Creating and Writing you Blog (Part 2)

Become A Successful Blogger In A Few Easy Steps
Blogging today has become a profitable business. One can make easy and big money by Blogging. All you need is a passion and interest to earn that money. The blogosphere is nothing but a web of connections made by links from blog to blog.

When people browse, they are always searching for articles of interest and sometimes come across articles they never thought they would even go through.

The reader sometimes suddenly finds these articles so interesting that he reads the whole article. When do you think this arousing of keen interest does happen to
the reader? This would only happen, if the writer has put his heart and soul to write the article with all the passion and search to produce this effective article. This is what, all writing a Blog is all about.

To start with the first step, I would say that the Introduction Part of the article is very important.
Whenever you begin to write the introduction it has to be interesting because only an interesting and catchy introduction will make the reader read more. You need to make your introduction more professional and interesting to catch the imagination of the reader.

A great introduction also gives your readers something substantial and a good ground to quote, if they decide to link to your article, or even submit it to a social book-marking site. Be precise, clear and interesting in what you write. Don’t break important information in the paragraphs because a person may tend to lose the link and in the bargain lose interest as well.
Make sure your articles are attractive to be successful. Just writing a simple article will make the article dull and boring. (I have a plug-in on this blog and it gives me stats on my visitors, and most spend about 30-45 minutes reading as you are doing now)

Adding visual elements to it can make it interesting. You will see this in demonstration with some of my tutorial posts here on this blog. Sometimes your sentence may not make all the sense to the reader, but the picture
content will give a clear idea of what you would like to represent and convey to the reader.

You can be creative and put your imagination in pictures and force the reader to imagine in the same way. This is one way you can become a successful Blogger.

Create a structure for your post. What I mean is organize your content in a manner that is easy to understand. When you want to emphasize on a certain point create a heading and make it bold. Never write from a knoledge point, what do I mean?

Never presume the readers know or have the same knoledge background as you.

My mentor and friend Chris Farrell always stressed this point, make it as simple as you are teaching a primary school student.

Always explain in detail with simple and easy language. Highlighting key pieces of your article through the use of bold type or emphasizing words through italics, lets your readers know where to focus and it is handy for those, who are skimming.

Make your posts easy to read by choosing the right font size. Line spacing is also important, so take care.

Add links and block quotes where required. There is nothing more off puting than reading a blog or article that has a link text plugin utilised, as every few words are then highlighted and stops your reades from focussing on what you have to say.

Be professional, impressive and creative to make yourself a successful Blogger.

The How And Why Of Blogging
If you are asked to define modern culture and you are not wrong if you say the
phrase: ‘Blog culture‘. Particularly after the revolution brought about by laptops and notebooks, Ipads etc. it is no longer an exaggeration to describe the contemporary times as the Blog era.

Honestly, if you are not already blogging, you are lagging behind and aren’t living in the contemporary world. Today, blogging is the most favorite pastime of all those, who are fond of reading and expressing themselves. Whether you like to think on burning issues or trivial mundane matters,
Blog is your platform to express yourself.

How to go blogging?
The first step towards creating your own blog is to find a blogging provider. Explore a good number of sites to find out the features offered by them either free or for a marginal fee. You have a plethora of sites to choose from. Choose one that arouses an instant liking in you. The majority of these sites offer you ready-made templates and push-button publishing for which you don’t have to be too tech savvy.
As soon as you sign, you have in front of you ready-to-use templates to select from.

Here is a list:

1. Blogger.com  The control interface and blogging tools are easy to use and it’s highly recommended for all beginners.

2. WordPress.com    The blogging software WordPress is widely supported by most hosting companies, thus there won’t be much trouble if you wish to transfer your blog from WordPress.com to your own hosting in future. Also, it’s worth noting that WordPress.com prohibit most of their users to monetize their blogs. So unless you’re the very few selected big shots, the free WordPress.blog is not recommend if you wish to place ads and sell affiliate products, but if you purchase your own domain then you can.                                                                                                                

3. LiveJournal.com  LiveJournal.com offers various type of blog hosting services (free and paid) and are extremely popular around the blogsphere. At the time of writing, there are 18.4 million journals (blogs) created at LiveJournal.com!

4. Xanga.com  Provides free blogging and community networking services. Users get to host their blogs for free and they can connect to each other via the ‘add friends’ feature.

6. Blogster.com  Is an online community of people who share interests and activities, and are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. The website offer free image and blog hosting altogether.

After selecting one of them, personalize it by adding your name, hobbies, images etc. Feel free to use freebies such as images, buttons, moods, blog chalks, guest maps, guest books, tag-boards, comment-boxes for readers’ inputs.
Now you have to determine whether you want your blog to be exclusively private for yourself and may be your family or you want all Net visitors to be able to view it. Password-protect facility prevents others from viewing your posts.

Now figure out the format of your blog, that is how it should look. Select a color scheme and layout. Exercise your option to either choose one of the available ready layouts and schemes or put together something on your own. Now your blog has been set up.

In order to test it out, post a few pieces adjusting the layout and style. It is a good idea to write something beforehand and keep it ready to post. Keep adding to it on a regular basis, if not daily according to the availability of your free time. When you run out of ideas visit other blogs to pick up something to write on.

While visiting other blogs you may leave your comments adding your own blogging
address, so that others could visit you as well. Thankfully there are a couple of sites equipped with Photoshop and HTML tutorials that can help you make your site more attractive.

Don’t feel shy about publishing your blog by sending its URL to your friends and well-wishers. Leaving your URL with your posts, when you visit other people’s blogs is a good idea.

Why blogging? Blogging is the best way to communicate not only with your friends, but also with the world at large without intruding on anyone’s privacy. You are not claiming anyone’s time on your own.

You are not demanding their attention. Nevertheless, by blogging you interact with the world and the world interacts with you without coming in anyone’s way. Blogging is a way of socializing without stirring out of your living room and without dragging others out of their own houses. Blogging is a public platform to share with the private world of your own thoughts and feelings or your business ventures.

Part 3. I will cover (How to create an effective business blog)