This is my answer to my friend who is going to start a blog, and asked me how to get started. He is thinking about WorldPress but concerned that it may be banned from China.

It is great news that you finally started blogging. That can be very interesting. You asked the right person. :-) Let me tell you everything, if you want to know such details.

In case you didn’t find an answer to some of your questions (even future questions), you may want to check my articles on blogging at:

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/backstage.htm Backstage of my site (42 articles)

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/blog_tips.htm Tips for Bloggers (15 articles)

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/hosting.htm All About Hosting (30 articles)

http://home.wangjianshuo.com/archives/blogging.htm My Own Blogging Experience (30 articles)

You can start with WordPress, but I strongly recommend you to host it with your own hosting plan and software, if you take it seriously. I am so happy that I started from the day one to use my own domain (you already got one), and my own system. WordPress is sometimes banned (most of the time is OK), and so does all major blog providers in U.S. (blogger.com, typepad.com). Even if you map your domain to wordpress, it will still be blocked. They block IP and domain.

I’d like to recommend MovableType. I am a happy customer for 5 years, and never doubted about my choice. ( movabletype.org). You can get a hosting plan (like bluehost.com, which is good) at 84 USD per year, and setup your own software. Since you don’t want to spend too much time on setup and maintenance, I am happy to ask my friend to help you out if you want. I even have some hosting package that you can leverage immediately. Anyway, I think it is better to have it on WordPress – one) it is hard to ban (your destiny is controlled by yourself, not others who share the same server) two) it allows you to do more things than blog, like BBS, photo sharing and even some small applications (all under same domain).

On blogging topics, your experience is definitely valuable, and you should share them. Just one tip for you – don’t try to write too much at the very begining. There is something different between writing blog and writing a book. It is all about writing frequently instead of writing in depth (of cause depths is also important but not the No. 1 factor). Frequent blogs get audience (like feld.com).

I think the topic may also include something about yourself, and companies, people you meet everyday, because this garentees that you have something to write, to share, and readers have some reasons to come. I do have too many friends who started, and write two or three articles, and then pause, or completely stop. Non-bloggers cannot imagine how hard it is to keep writing a blog at fixed frequency, even one article per week or per month is hard.

So, happy blogging