Starting a Blog: 5 Things to Consider

So you want to start a blog? Excellent! Before you take the plunge, however, it's worth spending some time to consider the following:

1. The Topic of Your Blog

 When choosing a topic for your blog try to pick one that:

• You have a passion for
• You like to discuss with other people
• You are knowledgeable of 
• You can cover in a new or unique way

2. Your Goals

It's important to be clear as to why you are starting a blog. Here are some common goals people have for their blogs:

• To express their thoughts or opinion
• To help others
• To establish themselves as an expert
• To stay connected with family and friends
• To make money
• To have fun

3. The Name of Your Blog


When choosing a name you need to check whether the domain name (e.g. "www.myblogname.com") is available. To do this I recommend Namecheap. If you are stuck on what to name your blog consider the following popular choices:

• Your name. If reputation and name recognition is important in your field consider using your name or a variation of it.
• Keyword rich domain names. Including keywords in your domain name can help you rank higher in the search engines.
• Memorable domain names. Google, Yahoo and Bing are all examples of names that are known by just about everyone using the web. 

4. Your Budget


Your budget will influence the blogging software you choose (see next point) as well as the theme you choose (your theme determines the look of your blog). In broad terms there are three types of themes available:

1. Free. There is a huge selection of free themes available for WordPress, although as you can imagine some are better than others.
2. Premium. A premium theme will normally cost around $30 – $100 and will typically have many options available to make customization easy and support of some kind if you get stuck.
3. Custom. A custom theme from a designer will mean you have a truly unique looking blog. This could cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.

5. What Blogging Software to Use


If you are looking for a free blog that is quick and easy to set up the following are popular choices:

• Blogger
• WordPress.com
• Tumblr

If you are willing to invest a bit more time and money into your blog then you should consider a self-hosted blog using the software from WordPress.org. For a free step-by step guide to setting up a self-hosted blog I recommend Starting a Blog: A Complete Guide to Setting Up Your First Blog.