Beginner Blogger

This is a guest post by Eric Heavilin from BluePop13.com.

When you want to start a blog your first thoughts are probably how you can share what you know with the world on line. A blog is very simple in the way that is provides value to its readers and teaches someone something new. But with so many resources out there and everyone talking about ways to improve your blog and what you can do to stand out in the crowd, how do you actually just get yourself up and out there and start doing this thing called blogging?

Keep It Simple

This is your blog and you want to share what you know with the rest of the world who finds what you have to say meaningful in their lives in some way.

I suggest starting with WordPress.com and pick a name either you like, your name, or a name that has something to do with the topic of choice you’ll be writing about. Blogspot.com is a great service to start with but using WordPress right now will make it easier on you to switch to a self-hosted WordPress blog later on if you want to get more serious with your blog.

Just visit WordPress.com and sign up. It’s free and is very easy to do. Once you have chosen a name that you are going to use and you have figured your way around the admin area simply start your first post. Just say hi to everyone and explain what you’ll be writing about, keep it short and to the point, go for making it person and show your readers that there’s a real person behind the words, tell everyone a bit of a story and ask them what they think. This all you really have to worry about for any blog post you write. Above all, as said above, keep it simple.

Where To Next?

My suggestion is to post around ten articles and get a feel for how you are going to write your content. This way you will have a better idea of when you like to write, what you want to write about and who might comment on what you have to say. Ten is a good number, though every blog is different and provides value to its readers in its own way, experiment here and see what works for you.

Now you might want to do something different with the look and feel of your blog. You want it to look nice and look according to your topic, after all. Wordpress.com has many themes to pick from and choosing which theme you want for your blog is as easy as browsing all the themes in the themes section and previewing what appeals to you. When you find one you like just activate it. You now have a brand new theme and a decent amount of articles you’re looking at.

Becoming Someone

This is where you will probably hear a lot of talk and confusion and at this point you might even give up trying to become better at this as it’s not easy to do.

I have some good news for you if you’re stuck here: Keep it simple.

Look at how far you’ve come already. You chose a place for your words and ideas to be viewed upon by the entire world, you now have an idea of what you’re going to write about and maybe some visitors already checking out your stuff and you have a design set up.

Now that you’ve come this far you want to spread the word. Tell your family and friends about your new blog and join social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace (just to  name a few) and become active in forums and blogs related to your own. This isn’t rocket science even though some blogs may explain it to be. Keep learning what works and keep going. Blogging is great fun and you can do so many things for so many people by just having one.

From Here

I hope you found this information helpful and I also know that doing any of this will get you started out in the right direction for your blog. Keep experimenting with what might work for your blog and learn from others as well. Find some other blogs related to yours and start talking to them. Get in there and see what happens. The possibilities are endless.

Now start blogging!

Eric Heavilin has been online for years now and love what the Internet has to offer. Eric learned a bit about building simple web sites in Jr. High and from there I loved the idea of sitting down and writing out HTML and CSS in Notepad. Since then he came up with the name BluePop13 and decided to make it his personal website now blog. Eric loves helping others succeed. These days Eric uses WordPress but still loves the feeling of writing something up from scratch using HTML and the like. Visit BluePop13.com to learn more about Eric.

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This is a guest blog post by Nicholas Cardot from Site Sketch 101 Having just resigned from full-time work myself I understand that running a successful blog while working full-time can be hard work. Nick shares his experiences…

Blogging can be a difficult task.  In fact, those who tell you that you can compete with the top bloggers in the blogosphere without having to work very hard are sadly mistaken.  It takes hard work.  It takes a lot of writing.  It takes dedication to provide amazing content to your readers in every article.

And truth be told, most people aren’t full-time bloggers.  We don’t all have the luxury of enjoying a full-time income from our blogging efforts.  We have to work and sometimes that means long hours.

I currently serve as an Infantryman in the United States Army.  I work an average of 60 or more hours every week and I maintain an amazing blog (in my opinion) called Site Sketch 101.  It’s not always easy to balance them both, but it’s fun and it can be done.

Let me share with you some of the things that I do to help me write, design, interact and work a job.

1.  Always carry a pen and paper with you.

You never know where you’re going to be when you think of any idea that you can use as the topic of an article and with your time limited you can’t afford to forget it.  If you think of an idea, write it down right away.

2. Schedule time to work on your blog.

I don’t usually sleep in very late on Saturday morning.  I get up, get a glass of milk, and I get to work writing my articles for the coming work.  I use the ideas that I came up with throughout the week and I put them into articles.

3.  Don’t get overwhelmed.

If you feel like you’re too stressed out then take a break.  I blog because it’s a way for me to relax.  I enjoy it.  I love interacting with my readers.  I love helping people grow and develop their skills.  I love writing and expressing myself.  I have fun doing it.  Find a way to make it fun.  Enjoy what you do.  And when necessary, take breaks.

It is possible to operate an amazing blog and work a full-time job.  Don’t think that your limited by your situation.  You’re not.  You can accomplish amazing things.

