PART II: SETTING UP A BLOG
A. PLANNING A BLOG
Setting up a blog, like every other project, requires preliminary planning for it
to be successful. To set up a blog from scratch, the following guide can be
helpful in the planning.
1. Come up with a list of interests.
Before you define your blog's intention, you should have a general idea of what
you want to write about. The sky is the limit when it comes to your blog's
category, but common topics include the following:
Style/Fashion
Technology
Politics/Social Justice/Activism
Cooking/Food
Travel/Fantasy
Lifestyle
Business/Company….
2. Know what not to blog about.
Things like private information—both yours and other people's—and personal
details that you don't want to share with people close to you shouldn't be topics
for your blog.
If you have a job that required you to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement)
especially security and data management jobs, you should avoid discussing
activities or topics outlined in the NDA.
Blogging about other people is fine as long as you don't harass or discriminate
against them, but be aware that they may see your content and retaliate.
NB: Breach of Privacy and Confidentiality is punishable by 2010 revision of
the Cameroon Cybercriminality Law No. 41 – 48 with a fine of 1 million
FCFA to 5 million FCFA or 6 months to 2 years imprisonment or both
(Article 76). If you must post about people, ask their permissions.
3. Consider your blog's intention.
“What does my blog do?”
Teach something — Best-suited to instructional blogs (e.g., DIY
projects).
Document your experience — Good for travel blogs, fitness challenges,
and so on.
Entertain — Well-suited to a variety of mediums such as comedy
writing, fan-fiction…
Call to action — Commonly used for your business or company blog.
Inspire others — This is a category that can stand on its own, but may
best fit any of the other intentions in this section.
4. Brainstorm blog specifics.
Blog name — Come up with a name that you feel comfortable sharing with
others.
This may be a combination of your interests, your blog's content, and/or
a nickname
Get a unique name which is easy to easy to remember. I.e. Use a name
which does not already exist on the internet.
Avoid long names (more than 15 characters)– we don’t like typing
much.
Avoid words with variable spellings E.g. In American English, we say
“color” but in British English we say “Colour”. Both are correct. But the
computer does not keep that in mind. If your domain is “color” it
doesn’t matter the language you use, you must spell it as “color”. That
may create confusion so avoid such names
When the name doesn't match the intention of your blog, it is seen as a
spam by your visitors. Imagine your name is medicsonline.com and you
are talking about free literature books. Spamming is a serious
cybercrime. Spams are websites or emails or other types of messages
that are suspected of containing “scams” (untrue information intended to
exploit the reader).
Blog design — Since we can’t code, we shall use ready-made templates.
Have an idea of the colors and fonts to use (with your audience in mind)
We will see more in the next training on Advanced blogging.
5. Research.
Look for famous blogs in your domain of interest and study their keys to
success.
6. Choose a hosting platform.
A hosting platform or host is a website that gives you the possibility of creating
your own website or blog on their site. E.g. Hosting a blog on wordpress.com
means that all your blog files and data will be stored in wordpress.com
4 important points to consider here are
COST (free / paid)
TRAFFIC (popularity)
SIMPLICITY (ease of use)
FUNCTIONALITIES (additional services to boost your experience)
Money is paid to:
Get more advanced options like monetization
Get your own domain like rainmaker.com
Rent storage space. Imagine someone comes and keeps his videos in your
computer and asks you never to delete it. You will be forced to get into a
rental agreement to accept such. Hosting is like purchasing online storage
and other functions
The Top 3 Free Blogging Services (by Traffic or popularity) to choose from
includes:
Wordpress.com
Blogger
Tumblr
