False Creek Geek: How to Start a Weblog

This month’s Yaletown View column is a follow-up to last month’s introduction to weblogs. Most of you folks will know most of this essay, but I post them every month, so I figured I’d better post this one as well. You can find more of my columns here.

Last month I wrote about the personal-publishing technology that is weblogs. A weblog (or ‘blog’) is an easy-to-use, frequently-updated website with dated entries listed in chronological order. It’s also a social phenomenon that has gone mainstream, with individuals, media organizations and corporations including weblogs as part of their online presence.

But how do you start a weblog? Before I address that, I’d encourage you to consider why you want to start one. There are plenty of good reasons:

• You want an online soapbox.
• You want to communicate with friends and families.
• You want to establish yourself as an expert in a field.
• You’re an exhibitionist, and want to share your life with the online masses.

Deciding why you’re launching a weblog is important, because that decision is reflected in all of the subsequent choices you make. If, for example, your weblog has a professional-development focus, you’ll want to choose a design and name that reflects that.

There are two basic types of weblog services available. We’ll call them hosted and self-run. Hosted services are available for free or at a low-cost, and the setup and management aspects are handled by a third party. A hosted weblog is analogous to Hotmail.com–all of the tricky bits are taken care of, and you just send email. A couple of popular hosted services are Blogger (www.blogger.com), LiveJournal (www.livejournal.com) and TypePad (www.typepad.org).

The second, self-run option, is more complicated, but provides more versatility for the experienced weblogger. Additionally, this option carries more cred in online communities. A couple of popular companies that provide the software to run your own blog are MovableType and Radio Userland.

One of the first steps in setting up a weblog is deciding what it will be called. The name reflects the content and new bloggers agonize over finding the perfect title for their pet project. The name and Web address (or URL) often go hand-in-hand, so if you want to call your weblog ‘Microsoft’, know that you’re not going to be able to publish it at http://www.Microsoft.com. The URL is another difference between hosted and self-run blogs. Most hosted weblogs have a URL that looks like this: http://yourblogname.hostingservice.com, while self-run weblogs will be the more traditional http://www.yourblogname.com.

Once you’ve chosen a name, set up a service and secured a URL, you’re ready to start blogging. Depending on your goals and subject matter, you may want to try to promote your weblog to increase your readership. A few basic strategies for this process include:

• Be interesting. If you write about unusual things with a compelling style, people will keep coming back to your site.
• Be specific. If you’re an expert in something–model railroads, Ug boots, biochemistry–write about that. I guarantee there’s an audience out there waiting to read what you’re writing.
• Humour helps.
• Link to other weblogs. They’ll link back to you, and your readership will grow.
• Tell people in the real world about it. When you launch your weblog, email your friends and family (unless, you know, it’s all about that garden gnome fetish you’re trying to keep to yourself) and ask them to read it and tell their friends about it.
• Time heals all wounds, and increases all weblog traffic. The longer you write for, the more people will discover your site.

The blogging community is a friendly bunch. If you need help in setting up your weblog, or have questions about how it works, other bloggers are your best resource. Good luck and start blogging!