I often get asked about blogging and how to get started. While I’m no expert, I’ve picked up some useful tips over the years that I wish I’d known at the beginning, so I thought I’d share them with you.
I began blogging a couple of years ago because, with kids at home, I couldn’t meet with as many clients as I’d like. Blogging was a way to share information with more people. At the time, I was balancing nutritional coaching and freelance journalism from home, and I just couldn’t manage both efficiently. Given my background in Journalism and Nutrition, blogging was a perfect way to merge the two interests. It also became a handy resource for family members who would call me multiple times a week to ask for recipes or nutritional advice.
Nutrition has always been my passion (especially after my not-so-great diet in high school and college). I realized I could help only a limited number of people individually. With support from my husband, I decided to dive into the world of blogging.
I started on Blogger because it was free and supposedly easy to use. My initial Blogspot blog was a first shot at both blogging and design, but it wasn’t all that successful. There were many limitations with Blogger; while it was simple, it wasn’t very customizable. I later switched to WordPress.com, which was somewhat easier, but my design skills still needed improvement.
I made some design updates, and my WordPress.com blog still reflects that style today. WordPress was more user-friendly (I’d definitely recommend it over Blogger), but it also had some customization limits unless you went self-hosted.
When I started getting what seemed like a lot of traffic (about 200 hits a day), I decided it was time for an updated design and the need to actually own my site and blog name. I bought a domain, got the cheapest hosting I could find (not recommended!), and had a friend help me install WordPress. I chose a free theme that I thought was cute. (Did I mention computers aren’t my forte?)
After many headaches and frustrations, I considered hiring someone knowledgeable to help. I eventually lost about 60 blog posts due to a hosting glitch and faced a major theme issue, so I sought professional help. I hired a well-regarded web designer who assisted me in upgrading to better hosting and suggested a premium WordPress theme that avoided the previous problems. He also recommended a WordPress video tutorial to help me better understand using my site.
From this experience, I learned that good hosting is crucial. WordPress premium themes, which you pay for, generally look better and are easier to use and customize (and Google prefers them too). Looking back, I wish I’d known this from the start and skipped over Blogger and WordPress.com, moving straight to the self-hosted WordPress blog I now have. Not only does it bring in much more traffic due to its search-engine-friendly framework, but it’s also a lot easier to manage. Plus, there are way more resources for new bloggers now than when I began back in 2006.
If you’re thinking about starting a blog, this article has some useful tips on how to do it. Do you have a blog? If so, what’s your best tip? Feel free to share below!
