When I started with blogging, I had a pretty unclear picture in mind on how to go about blogging. So the result was … mistakes. Human tendency to play and mess around with things is too high that no one gets started in the first go. You need to get through a lot of trouble.

Well mistakes cause problems and problems may lead to mistakes. Here are a few:

Domain with a typo

What if you are with limited resources and buying a domain. While entering the domain you typed “yourdoman.com” instead of “yourdomain.com”. They look pretty similar, right. (If still didn’t find the difference, they differ by just an “i”) Anyone can misjudge this to be right and carry on with the registration. But after registration , you’ll know that you wasted a domain and your 10 bucks. Such a situation sucks. Right?

No Backup, no blog

Well, I have been in such a situation several times now. Some mis happening may lead you to a dead end. Thinking positive, you didn’t take backup, and next day you loose your blog. You’ll be left with nothing expect two options. First to start all over again and second to quit.

What the heck, installation

Installation is fun once you are familiar with it. But for the first timers it can be a hell of a job. I’ll illustrate a few situations :

a) You installed wordpress and but forgot to note down the password provided to during installation. In such a situation, an experienced person would surely change the password using phpmyadmin or do something similar. But a newbie would probably reinstall the whole thing.

b) This happens with many of us, not only bloggers, I’ll say everyone. You downloaded, uploaded and are ready to install a software. And now while installing you come to know that your host wont support all the features and now you need to look for a new host. That is really annoying right!

c) In due to course of installing something, you have a power cut or your computer hangs. Then you’ll surely want to bang your head against the wall that now you gotta start all over again.

d) While installing you come across a field that has to be filled but you don’t know what to exactly fill. eg. you need to enter your mysql username. You created ‘user’ using control panel but you didn’t know that your host add some thing to it like “cpuser_user”. You’ll have good trying “user” when it wont work.

All’s well, that updates well

Suppose while updating your wordpress installation, an error shows up and your blog stops working. If you are a hardcore webdeveloper then maybe you’ll get over this but if not, you’ll have a hard time. You’ll feel helpless as you know what went wrong but really can’t do anything about it. Your blog will be nothing more than a living dead body as it would have everything but nothing would work.

This has even happened to me last year when while updating my blog, something happened and I lost everything.

No money, what to do?

If you got a job or have any other source of steady income, then this point wont bother you. But for people who are beginning or are still studying in schools or colleges then this should be a problem. You have to arrange the startup amount for the initialization by any means. And most people tend to start working as freelancers or turn to PTCs or such programs. Once you are through you’ll feel relieved as not only bloggers but everyone feel at ease if they got money around.

Time and tide wait for none

Well, its really hard to take out time if you are employed somewhere or you need to study. A blog really requires a lot of work to be done. If you can’t devote enough time to it then its gonna be difficult, both for you and your blog. With shortage of time, you can’t really interact with your readers properly, can’t post regularly(you may take my example on this). Nothing is left important when everything is important. You have focus on everything and mange your time well.

My site’s ready, what next?

So every thing’s set and you are ready to take over the world but…… how? Even when a blogger is through with his site, he is yet to face biggest challenge of all, traffic. Getting traffic is the most difficult job for a blogger, an internet marketer or even a small shop owner. To convince people to visit your blog and comment is quite tough.

Out of ideas, can’t think of anything

You have been going great guns past few months but suddenly ………….now what?

You really can’t think of anything interesting to write about. That’s a general thing to happen once you have written so much. Even when you have some ideas, there may come some stituations when you’ll not be able to exploit them. eg. You just got a brilliant idea in your head but while surfing you come across a post, by a fellow blogger, on the same topic. Well, that would be sad and in 90% cases you tend to drop that idea.

No one wants me to blog

Situations will arise when people around you will think that you are wasting your time. That would be very discouraging and some might even quit. You may lose your interest and all the inspiration. I’ve been in such situations and lemme tell you that it really sucks. One day or the other you’ll feel like, “Forget it! Blogging is not worth my time”. errr…. That was ugly.

& many more problems are faced by the bloggers.

You would have gone through similar problems or even something which I was not able to think. I know you wouldn’t mind to share your experience with me or tell about something which I can improve on in this article.

A blogger’s life is sweet, live it to the fullest.

Originally posted on 28th july

Answer to this – Yup, you can be a webmaster.

