions which are not related to the topics, this is where they can contact me. It gives the readers the opportunity to ask me and it gives them an idea that they can actually get in touch with me if they have any questions.
Search Page. I created this page immediately even if WordPress has a built-in search capability. I reserve this page for Google Site Search.
Archives Page. I also created this page together with the other pages. I just reserve this page for future archiving purposes. It could give the readers easy access to all the articles.
Links Page. I also created this page as I have other websites and blogs too. I can just link my other websites and blogs from this page. This way, I give my other blogs and websites more exposure to other readers even if they are not interested in my other sites.
Terms of Use Page. If the blog is about problogging and is earning, or hopes of earning from problogging or even just blogging, it is just proper to let the readers know that I am earning from my writing. This is where I wrote all about the Terms of Use, Copyright, Disclaimer, Copyright, Disclosure, and Privacy Policy of the blog or website. In my other sites, I have separated these pages from each other but putting it in one page saves the readers some time so they do not have to go from one page to another.
Sitemap Page. This is optional but Google likes to access this page. So I created this page even if I do not have any content in there yet because I know that this will be very useful later on.
After the pages were created, I thought of all the categories or subtopics that I would like to cover within the niche or main topic or main subject that I would like to write about. Even if I have no articles yet, I always do this as these categories will guide me and remind me that I have those subtopics to think of.
Once I have the pages and categories in place, I started writing for my about page and other pages.
When everything was done with ProBlogit.com, as I already have those pages where my readers can view, I then started writing for this blog. I finally started problogging. But let me remind you that it took me three months to start problogging even if I had everything in place. I just did not have the time to start before April 2, 2009 as web designing was my priority. But I thought, if I will not start writing, then nothing will happen. So without hesitation, I just did it. I just said to myself, start now, just “Pro Blog it”. The “it” here refers literally to anything that I would like to write in my new problogging venture, problogging tips and ideas, and problogging reviews and opinions.
So that’s it, I just “Pro Blog it”.
But wait, before I end this, if you have not opened an account with any web hosting company yet, would you like to use my referral link at Dreamhost, Lunarpages or Bluehost?
Disclosure:
If you are going to use any of my referral links to the three web hosting companies, I will earn from it. Please kindly inform me if you use my referral link so I will know if it really works. This is another topic that I could review later on. Thank you very much.
Note:
If you have not registered a domain name yet and have not chosen a web host yet, please read my past blog entries.
Choosing a good Domain Name
Registering a Domain Name
Choosing a Web Host
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