It’s easy to over-analyze this and create gigantic super-lists of tasks that are numbingly detailed. I thought for a change I’d keep it short and sweet:
- Write a post that explains why you started the blog, what the blog is going to be about, and where you see it going.
- Get rid of the “hello world” post.
- Get the maintenance mode plugin if you don’t want anyone to see your baby blog getting built.
- Write at least one definitive post for each category of your blog.
- Get some analytics going. I use Google Analytics, but there are tons of others.
- Make announcements via email/forums/social networks (don’t spam people, duh).
- Look for ways to get feedback and reviews on forums or from other bloggers (review “exchanges” between you and other bloggers are great for this and build traffic, too).
- Claim your blog on Technorati.
- Add your blog’s URL to your social network profile pages and forum signatures.
- Comment like crazy on related blogs — especially the top blogs.
Wonderful tips as always Michael. As always, you know your stuff and are the master of your domain. Thanks for the list!
11) Get the wordpress backup plugin and schedule automated backups!
12) Install a spam filter – those automated spam comments will come in the moment you publish your first post and it gets pinged all over the internet!
Great additions, Caroline! Personally, I view plugin installation as something that would happen before reaching this point, but I think your advice will be very helpful to people.
Ahh yes that’s a good point though when I created my blog I was new to WordPress so I just picked a theme and launched it. And then gradually in the following couple of weeks I started installing the various plugins.
Though if I started a new blog now I’d probably do that first
Here’s one to add:
13) Set up a Feedburner account!
Great post Michael!
Good call on the FeedBurner, Christine!
PS – Your blog rocks! I just subscribed!
14) Change your permalinks to search engine friendly permalinks.
15) Install SEO Title Tag Plugin.
I always do the above along with the rest of the steps whenever I set up a new blog.
P.S. You are write about commenting. I need to do this more often.
Got to ask Michael and I have been looking for a good place to ask this question. I cannot help but notice the absence of a Blogroll.
I would love to hear about your decision.
This definitely help. I’m working on the checklist to create a blog and it’s take forever. Because I’m being use to blogging, it’s hard for me to think about what is new blogger challenge.
Maybe to set up F&Q will help:)
I recently realized that wordpress themes default to “nofollow”. It seems like a no-brainer to change this, but I’ve read a lot of controversy about it increasing low quality comments – so do you leave it or change it to dofollow and is there a best plugin for doing that?
@Liz, there are several plugins that do this. Some of them dofollow both comments and trackbacks, while others do just one or the other. A quick Google search will find you what you need. Turning off nofollow can make you more susceptible to spam comments and trackbacks. It’s one of the reasons why I moderate comments on Remarkablogger.
Re: turning off nofollow — I’ve been reading lately about a dofollow movement, but Google has made some announcements that make it seem like they’re about to “punish” those folks. Hopefully they can tell the difference between actual useful links, top commentators, etc. and comment link spamming.
Great post Michael! I am new to your site (and to blogging) and am slowing making my way through your “blogging for beginners” posts! Everything has been so helpful! You’ve won another loyal subscriber!
@Theresa – Thank you very much! That makes my day.