Archives for April 2009

This blog has been one of the funnest (most fun?) things I’ve ever done. It’s the perfect creative outlet for me, a way to connect with good people and mentally challenging (like jumble and Tetris only with pictures of makeup and cats!).

Every once in a while someone who’s thinking about starting a blog will send me an email.

Wendy wrote:

“Hi Karen,

I have been a fan of your blog and your work has inspired me to start one for mom’s and parenting. Do you have any professional advice or resource information that you can suggest for me to get started. I am fairly new to blogs and need a little help.”

I don’t think of myself as an expert, but here are some things that might help.

1. Why blog? — If the answer is to make friends, to express yourself, to explore your creativity or to learn something new, then you’ve come to the right place. 🙂 If the answer is to make money fast, stop right there. Trust me when I say that there are far easier ways to earn a living than by starting a blog.
2. Read the manual that came with your camera — This one took me about a year to figure out, LOL! I kept thinking that other bloggers must have just had better cameras than I did. Then I dug out the manual that came with my old Canon Powershot SD200 and WOW! My pictures suddenly got a whole lot better.
3. Use keywords in the name of your blog — It will help people find you on the search engines, so a parenting blog might be called something like parentingblog.com or mommyblog4parents.com.
4. What do I blog about? — Pretty obvious, but choosing a topic you love to talk about (and have loved for years) is a great place to start.
5. Use self-hosted WordPress — This is just one blogger’s opinion, but I’ve used Blogger and another blog system called Nucleus and think WordPress.org is the best by far. It has more plugins (to add features like polls and games), more people who use it (which means more people who can help) and does everything I need.
6. Join an email list/blog network — Most niches have networks of like-minded bloggers. Search Google for ones in your niche, and ask them if you can join. I prefer ones with an email distribution list that members use to communicate with each other. I hear that Twitter’s great for networking, too, but I think you have to like instant messaging to appreciate Twitter.

Do you bloggers out there have any other tips or advice about starting a blog?

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

P.S. I can’t believe I almost forgot to mention OnSugar! It’s a combination blog network/blogging platform that takes a lot of the guesswork out of blogging, and it comes with a built in network (which takes care of #6 above). There are other platforms out there, but OnSugar is probably the one I would have used if it had been around back when I started.