Oct/090
Is your future depends on your Blog?
Do you hear people say that your future depends on your blog? Yes, that’s right. Your future depends on your blog.
Do you realize the impact of the internet on your life? From the smallest things like ordering a pizza to job search, day by day we all depended on internet to fulfill our daily tasks.
The time is upon us to have our own identity on the web. No more sara@gmail or peter@hotmail, it will be me@sara.com or me@BornLawyer.com. Do you see, hear and feel the difference? It is called personal branding.
How did e-mail reach the people? Can you think of those days, when e-mail was a strange word? Technology was advancing rapidly and new altogether. Relatively people were slow to adapt to the technology. But the learning process accelerates and the mass is catching up with the technological advantages.
If you are not blogging by now, then its time for you to take your next step and start blogging. Below I will introduce you to the tricks and tips so that you can have full control over your blog.
There are just 4 things to start blogging. Domain Name, Web Hosting, Content Management System and content are those.
Let’s look at the domain name. The domain name will identify your-self on the web. The pro and contras of Naming your blog after your name is somewhat debatable. What is for sure is that getting it known out there and associating it with your interest is difficult if someone else has associated that name with some thing else.
Example: How many of you know that Johnny Walker is associated with dog training? Here the name is already branded with whiskey. Because your name is Johnny Walker, you don’t want to name your blog Johnny Walker and start to brand it with cars or dog food and let’s not forget that Johnny Walker domain names are all registered. Now trying some names with hyphen etc is not advisable due to marketing reasons. At last you want many people as possible to read your blog and remember it.
Smart Alternative is to find a generic name for your blog. If you’re going to write about cleaning houses, then you can try some thing with HouseCleaning.com or CleanHome.com. Definitely not PeterCharls.com or AlfaRomeo.com
I don’t know ob the above mentioned domain names are available. They are just to tell you some example. You have to use your creativity to find a yet unregistered name or open your valet wide to buy the name in domain aftermarket. Which ever you prefer here are some hints.
Go to domain registrar directly and search the name. I suggest http://moniker.com
If it is already registered then search an alternative. Use Google keyword tool and search the domain you wanted. They will also show other phrases relevance to what you are searching. You can pickup ten heist searched term and check ob that domain name exist. Getting a gTLD is important (com, org, net) unless you want to target your local audience. Popular ccTLD’s are co.uk and de.
Category killer Domain name can be bought in the domain aftermarket places. Below are some names for sale in the aftermarket . . .
- ArlingtonCDP.com – Are you living in Arlington CDP? Then this is for you.
- BeauticiansDegree.com – Planing or following Beauticians Degree? This is for you to provide the necessary information to others who want to follow your food steps.
- BornLawyer.com – Are you one?
- BossesBoss.com – To be or not to be?
- CarefreeOptics.com – Start up your online optical store called “Care Free Optics”
- chFive.com – Oh! Can’t bother writing want to shoot? Place your video contant in Channel Five (chFive.com)
- GoSilky.com – Fashion or Silk Fashion your choice to go
- IdeasReady.com – Are you a marketing grad? Start your venture under this name.
- Mibility.com – Mini mobility. Personal transport should be economical.
- Qmechs.com – Quantum mechanics, is that what you are about?
Those of you, who have their valet with them, can pick up one now. Check more at Domain Street.
Here are a few places you can search for it. Sedo, AfterNic, Bido, ∑Names (Sigma Names is not yet online, but you can leave you e-mail address there and they will inform you as soon as the site is online.)
Once you have your Domain name, you need a hosting computer. No, you can’t host it on your home computer unless you have a static IP and willing to run a computer 24/7. I suggest you to get a host. It is less than $ 10 a month. They will take care of every thing like 24/7 service, DNS, etc. It is worth spending it than struggling with these unless you have the specific skills to master them.
Ok, now you got a domain name and a hosting space. Let start posting some article. Wait a minute, how can I do it?
This is another bottle neck where many of you will hang. How to go forward from here?
You have many ways to go forward. Here are few of them . . .
I suggest do it your-self. Download WordPress CMS software from http://WordPress.org, upload it to your host server and install it. Need help on this? Here is some documentation by WordPress.
To make up the look and feel, there are plenty of themes available here. Select one and upload it to your respective WordPress folder on host server, activate and you’re ready to go.
Many don’t have the knowledge and Time to master necessary skills just to setup their blog. In that case you can contact our webmaster and he will provide hosting + setup service for $ 10 a month. For details on that contact him directly at webmaster@cmsblog.co.uk
Now every thing is ready for you to show your colours.
Login to Admin panel just like you would do it with facebook or any other online application. The rest is self explained. Now you can start putting your thoughts on the net.
Remember the more readers the better you are. So your post or video should be interesting enough for the masses as well as up to date. Posting at least one article a week is good for the beginning.
I will follow up with a post on How to SEO your WordPress blog in the coming weeks. Currently there are 2 projects on the table and I need to change the 24 hrs a day to 36 or even better 48. So expect some delay with SEO, How to post.
If you have any questions about you blog, send me an e-mail to 2c@DomainStreet.org with the subject line “your blog question”.