We all have to get started somewhere, even your favorite fabulous blogger was a novice at one point. While starting a blog can be pretty intuitive, somethings you only learn through trial and error…that is if you don’t have a nifty guide like this one to get you started.

Step 1: Choose a Topic

Why are you starting a blog? Your chances of getting rich from blogging are about as good as your chances of winning the lottery, so I hope you weren’t thinking of starting a blog to get rich. I started my first blog as an outlet for my creative side. I started this blog because I wanted to give advice to other women interested in blogging, as they were emailing me for advice anyway! I also wanted to meet other bloggers with similar interests. Your blog does not have to be totally focused on one topic, but that does make it easier to find and keep readers. In the beginning I chose a topic for each day of the week to help stay focused and avoid writers block. I had “Wishlist Wednesday” when I would talk about something I was dying to buy and “Foodie Friday” when I shared some of my favorite culinary treats.

Step 2: Choose a name

Choosing a blog name is actually kind of important. You don’t want a name that is too long or hard to remember; you want something that is easy to spell and that you can “own” on Google. Google your name before you commit. Does someone already use the same name or a similar name? Do you think that you will eventually make it to one of the top few search spots? If there are numerous popular websites ahead of you on the list then you probably are never going to make it on to the Google first page. I found that using a city in your name can make it more difficult to make it to the front page. Why care? Google front page real estate is important for drawing readers into your blog.

Think about purchasing your domain name. It is not that expensive,its is easy to do and if you decide to move your blog in the future you can take your readers and Google traffic with you. Think of your time blogging as an investment in your domain name, the more work you do the more it will be worth…and if you don’t own your domain name then you can’t capture that value.

Step 3: Pick a Host

I can personally recommend Blogger as a free blogging platform. Blogger is run by Google and they do a really fabulous job with optimizing your posts to be picked up by search engines. There are also tons of helpful guides for setting up blogs on blogger.

If you choose to host your blog independently you will have to pay for hosting and things will be a bit more complicated. I recommend Wordpress for independently hosted blogs, but I cannot recommended a hosting service as I really don’t like mine.

Step 4: Tweak your Design

Your blog needs to look sharp, it shows that you are serious. Personally, when I visit a blog for the first time the design has a huge impact on my impression of the blog and the blogger. I don’t even bother to read busy and distracting blogs.  Wordpress and Blogger both give you ample opportunity to tweak your blog design. I’ve written about customizing a blogger blog before and will write about customizing wordpress soon.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your blog, no matter what platform you are using:

• Your blog will look different depending on the screen resolution of your reader’s computer so check your blog at different screen resolutions and even on different computers.
• Don’t put music on your blog or pop-ups
• If you are going to put advertising on your blog, be tasteful about it. Now one wants to try to read an article with a bunch of busy blinking advertisements everywhere.

Step 5: Monitor

There is nothing more fun than checking your blog statistics, well in my opinion anyway. I love seeing what people are reading on my blog and how many people subscribe to my RSS feed.

• Google Analytics
• Feed Burner
• Regularly check for incoming links and thank the blogger who’ve linked to you. You can check for incoming links in several ways, including searching google for links “link:http://www.chicandcharming.com” (link:yourblogurl) and checking out your technocrati page (e.g. http://technorati.com/blogs/www.chicandcharming.com).

Step 6: Write

Writing for a blog isn’t quite like writing for anything else. It is important to develop you own style, but certain thing remain true across the board.

• Break up your article with headlines in a different font or color
• Include lots of pretty pictures with your blog posts
• Think about making lists, especially Top 10 lists
• Be generous with your links, people like to follow links and they’ll notice if you link to them
• Post consistently, about once a day
• Write a few “pillar posts” to help draw in traffic

Step 7: Promote

• Comment on other people’s blogs, but make sure your comments are relevant and interesting
• Tell your friends
• Suggest link exchanges with a few of your favorite blogs
• Submit your article to relevant aggragators, like kirtsy or digg (unless you blog on certain topics like humor or technology or really dedicate yourself, you probably won’t do well on digg).
• Submit your blog around the web indexes like Blogs by Women and Blogged, never pay to be listed in a blog index
• Fill out a profile at Girls Guide to Blogging
• Post your blog on Facebook, Twitter and anywhere else you have a profile
• Join twitter, make friends, post interesting links and then post links to your best articles. Don’t link to yourself everyday…if people want to read what you write everyday they will subscribe to your blog.

A note on leaving it all behind

Don’t hastily delete your blog when you decide to throw in the towel. You might want to come back and take it back up later. More importantly, there are people who troll the internet for domains with lots of Google listings that have been abandoned. The buy the domain and sign up for the blogger account and then fill you former blog address with advertising. I know. It happened to me!

Check out a few of my Favorite Blogging Ladies Pictured Above

The ladies pictured above do not endorse GG2B. I consider them to be excellent examples of how to put together a quality blog:

• Susie Bubble is one of the best known fashion bloggers, especially notable for “what I wore” posts and support of emerging designers.
• Nubby Twiglet is a great example of blogging to promote a personal brand and company.
• I love Cuffington’sstyle, this is one of the only blogs that I follow that regularly posts really wearable outfits. I would totally wear everything she wears.
• Raggle regularly posts interesting photographs on flickr. She is a great example of a less conventional “blogging” style.
• Daddy Likey writes an interesting, irreverent blog which shows a strong personal voice and perspective.
• Kingdom of Style is a style blog jointly written by two lovely ladies, I especially love their fanciful outfit styling.
• Hail Mary is a good example of a new blog, which covers the writer’s life and passions.
• Wendy Brandes is fabulous. And funny. And makes beautiful jewelry. She is an amazingly prolific commenter, which makes her even more fabulous!