Before choosing which blogging platform you are going to use, make sure you think about the following before setting up your blog.

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StartingaBlog
Before choosing which platform you are going to use, make sure
you think about the following.

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How To Use This Checklist
This checklist is set for you to print and jot down your notes
below each slide.
Enjoy !

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What You Need To Think About
Choosing a topic - You should write about something you are
passionate about & something you can commit to writing to
on a consistent basis.

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What You Need To Think About
What’s in a name? - Choose something that is:
• Catchy
• Easy to remember
• Tied to the content of your blog.

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What You Need To Think About
Posting schedule - How often are you going to post?

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What You Need To Think About
URL / Hosting - Will you purchase your URL/Hosting or stay
on the same platform & have the management done for you?

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What You Need To Think About
Flexibility - How much access do you want? Do you want to
customize the backend yourself or have layouts that do it for
you?
The tone of your blog - How do you want to be perceived?
Image, writing style, etc.

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What You Need To Think About
Design - Do you want your blog to be:
• Relaxed
• Easy to read
• Elegant
• Newsworthy

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What You Need To Think About
Layout - What other features do you want
• RSS feed
• Email sign up
• Search features
• Categories
• Archives

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What You Need To Think About
Choosing a Style Guide - for accuracy, consistency and
citing sources.
Images - Make sure you have the rights to the image before
posting. Cannot go on Google and grab images. There are
Creative Commons areas where you can share images with
proper attribution.

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What You Need To Think About
Images Sources
• http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
• http://photopin.com/
• http://www.iclipart.com/
• Or search for “Creative Commons” to seek out others
sites.
• You may have to may a fee for some images so be
careful and read the fine print.

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What You Need To Think About
Guest Blogging - Allow or do for others.
Advertising - Could you see advertisers being interested in
paying to advertise on your site?

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What You Need To Think About
Is there an opportunity to expand talk about other topics? Is
the site flexible for this?

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Next Steps
Once you have answered all of these questions, start
researching blogging platforms to set up your blog. Here are
a few suggestions:
• Wordpress.com
(free)
• Wordpress.org
(paid)
• Blogger
• Squarespace
• Medium

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Next Steps
If you have already chosen one, then you are ready to setup /
update your!

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ThankYou
Jeannine O’Neil
JO Social Branding
@Jeannine_ONeil