As I come up to my first full year of serious blogging and by serious I mean treating it as a job that is intended to produce an income stream while doing what I love to do I have come up with this list of suggestions; most of which are from my own experience. If you are just some-one looking to post your thoughts about stuff in general then this post probably isn’t for you.

This list of suggestions is intended for those new and budding bloggers who do want to make a career out of their passion regardless of what the interest you will be writing about. So without anymore blathering here’s the list.

1. Setting goals - Stage 1
So you want to be a blogger and write about something that you are passionate and hopefully very knowledgeable about then the first thing I would suggest doing is sitting down with a coffee; or beverage of your choice, and before anything else make up a goals list.

The reason I suggest this at this point is because - even before getting an actual blog up and running - any goals you set will typically be unrealistic in expectations but it will get your head wrapped around the basic business concept of goal setting.

For example 

1. how many RSS subscriptions do you want to have after 6 months, after one year
2. how much advertising dollars do you expect after 6 months, after one year
3. how many unique visitors do you want to have had after 6 months, after a year.

The other thing that this preliminary goal setting will do is show you where you need to find other information. such as how do you track your RSS subscription, what are your advertising options and how do you track your unique visitor count. These are things you should be writing down in a separate list of things to research.

2. Set and/or narrow your focus
It is very easy to setup a blog and just start going nuts posting willy-nilly about stuff and that creates several problems for new or budding bloggers. When you don’t have a clearly defined area that you are going to write about it is very easy to get side-tracked and you end up posting both for the sake of posting and about everything under the sun.

What happens then is you either burnout very quickly or become discouraged because your blog isn’t growing the way you were sure it was going to. By focusing in on a specific area of interest you will be able to give your readers a solid reference point on the web if they have an interest in the same thing or if they are searching for the subject matter.

For example I have three separate blogs for this specific reason. There is this blog which concentrates on technology and the internet. However I also have an interest in art, philosophy and music but that doesn’t always mix well with technology and could be confusing to my WinExtra readers. By having a separate blog for each area of interest it also helps you - the blogger - remain focused on the interests that brought you your readers in the first place.

3. Research your area of interest.
A big maxim in business is - Know your competition and it is no different here and will also possible help you further narrow your focus or save you a lot of effort should the competition be more than what you can figure you can invest your time to rise to the top.

Find out how many other blogs that there are that are writing about the same thing you want to. For this you can use either Technorati or Google’s blog search and spend some time; and I don’t just mean an hour or so, going through the results. Visit the blogs, read them past their front page, analyze how the posts are written, look through the comments and see how the blogger interacts with their readers. The idea here is two fold - first is to see what you are up against and second to see how the popular bloggers got to be just that - popular.

4. Setting goals - Stage 2
Okay so you’ve hopefully spent some serious time checking out the competition and you know what you are up against. As well you’ve done some preliminary research to answer some of your questions from Setting Goals - Stage 1.

Now sit down again, go through your first list of goals and with the knowledge from your research see just how realistic those goals where. If you feel they need to be adjusted then do so as a new list. Additionally if your research has prompted some new goals then add them as well.

5. Select your tools
While this may not seem all that important it is on two fronts. First select your actual blogging platform you want to use. there lots out there and while my personal preference might be for WordPress you might find you like Moveable Type or any of the others that are available. This part is important because it may impact on your selection of your other tools of the trade.

One thing I would suggest is to find a good desktop blogging editor. Yes you can use the online editor that comes with the blogging platform you select but in most cases they suck. Also with an offline editor you can work if you are mobile and then upload your post. For the Windows platform I recommend Windows Live Writer and for the Mac I would probably go with ecto but that is only because I am use to the Windows version.

If you are going to include graphics as part of your blogging style then find yourself a good image editor that you are comfortable working with. Myself I have a preference for Paint.NET for Windows while I know many that swear by Photoshop.

6. Getting into the business mind set
Not all bloggers intend on treating their blogging endeavors as a job or business and that is cool; but for the one’s that do this is where you set the ground work mentally for your new business/career.

