We sit down and plan so much of our lives. . . what we are doing today, what we are buying at the grocery store, how much money we are putting away in savings. . . the list could go on.  Growing up you may have had something that you wanted to do with your life, or a career that you were interested in and you did whatever it took to be successful.  Some things take more preparation than others; for example being a doctor requires more school than being programmer.  It may be that there are certain things that you are just naturally better at.  I have a friend who can take anything apart, figure out what’s broken, and put it back together again.  I always end up with parts left over when I try that.

The thing that surpises me though is that there are so many cases of people who look at blogging or starting an online business as an easy way to wealth, and yet don’t seem to put a similar amount of planning in to make it happen.  More times than not, their blog or business fails in the first few months, and they end up shutting it down or selling it for a few hundred dollars.  There are always going to be exceptions, but in general I believe to be successful, you need to figure out what success looks like to you and create a strategy to get there.  Here are a few steps to get you started:

1. Define Success:  Success does not mean the same thing to everyone.  I see ton’s of bloggers who make a few hundred dollars per month and are content.  For me, that wouldn’t pay for the groceries or gas in a month, but many are younger and don’t have the overhead that come with a house, cars, and a family.  It may be that success to you is only partially financial, and instead it’s the lifestyle that it affords you that you are really after.  Figure out what that looks like to you.
2. Write It Down: If you are like me, you are constantly coming up with great ideas to make your business/blog/life better.  Unfortunately, if you are like me, most of those great ideas are lost before they ever come to fruition. As you start to develop a plan for success, make sure that you capture it in writing.  This not only helps solidify it in your mind, but it gives you an easy way to reference back and make adjustments as necessary.  With this site in particular, I felt I needed to sit down and outline what I wanted to write about so that I could stay focused and on topic.  I created an outline for the types of topics and articles I want to write, and I can’t even begin to explain how refreshing it was to be able to put that somewhere and free up that space in my mind for something else.  It’s probably only 60% there, and I’m sure I’ll write about items that aren’t on topic or on that list, but at least I have a baseline to work from.
3. Make It Complete: As I wrote the section above, it occured to me that some might see that list and think that is what I’m talking about when I say create a plan.  It’s not.  That is just part of the plan.  Depending on your site, you need to think about things like how much time you are going to invest in your blog,  how much money and how it will be allocated, how are you going to attract people to your blog and what will make them want to come back.  You need to think about how you will generate revenue from your blog if that is part of your strategy and you need to be realistic.  All of the same principles you apply to building any other business can apply to your blog.  You can develop a business plan and a marketing plan and a budget and I guarantee that you will be more successful because of it. That being said, the level of planning should be in line with what you want out of your blog.
4. Talk To Others: I learned a long time ago the value of getting outside feedback.  It’s so easy when you are passionate about something and right in the middle of it to neglect certain areas.  I’ve found that as I talk to others about my ideas that they typically ask me very simple questions that I don’t have an easy answer for.  In the beginning I used to make up something off the cuff and move on, but as I matured I began to realize that those were probably the areas that I was most neglecting.  As you develop your plan, ask others what they think.  Talk to people who have nothing at all to do with your topic or blogging and you’ll be amazed how many holes they can find in your plan.  Don’t discount those holes! Fix them.
5. Embrace Change:  After all that planning, it will be easy to get so structured that you don’t see the tide is coming in.  Pay attention to trends in your market.  When things don’t work out the way you anticipated, adjust and jump right back in. Your plan should be fluid and you should review and adjust it periodically to ensure that it is still appropriate for your current situation. 

Hopefully this will help you be more successful.  I can guarantee that the time you spend planning will pay off in the end.

1. Web Hosting
2. Installing Wordpress
3. Choosing a Theme
4. Installing Plugins

I’ll address each of these items over the next few days:

Web Hosting:

In general, most wordpress blogs will not be very resource intensive and can therefore be hosted on any shared hosting plan.  If you do not have any experience with web hosts, take some time to do a little research and ask friends and colleagues who they use.  There are a number of hosts which are fantastic, and there are also a number which are horrible.  If we assume that your blog is tremendously successful as we all hope they are, then the last thing you want is to have downtime or data loss because you were trying to save a few dollars.  In many cases, you can host your site for about the same cost as a couple cups of coffee at Starbucks and be perfectly ok.

This site is actually hosted on a dedicated server through a company called SoftLayer.  I have been extremely happy with Softlayer and because I run a number of sites and want complete control of my server, it makes sense.  It probably doesn’t make sense for most situations though. I also host sites through HostGator.com and have had a very good experience with them.
Something to understand about web hosting is that more expensive does not necessarily mean better… and more does not necessarily mean better either.  Here is what I mean. Most web hosting companies operate under the assumption that most of their customers will only use a small fraction of the resources made available to them in terms of disk space, bandwidth, and cpu resources.  Most customers have high expectations and assume that the smallest package can not be enough, so they upgrade before they have a good idea of what their needs are. It’s important to understand that choosing the right web hosting provider, is 100-times more important than the package you choose.  If you choose the right provider, they will work with you if you outgrow your existing package. Wordpress does not require very much in terms of features or space.
In the case of HostGator.com, the “Hatchling” plan (at $4.95/month) will work fine for any single blog.  You would only need to consider the “Baby” plan (at $7.95/month) if you wanted to have multiple websites or blogs, or if you needed SSL encryption, which is used for security in such cases as someone taking credit cards online.   Remember, start small and save the extra money for growing your site.
Once you have ordered your hosting plan you will be ready to install Wordpress. You will need an FTP program and text editor to do this, but we’ll cover that in the next post.  In the mean time, if you have an experience with web hosting that you would like to share, please do.