Teaching Yourself How To Blog

It does not matter if you are an expert or a complete novice to the blogging world, you’ll continue to learn something new every day just simply by getting in there and doing the work.  I by no means proclaim to be an expert blogger, but I have been doing this for awhile now, and my learning never stops.  For this reason alone, I look forward to logging into my back-end every morning to see whatever task I am going to tackle for that day.  This is an ever changing world, and can be quite challenging and even frustrating at times, but building this blog is my true passion.

I have never once said to myself, “Man, I don’t want to do this today!”  If you are an experienced blogger, than you know what I mean.  If you are in the beginning stages of getting started, I can tell you from experience that you are in for a treat.  Hold on and enjoy the ride!

When I first started this blog, I knew absolutely nothing about how to go about it.  And I hope that this puts your mind at ease!  I’ll put it this way: I knew that blogs existed and that was pretty much it.  I had a slight grasp on SEO from a previous training program that I bought into, and I was an avid Article Marketer, but the concept of starting a blog never occurred to me until I had an epiphany at 2:00 am one morning. (I have a bad case of insomnia some nights).

So I spent the entire next day researching this exciting but daunting concept.  Immediately, the words “web hosting,” “FTP,” “CSS,” “PHP,” “HTML,” “WordPress,” “plugins,” “themes,” and the thousand other terms that are synonymous with blogging scared the heck out of me.  But as I learned, just getting in there and getting started is the key.  You will learn everything that you need to learn as you go.

Teaching yourself how to blog is not going to be anything that you accomplish before getting started.  It is not like there is any sort of college program that is going to give you an Associates or Bachelors degree in blogging.  I got a kick out of this photo to the left.  There is no black belt in this industry either. 🙂  This is a very specific and unique field, and not one that is easily taught out of any text book.  Learning this ability only comes through experience, and that experience will only come as you go along.

Do you want to know how to get started building your blog?  Here is the simple answer…Get started.  Don’t procrastinate, and think that you need to know every single aspect before getting started.  This is the mistake that I notice every day with aspiring new bloggers.  You don’t need to know everything.  I promise you, you will learn as you go.  And if you wait until you do know everything; trust me, you’ll never get started.

And the best resource that I have found to learn how to blog is from other bloggers.  I have never found another blogger who was not willing to help the new guy (or lady) learn the ropes.  Each and every time I attempt to add or try something new on this blog, I first learn what other authority blogs have to say about the matter.  These are blogs that have “been there, done that,” and I cannot think of a better resource to learn from.  This goes hand in hand with my favorite saying and the motto that I live by:

“If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want, copy what they do, and you’ll achieve the same results.”

Learn from these bloggers, and more importantly, learn from their mistakes before you have the opportunity to make the mistake yourself.  Two resources that I use for myself are Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net and John Saddington from TentBlogger.com.  Of course, you’ll find your own resources for tips and techniques as you go along.

The point that I am trying to make is this:  Don’t worry too much about what you don’t know, and more importantly, don’t let what you don’t know prevent you from getting started.  You will learn as you go as long as you have the passion and commitment to keep going.

The first step to getting started is simply writing content.  Writing content is first and foremost, and should be your primary focus in the beginning.  The rest of the bells and whistles will come with experience.  Just get started, have fun, and have faith.  And remember, there is a whole plethora of bloggers out there who are willing to share their experience and expertise.  Tap into that resource as you need it.

Category: Blogging Tips