Welcome again to The Daily Nash, if you read my post yesterday you should hopefully understand the background as to what and why I have started a blog.
Today’s and tomorrow’s topic are my thoughts on how to start up a blog. As a total blog newbie I was not sure where to go or to start but armed with a few pointers from blog friends and the mighty Google I was able to get the blog up and running you see today.
Starting up a Blog checklist:
- Set a purpose/goals for the blog
- Decide on a name/brand for the blog
- Pick software to publish your blog content
- Devise an Information architecture and publishing plan
- Create a Communication and Syndication plan
Now I am no expert in the field of blogging but this was what I felt was needed to get this blog off the ground.
1. Set a purpose/goals for the blog
Seems like common sense but with planning in general I am always surprised by the number of people that tend to overlook the basic premise of ‘taking a step back’ and seeing what they are trying to accomplish. Make sure you write down somewhere what your main aims are for running a blog.
For The Daily Nash the aims are pretty straightforward, post up some tacit knowledge I have built over the past few years and hopefully create a community in which experience and practices can be shared.
2. Decide on a name/brand for the blog
This is quite important. When I started thinking for a name my original thought was to not even give the blog its own identity, using my own name the blog would almost be called ‘Mark Nash’s blog’ which is seriously dull. I even went ahead and registered www.mark-nash.com
Thankfully I decided to instead read three excellent posts on naming your blog:
As a newbie these articles turned me onto the importance of having a brand. I still liked the idea that this blog is personal so I took the name ‘The Daily Nash’.
Check in tomorrow when we conclude with the last 3 points.
