How to Set Up A Blog (For the Long Run)

Wouldn’t it be great if you could start something knowing that you couldn’t fail?

When you first get into blogging, you’re faced with a dilemma: the more you learn, the less likely it is you’ll get going and commit. The less you learn, the more likely it is you’re going to just take the plunge–but you’ll make a bunch of mistakes you might regret later.

I addressed this issue way back in my post about throw-away “starter” blogs, called The Starter Blog: How to Really Get Started Blogging. But, long-story-short, here’s the deal. If you want to get started blogging (or even start a second or third blog), do NOT overthink it and feel like you have to learn the Ten Thousand Things About Blogging. Just freakin’ start a blog on a free service like Blogger, Tumblr, or WordPress.com. In other words, “go Nike,” and Just Do It.

But… do it knowing that you’re only testing, and that you’re going to throw the blog away and start a “real” blog.

That’s the “starter blog” idea.

What I want to talk about here is how to set up a blog successfully for the long haul. This involves holistic systems-wide thinking, which I’m very good at. I also have a shitload of experience with this, too, so that helps.

So, once you’re past the “newbie” stage of blogging and it’s time to get serious, here’s what you do.

Research the Market

If nobody wants to hear what you have to say, you’re going to have a tough time of it. Part of the reason for creating a “starter blog” is so that you can judge the response of a potential audience and topic.

You might think it’s the coolest thing in the world to have a blog about beauty marks on celebrities’ faces, but the dead silence with which your posts and tweets are greeted will quickly tell you otherwise.

Throw that one away and try again!

Life-saving market research tip #1: Use social media sites as a guage. Let me give you a tip that will save the day (and tons of time): go to a social media site you really enjoy using and that “clicks” with you. Find a category (or people) you really like and identify with and check out the content you see posted there. Notice what kind of content is consistently at the top positions. That should inspire and inform you on your own blog content strategy (link).

Life-saving market research tip #2: Use Google. If you do a search for the biggest keyword for your potential blog topic, you want to see lots of organic results and sponsored sponsored results. You especially want to see sponsored results if you want to have any hope of making money with your blog.

The presence of sponsored results means there’s action in the marketplace over traffic and dollars. No action means there’s no money to be made. Traffic and search volume alone are not good enough, because some markets are “freebie” markets. Freebie markets consist of tons of free information, which means nobody will pay for that information. You don’t want to come in selling what everyone else is getting for nothing.

Research Keywords

You would think the first step is to just go get a domain and hosting, but nope! How do you know what domain to buy? If you’ve researched your market, you will have the general direction. Now that you’re past the “Gee, look, I’m blogging!” stage, a serious blog topic begins with keyword research. Keywords are what people type into a the box at a search engine.

If you’re thinking about starting a blog around a particular topic, you want to know what kinds of major keywords exist around the topic. For example, if I wanted to start a blog about playing guitar, keywords might be chords, progressions, tuning, learn to play {genre}, learn to play {song name}, and so forth.

Major keywords will likely become the categories for your blog.

There are a great many free keyword tools on the web. A quick search will turn them up. However, you can’t go wrong using the following:

• Google External Keyword Tool
• Wordtracker Free Keywords Tool
• SpyFu
• eBay categories
• What consistently makes the front page of any major social media site, like Digg

Buy a Domain and Hosting

If you’re going to have a serious blog (especially if you plan to monetize content or front a business), you must own your domain name and have your own “house” on the web. Domain and hosting are dirt cheap, anymore. If you’re setting up a business, then this is a very small part of the cost of doing business.

For domains, there really is none other than GoDaddy, and for hosting, many people are happy with Bluehost.

Set Up Your WordPress Database

Although some hosting companies provide “one-click installs” of WordPress, I just can’t ever trust ‘em. Too many people have had problems with them. They are often not the most recent version of WordPress. You don’t have the same degree of control over your blog as when you do things “the hard way.”

Database success tip #1: Use a password generator to generate a strong password that is nearly impossible to break.

Database success tip #2: When you set up your WordPress database, make sure you understand where the database is located. For most hosting companies, it is localhost, but for others, there is a different system that is safer and more secure and which provides a unique URL for your database. Write down all the login information for your database and keep it in a safe place.

Database setups are different on different hosting company control panels, so make sure you check with your hosting provider on the steps needed to create a MySQL database.

Install WordPress

Installing WordPress is not that big of a deal. You need to be familiar with FTP and have an FTP Client (I recommend FileZilla). You also need to have a text editor program. On Windows, you could use Notepad, but I use a code editor called Notepad++.

The rough steps in a WordPress installation go like this:

1. Download WordPress from wordpress.org and unzip it to the folder on your computer you want to keep your local blog files in.
2. Modify the wp-config-sample.php to enter your database login information and save it as wp-config.php. Part of doing this will require you to “salt” the information in the file to make it more secure. Use the URL provided in the instructions to get your long radom codes for this. You want to do this for security reasons.
3. Rename or delete the old wp-config-sample.php file.
4. Upload the whole shebang to your server via FTP. Make sure you place the files where you want the blog to be (main folder or another folder, such as /blog/). I don’t recommend you upload the wordpress folder unless you’re going to put the blog in a folder on your site. In that case, just upload the wordpress folder but rename it to something like blog.
5. Run the installation script.
6. Login with the admin username and random password given to you after installing.

