Building a platform of service is critical to growing your brand, growing your influence, or getting noticed. In this post, we’ll cover all the basic concepts you need to get started with blogging in WordPress: How can blogging help your business or cause? How can blogging help you build a relationship with customers?

I work as a computer programmer.   My wife works as a college professor.   We started this blog years ago as a way to learn more about educational technology and key trends in teaching and learning.   We wanted to find a way to serve our community together.    This platform has been a wonderful resource to bring clarity to my thinking while serving my readers.   Many relationships that started through a blog post or social media interactions have turned into meaningful relationships.   It has been a key discipline for growing my mind, heart, and moving forward my professional goals.

When starting a WordPress blog for your organization, you can either host the blog at WordPress.com or self host the site.   When you host your blog at WordPress.com, your blog URL will have the following format: YourBlogTitle.WordPress.com .   If you want to make a stronger brand impression by having the blog on your own domain name (i.e. YourBrand.com, YourBrand.NET or YourBrand.org ), you should consider self hosting the blog with a paid service.  I would like to introduce you to Michael Hyatt, a thought leader in building social media platforms.   In the following 20 minute video, he carefully teaches you how to setup a self hosted WordPress blog with http://www.bluehost.com/ at a cost of $4.00 per month.   It’s a great way to get started.

You also might find the following links helpful in setting up your blog:

• Setup Your Blog with WordPress: The Ultimate Guide – MakeUseOf.com has a free ebook covering all of the details of using the WordPress platform.
• ThemeForest.com – While you can find a number of free themes for WordPress, you can often set yourself apart by investing in a well crafted WordPress theme.    ThemeForest.com sells a number of quality designs that are cost effective.  If you need advanced customizations to your site, I would recommend working with a local graphics designer in your area.
• Create great headlines: Your blog/page headline is your first impression to grab the attention of your reader.   Most professional bloggers agree that a great headline needs to be carefully crafted.  The following links provide templates and guidelines for writing effective headlines:
  • http://michaelhyatt.com/headline-templates.html
  • http://michaelhyatt.com/headlines-attract-readers.html
  • 43 Powerfully Simple Fill-in-the-Blank Blog Post Headline Templates
• Use content templates to write faster: As a technical person, writing does not always come naturally to me.  I greatly appreciate having templates or structures to help focus my thinking and keep things simple.   Here’s a few posts that have helped me in constructing content:
  • http://michaelhyatt.com/3-great-blog-post-structures.html
  • http://michaelhyatt.com/use-a-blogging-template-to-write-posts-faster.html
  • http://www.copyblogger.com/content-creation-formula/

I hope you find these resources helpful.   Feel free to drop me a line over email if you have additional questions: michael.p.rosario at gmail.com .

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 Photo by Alexander Baxevanis