Hi all,
I'm not new to online but am pretty new to blogging,my latest blog being started less than a month ago although I had two previous blogs which were started in September.
I thought I would list some of the things you should think about when starting a blog and others could add to it.
Firstly I made the wrong assumption that I could jump in and make money with my blog, this is definitely the wrong way to start a blog.If you want to make money with a blog expect it to take a very long time before you give up your day job.
Since the first two blogs my whole attitude towards blogging has changed, making money now is actually secondary and I don't really care much if I don't make money with it, I am hooked on blogging for what it is, and for me i've found something that I can blog about on a daily basis and is also more importantly interesting to others.
Also be prepared to change, my first blog was full of products and although I got some visitors I wasn't happy with it at all, I used it as a learning experience and now I don't use that blog at all.
Another big thing before you start is try to find yourself a decent template, don't choose one just because you like it, I did that and it didn't work, check you've got the right template/theme for the right version example: in wordpress some themes are only compatible with earlier wordpress versions, so if you get the latest version find yourself at least 10 templates compatible with that version.
I say 10 because out of those 10 probably only 2 or 3 will work with everything you want it to work with, one of my favourite templates was not widget ready and couldn't even pull rss feeds so I had to scrap it.
Also depending on what you decide to do with your blog, if it's a personal blog thats great but if your using pictures/information from other sites do your research on copyright infringement, it's a big deal.
If you get into your second or third week like I did on my first blog and are not enjoying it, take a break, think about why you don't like it, is it because your trying to do something for the wrong reason and it's really not you? I've heard one of the best things you can start a blog about is your passion,which makes a lot of sense.
Although I ended up writing a news blog it feels right and some of the articles I do get passionate about, you should feel the same about what your doing, always do something you enjoy or chances are it will fail.
Another thing I found really helpful recently was loading times, it affects your visitors for sure, I found having pictures in your posts can slow the load time down, but if you set your blog to show 3 or 4 posts to a page it makes for quicker loading.
Also by showing 3 ads to a page you can insert adsense ads in every post without breaking their terms, yes always check terms and conditions of affiliations you have with different programs.

If anyone can add to the list of things to take into consideration when starting a blog it will help any non bloggers who are thinking of starting up or newbies just coming in, I will also post other problems I encounter on my blog in the hope to help out and prevent you from making the same mistakes.

Most importantly of all, enjoy your blog.

Tony:)

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