Catch a Falling Star

“So what’s the deal with blogs?” my friend asks me. Well, I can’t really answer that question because everyone has their own reason to start one. Personally, I started my original blog as an online journal of random things that happened throughout my day and since I had people actually reading it, I figured I could start making money off of it. But whether you start a personal blog or a niche blog, you better love it and update it often.

Since I started this blog from absolute scratch, I thought it would be nice to share all the links to things that helped me create it, from the very basic (like purchasing domain name) to the more technical (like publicizing). I like lists… it compiles everything into one easy-to-find place rather than going every which way to find what you need. Unfortunately, I thought about this a bit late and lost most of the links to what I’ve used… but here’s what I have so far. I know I’ve missed a lot but I’ll keep updating this list as I remember them and also as I acquire a few more so check back. If you’d like to start your own blog and are having trouble, please feel free to ask me… I’ll help as much as I can! And if you have any suggestions to help others (and myself) with their blog-building, do share!

Yahoo Small Business - This is where I bought my domain name
IX Web Hosting - Web host. At first I didn’t really like them but they have a pretty good live support and once I got used to it I realized they offer everything I need for my blog.
WordPress - Publishing platform used to make this blog
Themes - Get a nice layout for your blog
Plugins - Get more plugins other than those below
Akismet - This plugin is a spam filter for comments posted
WordPress Database Backup - This is a plugin to back up your WordPress files (in case you mess around with the script like I like to do and really mess up your blog, it can still be salvaged).
Brian’s Threaded Comments - This plugin makes your comments threaded (so people can reply to comments in addition to the actual post).
Subscribe to Comments - This plugin will allow people to subscribe to a comment string via email so that they are advised when more people comment to that post.
MyAvatars - This plugin allows MyBlogLog member’s avatar to show up on their comments… it’s just nice to put a face to your commentators
ShareThis - This plugin allows readers to save your site onto their social bookmark as well as to share the post via email
AdSense Deluxe - This plugin helps you manage your AdSense ads
Dropdown Archives - This plugin puts your archive in a dropdown menu. I like this because it’s a space saver.
Ultimate Tag Warrior - This plugin allows you to put tags on your post… and more. Even though you can put your post into a category, sometimes you just want to tag it as something without creating a category for it… this helps you organize your posts efficiently.
Top Commentators - This plugin puts a list of the top commentators on your sidebar
Contact Form ][ - This plugin is for a simple drop-in contact form. You do want people to contact you, don’t you?!
Popularity Contest - This plugin will help you see which post is the most popular
runPHP - This plugin allows you to execute PHP codes inside your posts or pages
No Self Pings - This plugin disables self pinging
Optimal Title - This plugin gets your blog name tacked on to the end of the page title instead of having it appear first. This provides more meaningful search engine results.
iWebTool - Free webmaster tools
FeedBurner - RSS feed… so readers can subscribe to your posts
MyBlogLog - Blogger community. Join, and also, don’t forget to add their plugin!
BloggBluzz - Place to publicize your posts
Digg - Place to publicize your posts
Google Analytics - Check your site stats here
Alexa - Check your traffic ranking here
John Chow - Blog with a lot of tips on monetizing
ProBlogger - Blog with a lot of tips on monetizing
It will take a lot of time and research if you’re not very computer literate (like me). I have a couple of small suggestions when it comes to writing a personal blog:

Always think about your readers - Make sure you have something useful and/or interesting for them so that they keep coming back. It’s a good idea to sometimes ask for your readers opinion to get them involved. Personally, if I’ve commented somewhere I will come back later to check if anyone’s replied to my comment.

Post something daily (or at least on a regular basis) - This is important because it’s terrible when you visit someone’s blog and there’s nothing new for a while. I know sometimes you’ll have writer’s blog, I mean, block but there are other times where you feel inspired and have a lot of different things to say. Use those times to line up various posts… you can always edit the timestamp (as suggested by Ms.Danielle) or keep it as a draft to remind you to finish it up later.

Post more than once daily - I’ve noticed that a lot of readers visit various times throughout the day. To keep them entertained, put up 2-3 posts through the length of the day (space them out evenly). Even if you don’t have much to say, you can always put up a link of a funny video you saw or write a summary of a good article you read or talk about a strange product you stumbled upon. But don’t go overboard… most people unsubscribe from RSS feeds because of too many posts.

Keep it simple - I’ve seen some blogs that are really messy and hard to read. Or others that are completely jammed up with advertisement. This ties in to my first suggestion. Readers want to read… don’t make it hard for them to do so. I’m still debating whether to get rid of my 3-column layout as it’s more cluttered than I’d like it to be.

Also, Ilker wrote a nice little Guide to Blogging which I recommend for the very basics.