But don’t stop learning and growing.  Those of us who work full-time have a major disadvantage.  We have less time to learn and develop ourselves as bloggers than those without jobs.  But that is no excuse.  Let’s continually strive to be the best that we can be.

Nick uses his blog Site Sketch 101 to express his passion for helping people learn how to blog with awesome content, brilliant designs and commanding influence.

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In contrast to my How I Got 1000 TARGETED Twitter Followers In 30 Days blog post, I wanted to write about how you can get yourself twitter followers without the need to go out and add people yourself. Granted, you probably won’t get as many followers than if you went out and followed as many people as possible using services like Buzzom, but I believe if people voluntarily add you to twitter than those people are much more valuable to you. They went out of their way to add you, so as long as they’re not a spam account, you must be doing something right!

Here are my top 5 ways you can increase your twitter following without begging for one:

1. Provide valuable tweets

First and foremost, the main reason anyone would want to add you to twitter is because you provide great tweets. You won’t find yourself with many followers if you have an empty twitter account with no tweets. You’ll also find yourself lonely if you provide meaningless updates like ‘at the shops’, ‘lunch was yum’, ‘walking home’ etc.

Picture this – you’ve just started a twitter account and you’ve been focusing solely on creating great quality tweets. Suddenly someone finds you through search.twitter.com (or something like this) that likes what you’re saying about that certain topic. This person that just added you has over 1000 friends. He ReTweets one of your tweets which is broadcast to the 1000+ on that persons list. Those 1000+ people can then follow you on twitter or ReTweet your message again to their list, which may be broadcast to even more tweeters out there.

This is why the quality and value of your tweets are so important. Provide great quality and value and you’re sure to attract many many people.

2. Engage with your audience

Don’t go on autopilot. Don’t create one of those spam accounts that just read out RSS feeds. Sure put some auto-RSS feeds on your twitter account if they relate to your niche or your purpose, but make sure you’re a person as well. People are more likely to recommend you to others willingly if you’re an approachable and engaging person on twitter.

There is a novelty on twitter on Fridays called Follow Friday (#FF or #FollowFriday) where people nominate people that they think everyone on their twitter list should follow. I’ve found that the people that recommend me for Follow Friday are the ones I have engaged with on twitter the most, some have very large twitter followings so I’ve generated a lot of followers this way.

A great idea is to make it a habit to send a message to every person that adds you to twitter that you are going to add back. Your relationship will improve dramatically this way than not interacting with them at all and them just being ‘another one to the list’

3. ReTweet valuable relative content

This is why I believe you should have a purpose/niche on twitter. If you have a clear purpose/niche people that are interested in your niche will follow you. If you ReTweet something related to your niche it goes to everyone on your list. So it’s of great benefit to have people following you that are interested in what you ReTweet.

ReTweeting also builds relationships. People love it when you ReTweet their tweets. So if someone tweets something you like and you think others on your list will enjoy ReTweet it because they might re-ReTweet it to others not following you and you may find yourself with more quality followers!

4. Follow those that are beneficial to you

Don’t just follow random people and don’t feel you have to follow people back if they follow you. You choose who you follow, no-one else. If people are thinking of following you they may check out who else you’re following. If you’re following a bunch of spam accounts and people tweeting unpleasant links or offensive content they may think twice before following you.

It doesn’t make any sense to follow someone that won’t gain anything from your twitter account – so don’t do it. Having 10 people that follow me that find my content useful, helpful and more likely to click on my links is much more valuable than 100 random followers that will ignore most if not everything I have to say.

5. Have a custom Twitter background, avatar, bio and preferably website.

You should fill these out before you even start tweeting. A bio and picture I feel is absolutely necessary and bare minimum to at least know you’re human. I would also change your background from the default blue/green background.

Personally I only add people that I feel are real people. I’m very picky now of who I follow now because I don’t want to follow those I’m not interested in.

A custom background, avatar, bio and preferably a link to your website is ideal. I always check out a website of someone before I add them to twitter. If it takes me to a sales page I probably won’t add you unless I’m impressed with your tweets and you’re not spamming.

To clarify – spamming to me is constant tweets that link off to sales pages and it’s obviously just a twitter account made to create money. I don’t want any part of that thanks.

Find your purpose

Make sure you find your purpose on twitter. I use @beginnerblogger mainly to help others with their blogging, provide valuable blogging tips I feel bloggers and beginner bloggers will gain value from and also from time to time put in the odd personal tweet. I make sure the personal tweets are not boring like ‘off to the shops’, I try and make them interesting too.

Something I’m going to do over the next few weeks is really go through my twitter list, engage with those I haven’t engaged with and unfollow the ‘unhuman’ twitter accounts that are of no benefit to me. I want to engage with real people. My struggle at the moment is that I am following too many people and it’s near impossible to keep up with everyone as much as I’d like.

What do you feel are great ways to get more quality followers without having to beg for them? Reply in the comments below.

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