Marcell Purham on Feb 05, 2010

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The idea of starting a new blog can seem so easy if you don’t completely think things through. I mean all you have to do is setup a blog, write a few tutorials, and start making a good sum of money from it, right? How hard can it be? In reality, that’s just an outline of everything. In this article I will give you “ Four Common Steps Every New Blogger Would Face When Starting A Blog ” along with some helpful tips that will save you time when starting a new blog or website.

Design & code

Starting a blog can be very fun. I mean, you’re going to be starting something that you hopefully love to do. So when starting your blog, the first thing that may come to mind is what design should be used?  When thinking of a design, it is very important to consider whether you should use a pre-made template or get a new theme designed from scratch.  Both have their pros and cons, and I will list them below (feel free to add your own in the comment section).

Pre-made Pros:CheaperCustomize ItEasy to InstallAllows you to focus on writingPre-made Cons:Not a unique designMight not have everything you wantYou can only do so much with itLess brand recognitionCustom Design Pros:Exclusive DesignHas most everything you may wantYou own it outrightIncreased brand recognitionCustom Design Cons:More costlyMay need to be updated to facilitate CMS upgradesYour focus is on the design, instead of the content

So getting a custom design made for your blog may not be a bad idea because you will basically be telling the designer what you would like and how you want things to work. Using a template may result in boredom or a website look-a-like. When I first started my design blog, I purchased a template and I found at least 20 blogs that looked the same as mine. I took action and coded my very own theme so that my site would be exclusive and recognizable to others.

Posts & Tutorials

When you have your new blog design and code ready, the next thing for you to do will be to write your first posts or tutorials. Writing articles of any kind can be very time consuming, so I recommend you write at least five tutorials before you launch your website. You might think five is a lot but, trust me, it’s not. When you first start your website, you probably wont have that much time to update it. Having 5 articles written already will give you an advantage so you can either write more articles to stay ahead or write a new article when you’ve published all of them.

When writing posts, be descriptive as possible. I have seen many tutorials where the writer would leave out steps which causes a big problem when a user is following the tutorial. Whenever you write a tutorial try to look at it as if you’re teaching a class: Some students may know what you’re talking about and others may not, so you have to do your best to teach everyone the same thing and in a way that everyone understands what you’re saying.

Building a list of followers

When starting up a new blog, building a list of followers is very important. This may seem very easy, but again, it’s not. Before you launch your blog make sure you have areas in your design with links to places such as Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, and whatever site you wish for them to follow you on. For example, if you have 2,000 RSS subscribers, then you can be assured that the newt post you publish will be seen by a portion of that 2,000.

( Editor’s note : Also, start building follower-ship on networks like Twitter before you even launch. If you do this right, you’ll get a lot of excitement from your followers when you launch. These followers will be your most loyal readers.)

Making Money

This is the topic that every new blog owner wants to talk about: making money . Most likely, you will be spending money than making money. Many future blog owners think that they can put up a website and make money from it in a matter of two to three months. It’s possible to make money from a new blog this fast but only if you have a huge follower list (RSS, Twitter, Facebook, etc) from another one of your blogs. If you do not have a huge follower list, then you will have to work very hard to make money, especially in the first few months. When I first started, I did not see any source of revenue until one year later. That doesn’t mean that it will take you a year, but it does take time. So don’t rush it because it’s unlikely that it will come any quicker.

Conclusion

When starting your new blog, I hope you take this advice into consideration. It may seem fruitless at first, but if you work hard, produce good content, and don’t give up, you will succeed. Good luck with your new website and let us know your thoughts, questions, criticism, etc in the comments below!

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Tags: advice, Blogger, blogging, newbie

Author: Marcell Purham

Marcell is a 17 year old web designer who loves to create websites and stay involved with the design community. When Marcell is not designing, he is probably teaching others how to design. To learn more feel free to follow his blog or follow him on twitter @marcellpurham

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Community Blog: Should Or Should not I Run This Way?Common Struts Errors and Causes/**/34 User Comments App Sheriff07. Feb, 2010 at 8:47 am#

I agree 100%. I am going through a bunch of hurdles for my blog.

Reply designfreek07. Feb, 2010 at 11:01 pm#

Even same with me. I recently change my blog design and going through hurdles too designfreek´s last blog ..7 wonderful Analog and Digital clocks using CSS and Javascript

Reply Shurandy Thode07. Feb, 2010 at 2:46 pm#

Great article Marcell. Starting a blog is not easy as many think it is. It’s really hard and time consuming. Thanks for sharing this with the community Voted. Shurandy Thode´s last blog ..Spotlights on: Bonaire Windsurf Kids “From nowhere to the Main Stage”

Reply Marcell Purham07. Feb, 2010 at 7:54 pm#

Thanks for your Shardy! I am glad you understand. Marcell Purham´s last blog ..Create an awesome user friendly button in photoshop

Reply Design Informer07. Feb, 2010 at 5:23 pm#

Excellent post! These are definitely some challenges that I faced when I started the blog.

