Starting out in the blogging business can be a bit daunting especially if you are a complete newbie. You are faced with the "where do I start and what do I do" syndrome. You are very enthusiastic but lack even the basic skills that will get you up and running. However if you continue the rewards can be tremendous.
Deciding on a blogging platform can be difficult as there are so many to choose from. In my opinion it is easiest starting out using a blogger blog. Just type in "BlogSpot" or "blogger.com" into Google and it will take you to the site. You can set up your blog for free and Google hosts it for you. Decide a template and don't worry too much as you can always change it later.
Unless you use your own URL and if you're a newbie you probably won't know what that's all about, blogger will give you its standard URL which you can ad your blog topic keywords to e.g. coffeehouse.blogspot.com if your blog is about coffee? Ensure you include those keywords in the blog title as well.
You next need to add content to your blog and whilst I would always encourage anyone to use their own original content, to start with you can use content from places like ezine sites as long as you don't alter the article in any way.
Once you have some content on the blog you can set up a Google AdSense account and place blocks of ads on your site. You need the content on first so Google can make the ads relevant to your blog's topic. You can now think about getting visitors (traffic) to your blog. While there are numerous ways of getting traffic I would recommend using a few proven methods to get started with.
Writing articles on your topic and having a link back to your blog works well as does searching for other blogs relevant to your topic and leaving a comment in the comments box along with your link (if they allow links). Make proper comments not just "great post" as that just annoys people.
Use social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to get traffic. Just let people know you have put up a new post and ad a link to your blog. Video is amazing and the power of video should never be underestimated. You can use other people's videos and put them on your blog very easily just by pasting embed code into your blog post (it sounds difficult but it's really easy).
Keep the content fresh and relevant to your topic, be persistent with getting quality links back to your blog and you will start to rise up the rankings. It won't happen overnight but it will happen. Most of all have fun and enjoy you!
| 