Many years ago when I first went into business for myself my father taught me one simple thing. If you are going to be a business then set your business hours and live by them. If you say you are going to be open from 9 to 5 then come hell or high water you better do it because it will only take once that a customer comes along during those hours and you’re not open to lose them permanently. 

Granted blogging may not seem like you would need to set specific hours but after a fashion you do. If you make a habit of posting at certain times your readers will come to expect just as they will come to expect your posting frequency. While setting hours may not be all that important your posting frequency can be crucial. If you commit to posting daily or once a week then you had better stick to it or you could lose that precious readership you are trying to build up.

The other important thing to start at this point is to realize that once you start posting you will become your own brand and will be with you for a very long time. So take time to create the brand you want to project before you even open up the blog. this includes everything from the name of the blog, to the domain name, to even the color scheme used and right through to the writing style you want to use.

Take the time now .. lay it out all on paper even to the point of writing out sample posts as the time spent getting this part set right will save you a lot of aggravation later on.

7. Setting Goals - Stage 3
Not again you are probably saying and I can see how you might think I am over doing this but the fact is - you are going into business buddy and in business; or even a career, goals shift, expand or are accomplished. As you progress through your business/career growth new goals have to be set because the landscape is forever changing and you need be on top of those changes and able to shift as the landscape shifts. Setting goals helps you do this because it sharpens your focus.

So at this point go through both of your previous lists and with everything you learned so far make a new list which in turn will probably net you a much more realistic set of goals.

8. Pulling it all together

Now comes the point where you start putting all the pieces together. You’ve settled on a domain name and you know it’s available and hopefully the same as what you want to name your blog. If it doesn’t then take a bit more time and rework this area so that if at all possible both your blog name and domain name are the same. This makes it easier for both your readers to keep both associated together as one entity and it makes promoting your brand a lot easier.

Select you blogging platform you want to use and get it all set up the way you want and then run it through its paces to make sure you catch all the possible bugs you can.

Get your advertising provider(s) all set up and ready to put in place. Just remember; especially for new bloggers, do not over do the ads. Even if you only start out with only one small block of them in a sidebar because if you over due it on a new blog potential regular readers might think you are just trying to be an advertising farm and not come back.

The truth is you will make no money in the beginning - as you should have realized if you had done your research - so having just a placeholder of a small ad block let’s your new readers know that there is advertising but you are more interested in writing good content. Besides you can add more ads later as your blog becomes more popular and your readers won’t be upset.

One last thing about pulling it altogether. During all this run up to getting your business/career launched you should have been keeping your eyes open for blogs that could be good resources for you and added them to your RSS client.

9. Make your life easier
It is one thing to get it all up and running but now you have to administer the blog as well. this means dealing with spam, comments and other stuff. so it is a good idea at this point to get your Admin area of the blog set up with the plugins that will make your life a hellva lot easier.

Generally on the blogging platform provider you will find links to resources; such as plugins, that are specific to that platform. For WordPress that would be here, as well a Google search should be a help and not to mention those blogs you’ve been adding to your RSS client as suggested above. If you are going to be using WordPress I suggest marking this page at Mashable as it is one of the best collections of WordPress plugins and widgets around.

10. Theme me baby
I am giving this suggestion a place of its own because I believe that making sure you have the right theme is crucial from day one. Remember you are a brand now and everything you have out there is a reflection of the brand.

It may seem like a little thing but making sure you have the right theme is important because this is your face to the world - this is what people will see and read everyday that they come for their fix of whatever you are writing about.

Make sure the colors feel right, make sure that the font used is readable and not just for some-one under 18 unless of course your focus is such that you can be guaranteed that no-one over that age might become a reader. If in doubt always err on the side of safety and make it readable to all ages. I can’t count the number of themes that look good and feel right .. that is up to the point when you actually try to read what is posted.

Finally
Once you have got it all done and everything works take a break, have a coffee and pat yourself on the back. You are now ready to start posting - did you make sure to install that dictionary program and enable spell checking? - and now the hard work begins …..

I hope this post will prove helpful and if even one new blogger out there reaches those goals they set because of this post then I am happy.

Welcome to the world of blogging.

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