I would also have to add this:

1. How frequent you need to publish. 2. Type of content: lists, articles, reviews, showcases 3. What niche you want your blog to have

These are just some that I struggled with and there are a lot more challenges that a new blogger will face. Design Informer´s last blog ..100 Years of Movie Title Stills

Reply Lam Nguyen07. Feb, 2010 at 5:47 pm#

Good addition Jad, the frequentation for publishing post is very important for a blog. People don’t like a blog that doesn’t publish often.

Thanks Marcell Purham for a great article here!

Reply Sneh Roy07. Feb, 2010 at 6:10 pm#

or too often as well. I do have an occasional double post on one day, but there are some guys who go nuts with 3, 4, 5 posts a day and hmm that isn’t very nice either! Sneh Roy´s last blog ..Project 365 Vector Characters – Rover For Day 35

Naeem Noor08. Feb, 2010 at 3:18 am#

Nice article Marcell, very well written. Naeem Noor´s last blog ..13 Free Professional Looking Wordpress Magazine Style/CMS Themes You Wish You Knew Earlier

Reply Rocky08. Feb, 2010 at 3:42 am#

Nice article something useful to me.. im also a new blogger.. maintaining the frequency is the on of the greatest challenge for me.. what should be the frequency of post for a good blog… becoz when we try to maintain frequency we decrease the quality… 3 questions every blogger faces Quality? quantity? frequency? what would you say about this 3 things???

Reply Hilde08. Feb, 2010 at 5:22 am#

Hey there! great post – nice work! I have just started up my own blog and this is very useful information for me.

Thanks!

Reply Kevin08. Feb, 2010 at 7:00 am#

Another important point is that if you want your blog to be popular you got to contribute something which helps people. Writing a personal blog is OK if you do not want many followers. But if you want a lot of people reading your blog, you have to make it worth reading by sharing something of interest with your readers. Finding this something can be quite a challenge because almost every niche is already covered by bloggers with good content. Kevin´s last blog ..Can you sort 10 million numbers using 1MB of memory?

Reply Chris Thurman08. Feb, 2010 at 4:13 pm#

I agree with pretty much everything you say, especially the making money part. I’m entering into my 3rd month of blogging and I’m just now getting some advertising dollars. Sure, everyone loves to make money but if that’s your only reason to blog, you’ll probably give up long before the cash starts rolling in. Cheers! Chris Thurman´s last blog ..Saturday Swirl 4: Tasty Snacks From the Design Community

Reply SM09. Feb, 2010 at 2:00 am#

Intresting article. Thanks SM´s last blog ..Новые возможности Blogger (Blogger in Draft)

Reply Ted Rex09. Feb, 2010 at 8:09 am#

Nice article. I made this one one of my three links today on my Design Thought for the Day blog:http://designthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/02/02-09-social-brand-strategies-new.html

All the best, Ted

Reply wparena11. Feb, 2010 at 6:34 am#

Totally agree with you, but you have to write in a routine and that is the big hurdle…to write a quality content need concentration and time but google and other search engine don’t like to wait… Anyways well written, keep it up wparena´s last blog ..Helpful Resources for Graphic & Web Designers

Reply Ali R. Khan11. Feb, 2010 at 7:12 am#

thisi s really a nice post..starting a Blog is easy with the help of wordpress but Starting a GOOD blog is real hard and Human factor is much needed.. I mean if you have few ideas and diverted focus..you cant build a strong blog…In other words, im talking about passion…:) Ali R. Khan´s last blog ..New Category: EntrepreneurShip

Reply ANDiTKO15. Feb, 2010 at 9:14 am#

Well i think that it is more important to have more and unique content than having a good looking site. Most of the times i spend months designing and coding my sites and i never have the time to update them. So if you want followers write more stuff and just use a simple design that is not disturbing the eyes of your visitors.

Reply Nikunj23. Mar, 2010 at 1:36 pm#

Good post for every new blogger Nikunj´s last blog ..Are You New To Twitter ?? Then Read This.

Reply Lam Nguyen07. Feb, 2010 at 6:21 pm#

Right! Who can write great content too often except some news magazines with a lot of regular authors!

Reply Marcell Purham07. Feb, 2010 at 7:57 pm#

I barley post articles on my site but when I do they are usually worth it. I think its ok to update your website once or twice a week if the content is good. Give the people time to look at old articles and new ones. It helps you if you can update it every two days but for me I choose quality over quantity. Marcell Purham´s last blog ..Create an awesome user friendly button in photoshop

Reply ESN08. Feb, 2010 at 6:07 am#

I agree with you. If you can write good quality content everyday, that’s great. But if not, a good and sometimes timeless article every now and then is better than having a lot of filler articles. ESN´s last blog ..7 Days Traffic Building Exercise – Day 5

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