Well, starting up a new blog has certainly made it clear to me the steps that are needed to try and get things settled and moving quickly.
1. Install WordPress. Ok, so I am a WordPress guy, and most of this will be WP specific. If you don’t have your own server or hosting, use WordPress.com.
2. Get a theme. I think settling on a theme early is a good idea. Too much messing and switching about can make you think more about style than content. Actually – work out which theme you are going to use before you set up the blog. Then the decision’s made.
3. Set up a FeedBurner account. Using these guys to handle your feed makes life loads easier – and provides heaps of useful info on how people are accessing your site, and how many are reading your feed. Oh, and to make life even easier, install and activate Steve Smith’s FeedBurner plug-in.
4. Install and activate the Akismet, Simple Tags and Email Subscriptions plug-ins. Each will either make your readers’ lives, or yours, simpler.
5. Start reading, quoting and commenting on blogs. Find an aggregator you like, subscribe to any feed you find that might be interesting. Link back to articles, quote people, comment on blogs. make sure it’s all relevant and traffic may be increased to your site.
6. Claim your blog on Technorati. This will increase the liklihood of your posts popping up in searches. Using tags will help here too.
No doubt more things will occur to me later. Check the comments for those.
[tags]blogging, wordpress[/tags]
Here’s one more:
7. Get a del.icio.us account and set up an automatic daily posting to your blog.