I am going to fill you guys in on the path or school of thought that I followed in creating this blog and will follow for any future sites.
The Topic
It has been suggested that the topic of a blog should be relevant, controversial, and continually changing. While I agree with that I also believe that there will be absolutely no “staying” power if the topic doesn’t fit in with something you enjoy. There needs to be a balance. If you don’t enjoy what you are writing about it will show in both the quantity and quality of your posts. The first thing you need to do is define your passion. For some this will be a no-brainer for others it may take a little time. For me the single most important thing in my life is my faith. The problem with that it that there is no way I could justify profiting off of Jesus. So, next in line, the economics of the world we live in. With a topic now defined begin to outline your site. Be sure to find the angel you want to take on your subject. Make a list of potential categories and articles that you would like to write. You don’t have to actually follow this out line but putting pen to paper will help you to organize the structure of your content further defining your blog.
The Technical
Now that we have a topic lets get it to the web. The first thing we need to do is to get an account with a hosting provider. If you know someone that is running a hosting company you are in luck and can probably land some free space. If you are like the rest of use you will have to turn to such providers as bluenhost(www.bluehost.com) or hostgator (www.hostgator.com). For around six to seven dollars a month they will provide you with all of the space and band width you could ask for. On top of that they both run cpanel with fantastico which if you are not familiar with are some nice utilities that make sites like this one easy to produce.
Theme and layout
Your topic should to some extent dictate the look and feel of the site but there are a few other things to keep in mind. There are a lot of cool themes out there but once you find one there is a possibility that the text may not be as readable as you may want it to be. If it is too small, in a strange font or has a poor contrast your readers wont want to read it and if they do they wont read it for long. Stick to what is easy on the eyes and familiar to the readers. Common texts would be new time romans, aerial, or san serif. Font sizes will be affected by screen resolutions so you will have to play around with the size a bit while you change your resolution to see what looks god in both high and low res.
Allow for some start up time
I know you are excited about getting your blog up and going but be patient it is going to take some time. The second you think you have everything figured out something else will pop up that will need to be addressed. The initial setup should not be rushed. You are building the foundation to your blog and if you compromise its integrity you compromise the integrity of your entire site.
Content strategy Content is king. What you write about is ultimately what is going to bring readers to your site, so what strategy are you going to follow to continue to add great content? In part we have taken care of some of this by making sure that our topic revolves around our passion but we must also be sure that we are actually writing. Give your self a regiment. Depending on your subject matter it may take a week or two to produce a post. Regardless of how much time there is between posts try to maintain some form of regularity both for yourself and your readers. I have read about bloggers who have implemented automated postings to facilitate their site while they were on vacation to keep a sense of regularity
Marketing
You have your product, now it is time to market it. Start networking with the community that is specific to your subject matter. Leave comments on other blog and forums, build a link campaign, and submit your site to relevant directories to create as much of a presence as you can. It is all about the traffic, if you want to make money people need to be able to find your site.