Start Your Own Blog in 5 Minutes or 5 Days

Mad men and geniuses, housewives and teenagers, tycoons and cube dwellers—everyone and their mother has a blog these days. And why not? Blog service providers and software make creating and posting on a website as frictionless as email. In this series, I’ll walk you through the steps of how to create a blog in 5 minutes or 5 days.

Step 1: Does Anyone Care About What You Have To Say?

A commenter on Digg once quipped that the biggest mistake that people make when starting a blog is choosing to start one in the first place. There’s some truth in that snarky comment for a couple of reasons.

1. Blogging Is Like Dieting - a lot of people start with the best of intentions only to fall off the wagon in a couple of months. You’ve probably heard some ludicrous statistic that thousands of blogs are started every minute. The statistic you probably haven’t heard is how many of those blogs are still thriving after 6 months. Just remember, blogging is a game of endurance and it’s a slow rise to readership.
2. Want To See Pictures Of My Kitten? – There is nothing wrong with personal blogs, in fact I think they’re a great idea if you want to write. There’s also nothing wrong with rambling, unfocused musings on whatever catches your fancy. However, if your blog has a purpose, say to help you land a writing gig or get you invited to speak at a conference, neither of these will get you many readers. A clear purpose consistently met over time is the way to go.

Define The Purpose and Focus Of Your Blog

You have to find your particular niche in the blogosphere, which generally comes in one of 3 ways:

1. You’ve Got Something Unique To Say – This is a self-evident concept. A great is example is the Julie/Julia Project. One woman decided she wanted to change her life by cooking every recipe in Mastering The Art of French Cooking by Julia Child in a year. This book is at least 3 inches thick. She stuck with it, her writing was great and now she’s a published author of 2 books. If you’ve got an idea, do a little research to see if anyone has pursued it. Technorati, Google Blog Search and IceRocket are all good places to start.

2. You’ve Got A Unique Way Of Saying It – In an ocean of blogs, it’s hard to find untapped opportunity. Instead, you might differentiate yourself by attacking the subject differently—humorously, very in-depth, with pictures, with video, podcasts, or just through the lens of your own experience. Find the angle about your topic that you’re especially good at using to connect with your audience and flavor your blog accordingly.
   
   
3. You’re Uniquely Qualified – This last method is reserved for people who already have a measure of fame, respect or notoriety before they start. If you’re Marc Andreesen then of course people are going to want to hear what you’ve got to say. If you’re already a success in other channels, a blog might be another venue for your thoughts.

There’s one final question you have to ask yourself: are you looking for a relationship with your readers, or are you the love ‘em and leave ‘em type? Everyone is inundated with information these days, so if you’re not going to commit to your readers, why should they bother to read you?

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