My blog is doing really great and many bloggers are really impressed with the achievement of my blog so far. I am also happy with this level of achievement and I am going to be achieving many more great things to come in the future.

This is because I have put in a lot of work into this blog because I am determined to make my blog a success and to educate others on how they can make their blog a success as well.

In this post I am going to share with you what I did to get this blog off to a really great start. Getting this blog to where it’s at now was a lovely but challenging journey.

First Step To My Success

In order to get this level of success you have to take the word free out of my mind. This is the reason why I am on a WordPress self hosted blog. There is nothing better than self hosted and this is one of the 5 common mistakes new bloggers make.

I remember being on free hosting and waking up one morning to find my blog deleted with all my blog posts. All my articles were gone, never to be seen again. So my tip for you is to stay away from free hosting of all sort.

Domains:
I purchase my domain at Dynadot.com, so I recommend you getting a domain there for your blog. Please don’t use free domains.

Quick Tip: When buying a domain name, choose a name close to the niche the that you are going to blog about.

Hosting Packages:
Hosting is very cheap and affordable. Check out these prices below by Hostgator.com

HostGator has hosting as cheap as $4.95

Hatchling Plan (Starting at $4.95/month)

Baby Plan (Starting at $7.95/month)

Business Plan (Starting at $12.95/month)

Your Blog’s Design

This is a very important part of your blog and basically almost the blog itself. The layout, design and outlook of your blog also helps visitors to like your blog. If you don’t have an appealing look then your readers will hardly want to visit, so this is why it is important for you to have an eye catching blog.

Thesis Theme

The WordPress theme that I am using is called Thesis, it is designed by Chris Pearson. Thesis is a great frame work and allows you to customize it very easy with or without the knowledge of HTML or CSS.

You can easily change your layout in 3 clicks, move from 1 column to 2 columns or even a 3 columns theme in just 1 minute.

Click here to watch a demo video.

ThemeSheep

Themesheep is a WordPress theme and community site that aims to deliver the industries best WordPress themes.

ThemeSheep is all about creating the most beautiful WordPress themes on the web.

Themesheep is a business that a friend of mine, Rob Rammuny, he works with along side with his two business partners Josh & Jeremy. Alongside with delivering the industries best WordPress themes, they have formed a WordPress community for all WordPress lovers and fans.

Click here to check out ThemeSheep.

WooThemes

WooThemes was started by 3 respected designers in 3 different countries.
WooThemes is also another great site where you can get an eye catching Word Press theme. Auto Updating the WooFramework is the ability to automatically update the WooFramework from older versions. So you don’t have to download it again when a new version is out, with a few clicks of the mouse you can easily upgrade to their latest version.

They also have tutorials, support forums and theme documentations.

Click here to check out WooThemes.

Must Have Plugins

In order to get your blog off to a very great start there are some plugins that you must install for you to be successful at blogging. I have a list of my favorite 18 plugins, but listed below are the plugins that will get your blog noticed in no time.

All In One SEO – This SEO plugin will help your blog to rank better in search engines.

Feed2tweet – Automatically tweet post as they are published to my twitter account

Google Analytics for WordPress – This plugin makes it simple to add Google Analytics with extra search engines and automatic clickout and download tracking to your WordPress blog.

Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog.

TweetMeme Retweet Button – Adds a button which easily lets you retweet your blog posts.

WordPress.com Stats – Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks.

WP Super Cache – Very fast caching plugin for WordPress.

SEO Slug – The SEO Slugs WordPress plugin removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve search engine optimization.

Blog Posting

Posting is the heart of the blog. Without good blog posts then your blog will die.

When I started blogging in March of this year I wrote 3 post on the first day. Why did I post 3 post on the first day? Well my blog was new and I didn’t want it to look new. So I wanted to fill my blog with post so that my newest visitors think that my blog was off to a great start. The first 3 post that I made got 18 comments, and I was really impressed with this start. I got those 18 comments because I wrote great post which captured my readers mind and this made them leave a comment.

The next day I wrote another great post and that post got a total of 19 comments. Imagine on the first 2 days of blogging, 4 posts with a total of 37 comments. WOW!!! This was really great.

In the first month, March, I made 18 posts and that first month now has a total of 161 comments.

So what I encourage new bloggers to do is to write there best posts in the first month to get your new blog off to an excellent start. Click here to find out how I write such great blog posts and how I develop such great writing technique.

Promotion

Promotion…Promotion…Promotion…

This is also another important role that you have to do on your own if you want your blog to have a successful start. You have to promote your blog from the start as soon as you publish your first few posts.

3 ways to promote a new blog:

• Use Social Media

Social media has given me lots of traffic over the 3 months being online, and I am so happy and thankful for social media sites. So I encourage you to make good use of social media.

• Blog Commenting

Blog commenting has also given many unique visitors and good traffic. This is also a great way to get others to notice your blog and to make comments on your post as well. Make a list of the top trafficked blogs in your niche, leave some good comments there and watch your traffic grow.

• Guest Posting

If you would like to reach new people from other blogs then guest posting is what you should do. Choose other blogs in your niche as well and write a really great post and I bet this will draw people to your blog.

Those tips will surely help you to improve your blog statistics.

Group Discussion

These are this things that I did which made my blogging successful. For every month there is an average of 1 post every 2 days.

How did you start off your blog?
Or, Do you have any other tips for new bloggers who want to skyrocket their new blog?

Leave your comments below…