In the previews lessons of this series I talked about the importance of Selecting a Niche and Planning your Strategies. In this third part, I’m going to talk about everything you need to know when you are creating the blog. I wanted to write this post earlier but I couldn’t because of its dense content. I will cover this part with sub-chapters, to make it easier to understand.

3. Create A Blog

3.1 Choose a Brand Name

Before thinking in the hosting or theme for your blog, you need to think about your brand. This is not an easy step, because sometimes it’s hard to decide something, specially because there are a lot of blogs over there and the brand you are thinking to adopt could be in use.

So, think well about the name you want to be represented by, because once you start promoting yourself with a brand, you should not change it. Catchy and short names are perfect for your selection. Once you have selected a brand name, you can use it as the title of your blog.

3.2 Choose your Keywords and Taglines

This is a very important step because the keywords will determine your ranking on the search engines such Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, etc… There are a couple of free tools which you can use to select your keywords:

- Traffic Travis: This is a good tool which you can take your market research, search engine optimization and PPC campaigns to a whole new level with this suite of tools.

- Digital Point Keyword Suggestion: This is a web based application of the DigitalPoint’s team.

- Google Keyword SandBox: Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas. You need to give a few descriptive words or phrases to get the keywords.

- Google Sets: Another great tool of Google. You need to type some words and you will get a list of related keywords.

- Good Keywords: This is a simple and good Windows software to find the right keywords for your web pages.

I recommend you to use all those tools to get your keywords, and after then start merging the results. This way you will get a more accurate result.

3.3 Choose a Logo

The logo it’s very related to the Brand. In this case, it’s not 100% up to you, at least you are a designer. If it’s not your case, you can pay for a logo. There are many people (including me) willing to design a logo for your website or blog for a cheap price at DigitalPoint Forums. So you need to describe what do you want, the colors you want to have in your logo and the designer will do the hard work for you.

3.4 Choose a Theme

You can get a free theme to start, but I recommend you to get a personalized design specially for you. There are many companies which you can contact to create your theme: Unique Blog Designs, Weborithm, Reality Hosting etc… Also, if you have web design skills, you can create your own WP-Theme. If it’s the case, I highly recommend you to check the guides of WPDesignder, he has a very useful material there.

3.5 Get a Domain & Hosting

This step supposes to be easy, but it’s not. Getting a good domain could be a very hard task, specially if you looking for a domain which includes some of your keywords. There are many good domains already taken, and when you think you have found a good one, you notice it’s taken too. I usually use Godaddy to verify domain names, also you can use their Bulk Register tool to search domains based in the keywords you want.

Then, talking about the hosting I don’t recommend you to use GoDaddy. It seems to be cheap, but it’s really not. It’s truth that you can get a hosting for $6 a month, but when you start adding more services like php support, infinite subdomains and that kind of things, the bill flies like a rocket. So, I recommend you to use BlueHost, you pay $7 a month with no hidden fees, and by joining them you get a $50 coupon to advertise on Google, and a $25 coupon to advertise on Yahoo.

Wow what a large article, it has over 700 words! Well, I hope this lesson can help you to create your blog. I tried to cover everything but may be I missed something, so if you think I need to add something else to this phase, don’t be afraid to leave your comment .