Optimize Your Web

The first thing to do is to have a site. You can either go to one of the top blogging spots and get a site off of their domain, or what I would recommend, buy a domain. If you plan on either blogging for fun (family, etc.) or for business, a unique domain name is the way to go. Take a look at a few sites which you may want to take a look at which also offer hosting of the site also: (in no particular order)

• JKA Hosting
  • This site has hosting packages (some where you can get free domains!) and free blogging tools. Take a look!
• My Hosting
  • This site has great deals (as little as $6.45/month) to help you start your blogging!
• WestHost
  • Has $3.95 VPS Web Hosting! Great deals to help host your blog for CHEAP!
• Host Color
  • Great packages starting from 50MB/month to 30GB/month so you can alter your package as your site grows!

 Once you have chosen your domain name/hosting situation, I would recommend going with WordPress as your publishing platform.  WordPress.org has great links to themes, which are not only aesthetically pleasing, but you can choose to use themes that allow widgets (plugins for your website that you can drag and drop into place, which makes adding plugins easy) and how many columns the theme has.  I will soon write another post about great sites for themes, but this should get you started. Also be sure to read and FAQ’s and Installation instructions on wordpress.org’s site for any howto installation questions.

After customizing your blog, the most important thing to do is fill it with content.  Write as much as you can, but make sure it is quality writing and things that you would want to read about (especially if it is a professional site, and not a personal “here’s how my life in Vietnam is going” site that you may write to keep your family up-to-date).  For professional sites, use plugins (which I will go into detail later) that help people share your content with others, or easily track the discussion in the comments section of your post.  Try to keep your articles around the same general (would be better if it’s specific) subject, so you can have people constantly reading your site for new and interesting information about whatever.

Lastly, you may wish to participate in ads, or some sort of affiliate program.  Google Adsense is a major player, but they have strict rules in which they will not hesitate to ban you for breaking.  I will also write a list of good replacements to Google Adsense, as well as a list of affiliate programs and detailed information about them. 

If you have any questions, as always, let me know!  And have fun bloggin!