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Five Simple Steps to Start Blogging

Further to my previous article on Start Blogging to your MLM success, which discussed why you should start blogging for your home business, here we dig into how you can go about to start your blog.

If you are convinced that blogging will help in your business, which I am 100% certain that it will, then this article is for you. If you are not convinced, please go to my Blogging Part 1 for the 5 reasons why you should get started.

OK, let us get started.

How to start blogging?
There are two general types of Blog: Free hosted Blog or Self Hosted Blog.
Let’s discussed briefly which is more suitable for you.

Free Hosted Blog:
No fees for domain name and web hosting.
Easy to setup.
No ownership of domain name and hosting.
Eg. Blogger.com; WordPress.com

Self Hosted Blog:
Ownership of domains and hosting, not reliant on the Service Provider.
Provide free Blog application setup, eg. WordPress, Joomla.
Flexibility of installing free Plugins and Themes

My view is that if you are serious in your business, then you should definitely choose the Self hosted Blog. If you are just starting out and uncertain if you are comfortable with blogging and just wanted to have a little blog tasting, you can begin with a Free hosted blog and later move to a Self Hosted once you are up and running.

Setting up a Free Hosting Blog is very simple, you signup with wordpress.com or Blogger.com, choose the theme and blog configurations and start writing entries and promote your blog.

I would like to discuss more on the Self-hosting as there are more steps to set this up.

Step 1
Purchase a Domain name and subscribe to a hosting account with Hostgator or GoDaddy, which are the two popular web-hosting sites. A .com domain name generally cost a low annual fee of $10 or lower. The basic monthly Web hosting fee starts from as low as $5.

Step 2
Once you are setup with a Domain name and a Hosting Service Provider, you should install WordPress application and configure according to the recommendation within the hosting site. It is recommended to use WordPress because it is an open source software which allows it to be used free of charge. It is easy to install and are used on most hosting companies. Wordpree have a large numbers of Free Themes and Plugins, which you can choose for your blog. WordPress is also Search Engine Optimized(SEO) to let your site to get a maximized ranking on search engines.

Step 3
After you have setup WordPress successfully, you can now login to WordPressas an adminstrator.
Go to your blog settings such as General settings, Writing settings, Reading settings, Discussion Settings, Permalink settings, etc. Configure this according to your preference. If you are not sure what setting you will need, be sure to watch the Blogging101 Video at the end of this article.

Step 4
Next you would want to find a theme for your Site, this is the preset packaging of the blog site containing graphical appearance details, this would set the look and feel of your blog to reflect your personality or the nature of your business.
Wordpress has more than one thousand themes for free downloads. There is definitely one that is suitable for your business. Alternatively if you are more advance and you can also create your own theme.

Step 5
Final Step before you start blogging, you should install the plugins to your site where you can enhance the capability of your blog. Plugins are software extension tools created by third party developers to extend the WordPress application.
Here are some of the useful plugins as a start:

Google XML Sitemaps
Dagon Design Sitemaps Generator
All-in-One SEO
WP Greet Box
Thank Me Later
Dashboard Post-it
wordTube
StatPress

If you are ready to begin blogging but still not sure where to start be sure to watch the Blogging101 Video, which will show you the exact procedure to get you rblog up and running.

Jon Koh is an Online Marketer Specializing in Attraction Marketing and knows how to help you Generate Endless Leads and Cashflow for your Home Business. Visit Jon Koh MLM Success and he will show you how.

Article Source: Blogging Part Two, 5 Steps and 2 Videos to Get You Started