Question:
You decide to write a blog… How do you approach this? What tools do you use?
Answer:
First of all you need to generate exclusive “killer” content. You can use Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, talk on TED, create Udemy course, buy any sort of PR – whatever you need to get indication that what you are talking about is indeed INTERESTING. If you do not get positive feedback, you need to change your message or your audience and reiterate.
Once you found the proper content, you can start focusing on the technical solution. All content-management-systems (CMS)[Wordpress,Joomla,Drupal] have built-in responsive themes that will work great on all target devices [iOS, Android, Web], but if you overly customize your blog or your theme expect compatibility issues. Once you initially configure the CMS, you will have daunting task of setting up plugins and configurations for SEO, security, social media integration, site management etc. If you are not a techie you should hire one. Hire only people you can trust, test them on site you are not afraid to loose before you go to your main site, carefully monitor that each task they perform is not too big and not too small [4 hours of work is good per task]. Since I (Lev Goldentouch) am a techie, I prefer working alone to save time.
At this point you can start iterating with graphics and content. Be creative. Ask your friends for honest opinion [send screenshots]. Once you get feel of it, generate full site description with all the screens and functionality you want on them. Implement the design in the cheapest way you can that is still interesting for your potential audience and see the reaction. Improve some and reiterate. At the early stages you will need to monitor comments quite closely to filter out spam, later on you will be able to set up plugins to remove the spam.
It may take a long time till you are ready to go public. You will be bombarded by SEO spam on your site visibility. Ignore it till your site is INTERESTING and can generate revenue [consider affiliation or marketplace models]. Once you are sure of your site, just reiterate some of the blog entries on your site anywhere you can: Quora, Reddit, Linkedin, Facebook, other blogs… If you have done everything right you can expect a lot of attention – measure it using google analytics or equivalent. Do have security plugins installed, buy backups… And reiterate on everything!
