Turn your passions into blogging

Turn your passions into blogging

A woman's hand on keyboard || Source: Kaboompics.com

When we were young, we learnt to tell very beautiful stories about our passions. The teachers would let you call them hobbies and entreat you to add them on your CV later in life.

Sometimes, few teachers would tell you, these hobbies can provide a means of living as you grow. You will agree with me that life has a unique way of turning us from our passions. You grow up to develop interest in different careers.

In this post I am going to introduce to you another way you can contribute to the society if you have passions towards sharing information. 

The focus is on blogging. Have you heard of what blogs represent? This article shall be of help to you if you are yet to know about blogging. 

A blog is a more of a digital diary that people publish over the internet. Blogging dates back from 1994, it has served as  journal by which people talk about their daily life and contribute towards knowledge. 

You can start a blog on every topic of interest though, I suggest you consider topics which shall interest others as well. This is because blogging provide means of income as well. Over time you may wish to monetize your content where the need to win more users for blog will arise. 

Planing to setup your blog

Blogging involve techniques, tools and resource to make it effective. To create a unique blog, you must setup a blueprint to guide you up. planing for a blog involves;

1. Concept: Every successful blog begins from your idea. You must have a concept which solve a problem. Drafting such concept involves, identifying your abilities, passion, challenges around you and how we can solve such challenges by applying your abilities.

To organize an attractive idea you will further be required to make some research. You are going to read a lot of books, visit knowledge base sites, interview resource persons around you and possibly, back your findings with proofs. 

You will further, have to find keywords relating to your idea from internet to inform you on  how people facing challenges you want address are searching for solutions. This will help you in better planning. 

2. Name: You must name your blog by the information you have gathered, you name should be simple but must be relevant to the demand of many people searching the net on matters concerning your blog.

Your name is going to be part of your web address. This is called Domain name. It is the name which represent the digital address pointing users to the server containing your blog.

3. Goals: Before you put up with your logistics, you must set goals for your blog. You are not planning to fail, so dreaming big is paramount. Make this dream realistic with timelines. For instance, when to launch your site, your month page views, comments and subscriptions. 

Choosing a platform

Tools for blogging is your next issue of concern. You are going to depend on the best platform which will serve your need.

1. CMS: Content Management System is a set of applications which enable a user to organize a blog conveniently and for faster publication. Modern web designing rely on CMS like Blogger, WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and many more, to organize the blog.

You cannot learn all CMS, so you will need to learn at least one. If you are student I recommend Blogger since it is cheaper and customization require some simple knowledge in HTML and XML coding. 

However, WordPress and Joomla are equally, better options.

2. Site Builders and Softwares: Another tools which can assist you in setting up your blog are site building websites like WIX and Desktop applications such as Dreamweaver by Adobe.


3. HTML Framework: Though, this involves coding in HTML, CSS, Javascript and SQL, it is still relevant. It is time consuming and in the presence of many faster tools it may seem this is odd. But trust me, there are handful  of people who choose to be different, they want to use their own design and therefore go for coding from scratch.

There are plenty open source frameworks which can be use to speed up the architecture of the blog.

Resources

Finally, let talk of cost. Starting a blogging also involves cost. You are like to spend between USD 15 to USD. 150 to get a standard blog.

You will spend between 8.99 - 15 dollars on your Domain Name Registration and the rest on hosting. All the options mentioned above require a standard host account except Blogger. Google offers you free limited space to host your blog if you choose blogger.