Blog

I was planning to publish this blog since after purchasing the domain (20th February 2015), the very first post I wrote here last week of September 2017. You see there is a 2-year gap when I just think I’m gonna publish my blog ASAP, maybe from next Sunday!. I could not start my blog due to work pressure and sometimes I feel lazy to write a blog. To run a website, first of all, you need ‘never-ending’ passion; without passion no one able to survive. I am talking about the personal site, not some big corporation websites where they can hire a bunch of staff to maintain and write blogs for their site.

First thing first, Dedication for your Website

6 years ago a student admitted to Botany to complete his graduation where he loves to write code, handling online activity. He should read in CSE!. A website is no difference, don’t follow those greedy posts where people sharing some greedy keywords and all the sudden you want to start an auto blog (of course for money) but practically you love to grow a garden!. You should stick to those topics which attract you more than anything and it’s better if you professionally connected those topics. A blog only for money never survive for a long time and you don’t wanna grow a tree with very weak root.

Suggestions:

• Your blog will be a reflection of your personal life, write those things which you love and you have expertise.
• Don’t just focus only one topic, you can write a lot of different types of posts (I do, Tech/Travel/Small Business/LifeStyle). This is wrong idea that a targeted niche is a must for the personal blog.
• There is no shortcut, success comes here slowly. So Please be patience. It’ll be very much wrong if you expect success within a short period of time.
• Be transparent, don’t follow any illegal way which eventually put your blog at high risk, if not now then in future.
• The last piece of suggestion, don’t run for success; success will come to you. Just do your job (work hard) and follow right parameter.

Okay, I’ll follow my passion, what next? Platform

My website is based on WordPress and I think you can also choose WordPress since there are hundred thousands of your fellow Admin running their sites on WordPress. Before move here I wrote in Blogger (also popular), so I know well what’s the difference between WordPress and Blogger.

WordPress Good:

• Professional  website
• Hundreds of Plugins will make your site functionally strong
• Customization as you wanted
• Fully secured, automatic backup, a lot of free stuff (e.g. themes)
•  Big SEO effect, it’s easy here to promote your website in Social Media and Search Engines.

WordPress Cons (?):

• You need to spend some bucks as a hosting cost but you can also open a free blog (like Blogger) in wordpress.org (not recommended)
• A little bit technically challenging but you can overcome it, just need some dedication.

Blogger Advantages:

• Completely free and it’s run by Google (brand always a big issue!)
• Default Adsense integration (We all know nowadays how hard it’s to get an Adsense account) but fortunately if you run a quality blog in blogger they’ll provide you Adsense (hosted account) by default.
• Besides free subdomain (blogspot.com) you can also use top-level domain (.com etc.)

Blogger Disadvantages:

• Lack of professionalism; sites more like hobby work than professional quality.
• Poor designs and very limited themes/template.
• You can’t customize a blogger site (very limited scope)

Conclusion: WordPress can be the best option for you. There is few others platform (Joomla, Tumbler) but I don’t wanna discuss them. Please feel free to search if you want to learn about them.

Right Theme is very important

I have searched hundreds of theme before selecting this (Hestia) one and from my personal experience, I can tell you, choosing a theme is very confusing. You’ll always get a better them after selecting last one!. But don’t change template like you change your Android Phone or stand in a line for new iPhone. You can consider below points:

1. A theme must be responsive (define Responsive: it’ll adjust your website layout based on incoming screen size). Assuming your website in WordPress, most themes here are responsive but don’t forget to check it.
2. Paid or Free theme: I say paid always better but never essential. A lot of very good website using the free theme, you can start too. But if you have the budget then search in ThemeForest for a good theme. For paid theme best advantage is, you’ll receive very good support.
3. Simplicity: I love white colour based WordPress theme, standard layout. Don’t select a bright colour theme or too complicated. Customization is also important, a theme with limited customization is not good either.

Install Proper Plugins to your Website:

Plugins are the heart of your website, be careful, don’t install any unnecessary plugins which can slow down your website and make your admin panel experience complicated.

Below is the list of some WordPress plugins which considered as ‘essential’:

• Yoast SEO (will handle all of your SEO related activity)
• UpdraftPlus (backup is very important and this plugin will carefully manage that section)
• W3 Total Cache (accelerate your website, handle all technical details and boost your site performance. Be careful to set up this plugin)
• MashShare – if you are not satisfied with your theme Social Media share button then use this plugin)
• JetPack by WordPress (this is very good, handle a lot of works; from sharing your post to back up your website or an app to write blog offline, I’m writing this one)
• WpSmush – optimize your image performance, reduce image sizes and certainly helpful for your website performance.
• And there are hundreds of others plugin (go: yourdomain.com/wp-admin/plugin-install.php)
• Installing Plugins are easy, go “Admin Panel”, from ‘Plugins” use “Add New”.

How about SEO?

Well SEO is very important but you don’t have to run one part of the world to another part. Make sure you’ll post ‘original quality content’ and before that:

• Submit your websites to search engines
• Submit your website to Google Webmaster
• Create a sitemap and enable RSS feed by using Feedburner.
• Look in your cPanel, if there is an option “Marketing” (Namecheap does), you’ll see another name “Attracta”, this comes from your paid hosting, use Attracta to boost your SEO performance.
• This is an era of Social Media, create an account to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Instagram and share your content (JetPack will provide you automatic share facility. First connect your website with Jetpack, then connect your social accounts with Jetpack).

Website is ready to Publish, now Start Writing:

Now your long run just started, take your time and start writing ‘Original Content’. You’re not going to copy paste others post, this will bring destruction to your website. Quality articles always attract your visitors and they will get some benefits from your post. Don’t post by targeting some fancy keywords, write from your heart.

If you have any questions or maybe you do not agree with me? Don’t be shy, you are welcome to post a comment.