Thinking about blogging?

Are you hesitant to start your own blog because you want to “do it right?”  Would you like to hear some step-by-step startup tips directly from an expert blogger?  If so, you are in luck!  No, I’m not talking about me, folks –  Brent Ozar, the SQL Server Expert who has been blogging for ages, just wrote a 5-part series on this very thing.

Here is a quick synopsis of the series:

How to Start a Technical Blog – Part 1

• Why start a blog in the first place?
• Set your expectations
• Get a good name
• Be yourself and blog regularly (but not on certain days; read to find out why)

Part 2: WordPress and How to Configure It

• If you are serious, you want WordPress, period
• Configure WordPress just right
• Get yourself found by Google

Part 3: WordPress Plugins

• Get Feedburner and other necessities up and running with little effort
• Easy database backup solution — you need this

Part 4: Wordpress Themes

• There are tons of themes to control your look and feel
• When you find one, customize the customizable but do not think about editing the code if you have a day job that doesn’t involve writing PHP and CSS

Part 5: Blog Etiquette

• Give credit for content, but respect individual privacy
• Don’t burn your bridges, your writing is somewhat permanent online
• Allow visitors to comment

These are some of the highlights, not a table of contents for Brent’s fine series.  Even if you are a field-hardened and crusty old blogger, I bet you will find something useful there.  Check it out!

Here are a couple tips of my own that I would add:

• Be prepared to deal with SPAM comments and trackbacks; as with email, it’s sort of an arms race
• Use the “more tag” in longer posts so that only a portion shows up on the homepage, otherwise the homepage can become very, very long
• Most plugins take computing resources: CPU, SQL queries; moderation is key
• Set up a test blog to try out new plugins, themes, or ideas without disrupting your live site
  • I did this by setting up a subdomain with a second installation of WordPress — it doesn’t cost anything extra with the host I use
  • Be careful: recently I sent pingbacks to another blog from my development site by accident, doh!

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