How to set up a blog?

So you want to set up a blog of your own. I am writing the following article to ensure you don’t have to face the problems I faced as a new blogger.

Step 1: Which platform to use?

Techdaba uses WordPress and Shahan’s World uses Blogger.com. I chose blogger.com for my first blog because its the 8th most popular website on the planet. Blogger worked great for me. It had a very short learning curve and if I wanted to insert any widget, code inserting (Programming) tutorials could be easily found through a google search. Blogger also features a relatively new Template Designer which in my opinion is a great feature. So there you have it, if you are a newbie to blogs, Blogger should be your number one choice. Then comes WordPress, created by Matt Mullenweg, one of PC World’s top people on the Internet. For wordpress you have two options you can either go for WordPress.com or WordPress.org. WordPress.com is like Blogger. You create a blog and you have get a URL which contains wordress.com in the end. Example: shahanso.wordpress.com. WordPress.org is what I am using at Tech Daba. WordPress.org is for those who want to Blog at a professional level. Although installing wordpress.org on a site is free the whole setting up of a WP.org site will take some money. You will need to get a domain. You can a get a free one here. Or if you want a .com or something else in the end buy a domain from one of the many Hosting Providers in Pakistan. I bought Techdaba.com from Serversea. After the domain you will need to get hosted. Hosted on the internet. For this I reccommend HostGator because it is the most popular webhost. But you can also see if you like packages from Pakistani hosts like ServerSea and creativeOn. You can also search for free webhosts. Yes hosts that will not take even a Dollar! Techdaba is hosted at 000webhost which is a free webhost. So the verdict? If you want a blog in a short span of time, go for blogger. If you want some thing more professional go with WordPress.org. Or if you want to want to get adventurous try Tumblr, Typepad or Blog.com

Step 2: How to get visitors?

The best answer to this question is to set up a Facebook fan page for your blog and paste the code into your blog (its quite easy), like the one I have. I previously used NetworkedBlogs for Shahan’s World and its quite a good marketing tool. A tab named ‘Blog’ is automatically added to your Facebook profile. Or you can simply update your status with a link of your blog. The next method is SEO. Search Engine Optimization. The process of attempting to rank high in google search. For that you will need to ‘tag’ your posts. For example I tagged the article “LACAS vs LGS An indepth analysis” with ‘LACAS vs LGS’ and when you search ‘LACAS vs LGS’ in Google you see my article on the first page!

Step 3: Track Visitors!

I used Google Analytics and Goingup.com on Shahan’s World. With that I could see when a visitor came to my blog, from where, was using which OS and which browser and loads of other information. This information serves as inspiration and you can see how effective your marketing policies have been. The adding of code is simple and you can find detailed articles on how to add Analytics to your blog from the providers own website. Google Analytics, Goingup and StatCounter are the leaders in this field.

So there you have it. My guide for you on how to start blogging. I hope you liked it.