CrazyBusy Mama! (Dot Calm)

GETTING STARTED: FIRST THINGS FIRST

Choose the right niche. Chances are pretty high, if you’re a work-at-home mom, that you already have a blog. If not, starting one can greatly increase your visibility in the online community and, eventually, your sales.

Before jumping in, the first thing you must do is decide on your niche. If you go into this thinking you’re just going to blog on anything and everything (you’re going to “go where the wind blows”), you’ll eventually blog about nothing.

Obviously, if you have a business, that’s what you blog about – that is your “niche.” But what if your niche is still fairly wide? Perhaps you’re a travelling veterinarian…are you going to blog about the care of animals in general? Narrow your niche. For example, cat lovers won’t want to read about the best toys for ferrets or how to get rid of mange in that puppy you just adopted. The narrower your niche, the more loyal your readers will be. 

Hosted or Free? Even if you’re new to the blogosphere, you’ve probably heard about WordPress. What you may not know is that there is WordPress.com and then there’s WordPress.org. What’s the difference? The first is free (like Google’s Blogger), and the latter needs to be hosted, like a website, because…well, basically it is one.

If you’re just starting out, go with the free blogging option until you really know what you’re doing. I’m speaking from experience here. This blog is a WordPress.org blog, hosted on StartLogic.com, but other blogs I’ve had have been free. You don’t have to pay money for a blog in order to be successful (you can put Google Adsense on a free blog, and even fill up your blog with affiliate ads — though less is always more). However, you may want to move it all to a WordPress.org blog later, and there are a few reasons for this.

First of all, if the blog represents your business, it should look professional. If the blog looks amateurish, people will assume you may not know what you’re doing business-wise, either. (But if your blog is just for fun and not related to your work, who cares? Just have fun with it.)

Another reason is your URL. A URL that reads www.yoursite.com will gain more respect with your customers than www.yoursite.wordpress.com. For a personal blog, there’s nothing wrong with that last option (I have one of those, too), but the first looks better to potential customers and even to other businesses that may want to trade links with you.

Finally, a hosted blog gives you more freedom and options when it comes to customization. Don’t like the theme creator’s images? Put in your own. Want to use your own logo? You can easily do that on a hosted blog, where you will have access to the CSS and PHP files.

There are certain things to consider when — and if — you make the decision to move to a hosted blog (one you have to pay for, in other words):

• You’ll need to select and purchase a domain name.
• You’ll need to pay for a hosting service.
• For even minimal editing of your blog, you really should have at least an understanding of HTML and how to copy and paste code into your site. If you go with WordPress.org, also knowing CSS (and hopefully PHP) is a real plus.
• If you don’t know HTML, you may need to hire someone who does. It would be well worth your time, however, to take a few online tutorials to learn some HTML basics.
• If your business is small, you can link a free blog to your site until you decide to “make the move.”

Think about layout. When it comes to blogs, you have a variety of layouts to choose from. You may decide on a one-, two-, or three-column layout, or even what’s known as a “magazine” layout. 

A one-column layout is fine if you’re just updating family and friends on the new baby. But if you’re wanting to make money with your blog, you need some room to play. I personally prefer at least a three-column layout because there are more places to put ads, videos, and pieces of my mind that I don’t want disappearing at the bottom of the page in a regular post.

Magazine formats are primarily made up of various boxes that link to your posts and features and have a more splashy, modern feel. If you are prolific in your posting, have many different subtopics, or have various bloggers posting for you, a magazine layout might be the way to go. One exception to this is a site called Mashable.com. Mashable has various bloggers and uses a classic 2-column layout. But the feel of the site is more of the “wowza” magazine variety: very modern and “web 2.0.” 

========================================

Stay tuned! More tips coming later.