You've decided to start a blog. Cool! (part 5)

5. I have written my blog site and I have post, what do I do with them now?

• You need to fill out the information about yourself. The “About Me” page. This is where people will go to find out about you, your blog and what they can learn here. (we will talk about contact separately)

•  YES, you want people to make comments. You can decide if they should be:
• moderated, meaning that you see them before they are published, or
• unmoderated, meaning that the comments are published automatically another topic of great debate. But like everything else, you can change your mind later.
  
• Most sites have a spam filter, so that really bizarre stuff shouldn’t even appear to anyone else. But you should still be diligent about watching what’s in the approved comments. Watch out for links hidden in the comments or the "name" 
  
• I am also not saying, nor am I implying that you shouldn’t let negative comments go through. We all learn and grow from constructive criticism. But face it, you will get some haters. It comes with the territory.

•  YES, you probably want to be notified about comments and you can arrange for them to come to your regular email, so you can answer "quickly."
  
• YES- you want some type of "share" button, like twitter, Facebook, share-this, etc

•  YES- you want them to subscribe- by email, by RSS

• YES- They can contact you. 
• You want your fans to be able to contact you. This comes down to a personal preference, safety and common sense. I would not give my telephone number or my street address.  I think Facebook and Twitter are close enough. Some online relationships may turn into real-life relationships and connections, but go slow, just like you would in real life (IRL).
• Try to skip a few of the creeps, freaks and spammers.

• NO- we aren't going to worry about advertising, Adsense, monetizing the first time out of the gate. We must get some good content flowing to get readers to visit the site. And, even if selling is your ultimate goal, if you produce nothing worth reading, the readers won't come, and you will have no one to sell to. So, concentrate on writing good content first.

The adage is: CONTENT IS KING!


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