Start a WordPress Blog on Your Own Site – Part 4: From Implementation to Application
Monday, November 5th, 2007 at 4:55 pm
The other parts of this series have covered aspects with regards to picking WordPress as your platform of choice, finding the right web host and installing WordPress. The fourth part will try and take you through the baby steps required to go from “having” a WordPress blog property somewhere on the internet, to actually turning it into a content-producing blog, which is read by other people.
1. Deciding on your niche & adding the content
choose your topic niche well and then stick to itWith so many blogs around, it is important that you choose your topic niche well and then stick to it – it also needs to be well-defined in order not to be too general, since that would just get your blog lost in the crowd.
After that, your first step should be writing some quality content. Since you’ll be launching your blog to the public with this content, it is of absolute importance that these initial articles show your readers what they can expect from your blog in future. See these first articles as a showcase of your talent, which will need to entice your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed or at least decide that they’ll check back in two weeks (after the launch) and then decide whether your blog is worthy of RSS subscription.
2. Social networking & making friends
Second step is to get a few people reading your blog… Obviously you’ll have to start small (especially if you don’t have a budget for paid marketing), but starting small does have some benefits. It will enable you to create a very loyal reader-base at the beginning. The best suggestion is to tell all your friends about your blog – e-mail them and simply ask them to visit it – this might be a very elementary first step, but I can assure you that you’ll feel a lot more positive when you see some traffic coming your way and people actually start commenting on your entries. There’s also the possibility that your friends will be impressed and that they’ll tell other people about it… Can you say free viral marketing!?
Another tactic which I have employed with quite some success on my own blog, is to e-mail the big guys with the big blogs (in your niche or related at least) and tell them about it. They won’t notice it on their own, but if you take the first step and tell them about it, they might just give you some linklove via their own blogs. This type of publicity is invaluable and you should really have a go at this – if you get shot down or ignored, you haven’t lost anything have you?
3. Keep it up! Don’t let it die!
Many bloggers struggle to follow through after the initial “I’m excited! I’ve got a new blog” phase and it’s those blogs that end up dying a quick and silent death… The easiest way of negotiating this journey, is to write a whole bunch of new posts and keep them for scheduled entries (this can be done very easily in WordPress by just scheduling your posts for a date in the future), which means that the blog will have fresh content when your initial visitors come back in a couple of weeks’ time.
4. Ignore the slow growth
Contrary to many opinions, it takes some time to become a prominent blogger… Growth is normally very slow at the beginning of the blog’s life, but often the growth thereafter increases exponentially. The important thing is not to lose your motivation for blogging and thus to stick to your original blog plans – eventually the traffic, returning readers and comments will come, but you will have to work for it.
5. Making money in the beginning is a big no-no…
Most new blogs are set up with the aim of earning some kind of passive income and although guys like John Chow & Darren Rowse have proved that big bucks can be made from one’s blog, it is important not to try and monetize your blog right away. Wait until your RSS stats show some decent traffic, before you start monetizing your blog – people tend to be more receptive of advertisements on blogs, when they sense the blog has become somewhat popular. But if you decide to monetize it straight away, readers might just discard your blog as another money-making scheme.
Conclusion
I’m not suggesting that these 5 steps will work for everyone nor do I guarantee you any success, BUT these steps do shed some light on a few key aspects of getting your blog up and running after you’ve handled the technical side of things.
A WordPress blog running on your own server is a very powerful tool to have and if leveraged correctly, could open a vast amount of opportunities to you. I hope that the advice contained in this post will contribute to your success in running your own WordPress blog.
Good luck!
* This is the second contribution from our guest author Adriaan “Adii” Pienaar. If you liked this article, be sure to visit Adii.co.za.
nomad-one Says:
November 7th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Nice to see you’re spreading your wings adii, nice post with some good solid fundamentals. You’re so right when you say that speaking to those who have already achieved some success and telling them what you do helps. Which is why I got in touch with you in the first place. Looking forward to doing that interview with you for “My Blog”.
Interviewing a few well known bloggers has helped me gain insight, meet great people, get some attention and learn from the masters. It’s a great way to build relationships, I find merely emailing well known bloggers doesn’t get one very far but offering to speak about them or help them out with something which adds value to their own operation gets them off their seats quicker.
I couldn’t believe it when a well known blogger who I had helped with some logo design mentioned me on his site how much traffic it generated. It was my highest traffic day altogether. So don’t mind me if I offer you the same adii.
Adii Says:
November 7th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
@ Nur - thanks for the kind words mate! :) We can definitely hook up some time next week or the week thereafter for a cup of coffee and chat. I’d actually love to meet you as well!
And yeah, I saw SP mentioned you on his blog about the logo! I wonder why you didn’t mention his name!? :)
nomad-one Says:
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:09 am
@ Adii
Yeah, it was SP who I had helped with some ideas for his logo but he was determined to stick with his own interpretation so I didn’t want to claim having designed the final version, that’s kinda why I didn’t mention him.
I mainly just mentioned the traffic which came from being spoken about by a well known blogger like Small Potato in response to the part on how important social networking & establishing good relationships is.
Adii Says:
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:48 am
@ nomad-one - No problem - just thought you had left out his name due to not knowing what I’d think of the situation!? :)
Discover CCENT Says:
November 23rd, 2007 at 4:06 am
Very nice blog design. Thanks for inspiring me to create my own theme!
Milan Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 8:57 pm
@Adii thanks for this article, i tried to work with some tips from this article, so… i don’t know if it’s working, but there are people who visit my Blog ;-) I submitted a new design for my Blog - have a look
Adii Says:
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
@ Milan - My pleasure! :) And that’s a pretty cool blog design you got there - well done bud! :)
rob Says:
January 4th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Great site! I have just revised my site, robertfrusso.com set it up in WordPress with a blog and look forward to a great ‘08. Hopefully I can keep it updated and get some traffic my way. I’ll be watching and reading this blog for tips - keep up the good work!