The above is a very rough guide to the process. You should read through the entire installation sequence at the WordPress Codex before you do a single thing. Seriously.

WordPress Installation Success Tip #1: Print out the installation instructions and have them handy.

WordPress Installation Success Tip #2: A little research goes a long way. Search online for the kinds of problems users of your hosting service commonly run into so they don’t happen to you.

WordPress Installation Success Tip #3: Change the prefix to the database tables in your wp-config.php file. The less standard your information, the more secure your blog will be.

Configure Your WordPress Blog

There is a lot about blog configuration that is simply personal choice. However, there are also configuration choices you can make that will make your blog more secure and give you greater WordPress SEO strength. For example, I always make sure I activate pretty permalinks in WordPress. That way, the URLs (web addresses) for each blog post are people- and search engine-friendly.

Important WordPress configuration/settings tips:

• Create a new user for yourself that does not use the “admin” username. This is a security move, since it’s harder to break into a blog when both the username and the password have to be cracked.
• Set the author name WordPress uses to something other than your username. This is obvious when the posts are by “admin,” but it looks much more professional to see a first and last name.
• Set your time zone so that post and comment times are correct for your time zone (or the time zone of the bulk of your audience).
• Get and enter your WordPress.com API key for the Akismet spam-fighting plugin (and of course, activate the plugin). This is so vital and important that you need to do this even if you use no other plugins. That’s why I’m placing this under configure and not plugins.
• Decide what you want for comment moderation. Frankly, I can’t be bothered with it, but I also have my settings so that even one link in a comment forces it into moderation.  You can use the comment blacklist feature in WordPress, but a plugin like Bannage is the way to go.
• Go to Settings > Writing and set your default post category to something other than “Uncategorized.” You may need to create categories first, but if you’re not sure what you want yet for these, I’m sure you can at least decide on something besides uncategorized.
• Go to Settings > Reading and set the number of posts to show on the home page, and whether or not you want to show full RSS feeds or summaries (I recommend full).

Install Plugins

Plugins are what really give WordPress its flexibility and power. Too many plugins can slow down the performance of your blog, however, so only use the minimum necessary. Using a robust theme which contains its own code functions such as Thesis eliminates the need for some plugins (themes are next).

How to Install Plugins in WordPress 2.7+

1. Got to Plugins > Add New and search for a plugin you want using keywords related to its function, such as spam, comments, or seo.
2. Explore the results list for the best plugin (hint: check the ratings and the reviews/comments). Right-click on a plugin and open links about it in a new tab or window so you don’t get lost.
3. When you find a plugin that you want to install, click the “install” link which appears at the right in your search results.
4. Make sure the plugin is activated in the main Plugins list.
5. Make sure you’ve read and understand all configuration instructions for the plugin.
6. Configure plugin settings if necessary.

Suggested “Starter” Plugins

Here’s a list of plugins I wouldn’t want to be without on a new blog:

• Bannage
• Yet Another Related Posts plugin
• All-in-One SEO Pack (Unless you’re using Thesis)
• Cforms
• Google Sitemaps
• Login Lockdown
• Subscribe to Comments

Remember, this is meant to be a “starter” list, not a complete list. Don’t be yelling at me in the comments saying I “forgot” a plugin.

Install a Theme

Heh… really I should’ve just said “Install Headway.” It’s freakin’ amazing. Yes, Headway costs money, but this is so important to the long-term health and success of your blog that if you’re going to spend a few bucks on anything, it should be Headway.

However, if you just can’t swing the price or you don’t like having the ultimate code framework theme powering your blog’s design, there are plenty (OK, actually an insane amount) of choices out there.

Basically, the less tech-y you are, the harder this is going to be (sorry, but it’s true). You have to upload a theme via FTP (described above) and then activate it. Learn more at the WordPress Codex. Once it’s up and activated, you might be able to change the way it looks. But you’ll probably have to write code and design it. If you got a theme that lets you change settings in it, great! But most themes don’t have the capability for this (except Thesis, which has it in spades).

Where to Get Themes

The total list of WordPress theme sites would probably encircle the Earth several times. But here are a few top places to look:

• WordPress Theme Directory
• Smashing Magazine’s 100 Excellent Free WordPress Themes
• Weblog Tools Collection

Long-Run Tips for Choosing a Theme

• Pick a theme by a designer/developer who does themes for a living so you have reasonable assurance there will be updates/bugfixes.
• Avoid sponsored themes that have a link in the footer to some site that’s completely unrelated to the theme or to your blog’s subject.
• Avoid most “magazine” style themes unless you’re technically-oriented and are willing to do a lot of work on your blog whenever you want to modify the home page.
• Pick something that matches your personality and branding, not something that follows the latest web design trend (ooh, boy! cut-out text is the new black!).

Thinking for the Long Run Means Planning

The best way to set up your blog for the long run is to plan what you want to accomplish with it. The difference between a successful blog and an abandoned blog is often the difference in how much thinking and planning went into its creation.

Once you get past your “gee, I’m blogging!” stage, and you’ve thrown your starter blog away, use this post as a guide and a broad checklist to plan your “real” blog.

If you need help planning or making decisions about your blog, there’s nothing better than talking it over with someone who has a lot of experience in this area. Let me know if I can help you.