Hi everyone,

Years ago when I started, people would laugh at me when I told them I can create a website. Well actually I was still a noob then and used to create some silly static sites made using frontpage and hosted on some poor quality free hosts. Well I really wasn’t a webmaster then. I was just a small scale webdesigner.

So what actually is a webmaster?

A Webmaster is a person incharge of a site. He should have all the qualities of a webdeveloper, designer, he should be able to SEO, etc.

How can you be one?

Just keep reading my blog. lol

You need several things for a site. Make a checklist before you proceed. Here is a sample.

1. A Domain or use a co.cc domain. Click here to get one => http://co.cc

2. Hosting. Go for a free one with a good space and bandwidth, mysql databases, cpanel[maybe], PHP5 will be good, etc. You may use my hosting services at aliengang.net [under construction] Just mail me at mail@divyun.com for free hosting.

3. An idea to work on. Like, you can make blog about yourself, make a community for you and your friends, create a site on a specific topic like aliens, etc.

4. Create your site using any free pre-made software or start from scratch.

5. Then, you need to work on search optimization of your site so that your site is indexed properly and you have to promote it too.

Well, this is all for now. If you are having trouble with any thing in my post, well, google is a webmaster’s best friend. I’ll write more about the things that will make you a webmaster.

Originally posted on 18 December 2008

If you want to be a webmaster, there are few things you got to know before hand. Webmaster has to manage between quite a lot things which help to him to manage the site!! This article is about “What’s important to a webmaster and why??””
Below, I’ll try to list all the important things for a webmaster!! So here it goes
1. Time
Time is the most important thing for a webmaster. Webmasters who lack in time usually end up in quiting but yeah!! some idiots like me do continue and end up in creating a hotch potch!! lol xD.
From my exprience:
I am a 15 year old blogger who is currently in Class XIth which is one of the most important years for you as a student. Its pretty hard for me to come online an post daily. So what’s the result:-
It took me more than 5 months to reach to this position. And my position is that I can’t concentrate on SEO, promotion or looks.
Conclusion:
If have time by your side, you surely will do better than me and maybe faster.
2. An internet connection
Believe it or not, but you need fast, “a no trouble” internet connection.
From my experience:
Once, a few months ago, my internet connection broke down and stopped working one day! My site was new and needed my attention, but unfortunately, I couldn’t update my site for around a month!! and I had to end up getting a new connection.
Conclusion:
A fast internet connection is a must and an asset for a webmaster.
3. Skills
Well, you should how to use your computer and internet. It should be difficult for total newbie to manage. So I would suggest you to play with your computer and internet until/unless you know quite a lot. Once you reach the saturation point, you’ll know it yourself.
4. A good social background
Knowing a lot of people helps a lot. If you are good at asking people to visit your site, it should be enough for you to get started.
From my experience:
I know a quite a lot people, but I am not good at asking them to comment or at least visit my site. I have been trying my best to get a little social.
Conclusion
Interact with more and more people which will help you create a traffic base for your site.
5. Principal amount
You need something to get started or you’ll end up trying hard to earn that principal amount in vain.
From my experience:
I started without any money. So I wasted a lot of time in getting the starters. If you don’t have money, then you need time in exchange.
Hope the article was pleasing. Please do consider commenting.

Everything needs some inspiration, from somewhere, to be done! The same thing is with blogging. You have to get a little inspiration from somewhere to continue blogging otherwise it becomes a tedious job. Well, I too get bored sometimes and don’t update my blog from days or weeks and I end up in tens of drafts saved still waiting to be completed and published.

Best way to keep yourself ready to blog is by keeping yourself updated about the happenings on internet!! This way you’ll always be able to find some material for a good post!! Reading others’ blogs is also a good way to rejuvenate your knowledge. A good blogger should never lack ideas and should try to blog regularly.

Well, I will not suggest writing long posts instead keep them filled with valuable stuff. 200-400 words should be fine. A post longer than this is a hard time for both the reader and the blogger. First few lines do leave an impression and they should be carefully written.

You should let yours ideas to flow. You should be able to pen down your ideas on a piece of paper/blog. Let me tell, this is the most difficult thing. This happens with me too often, and sometimes I feel like having a plugin which could copy paste the article from my brain to the blog. Unfortunately, you have to do this on your own, no such plugin yet!!

Hope my post inspired to start blogging! btw, What do you do to get inspired to blog?? Please do consider sharing.

Divyun