How To…Make a Blog

Have you ever wanted to put your writing out there? Make a published portfolio for your literature? Or even just give your friends a way to read your thoughts? There is a simple ay to do that: a blog!

Writing and making a blog these days, is an easy and free process… the main difficulty is making a blog that you will keep updated and that you are confident that people will bother reading it.

1. Think Of A Blog Idea

The first step to succeeding in making your blog is to come up with your blog’s idea.

I just recently went through this process, when a friend of mine told me to start a diary, a blog, or some sort of short story collection as a way to have an easily accessible writing portfolio. After deciding that a blog would be most ideal for me, I had the troubles of figuring out what the heck I wanted to write about.

In order to brainstorm what the heck to write about, it is helpful to list your likes, hobbies, what you are interested in and things that you would read yourself, if it was already on the internet. My list looked something like this: “Reading, Writing, sarcastic quips, chillaxing with friends, movies, my guilty pleasure: fanfictions…) And then BAM! it hit me… Just like it will hit you.

Examples of blog ideas can range from any topic in existence… you can blog about cooking while you are cooking, or just recipes (Similar to the movie Julie and Julia). You can blog comedy like the man the wrote the book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”… who also blogged about his sexual adventures. Anything is up for grabs as long as it’s you and it’s what your passionate about.

2. Pick An Idea And Make It Unique

Eventually you will get your idea. Mine was to review pieces of fiction, like books… movies… so on and so forth. The next thing will be to decide what makes your blog different then any other website that is in any way similar to it.

3. Choose A Blog Program/Host

After you have your idea, and your brilliant uniqueness to that idea, it is time to choose where and what hosting site you wish to give the opportunity of holding your special thoughts and dreams. Common sites that people choose are: LiveJournal, Blogspot, WordPress, Blogster and Tumblr. If none of this really draw you in, then there are tons more. Blogspot fit my idea and worked well with my goals.

4. Create/Personalize Your New Blog

After you have chosen your host site, then you follow the directions that the site gives. Those directions will include having you set about a background display, choosing fonts for your posts and creating an overall theme for your blog. My advice is to choose a theme that actually fits your idea. The theme will end up setting the mood for people who become your avid readers. The same thing applies when you are asked to choose a domain name, it should be appropriate to your topic. For example, because I wanted to write and review books and movies, I chose the name “Pieceofiction”.

5. Begin Writing!!

After your blog is created, feel free to write your first post. It’s acceptable to write an introductory post describing to your readers what your goal is while you  also give them a feel for how your writing style will be applied to your new portfolio. Also, don’t be afraid to let your friends know about your new creation. Every bit of support helps.

 What Do You Think?

Have you started a blog before? How did it go? What advice can you share? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Author: Tianna Janiece