Blogging for the Stingy Luddite

[Palanan]

So, after years of resisting, I've finally decided I need to start a blog...but now I realize I have absolutely no idea how.

I've worked on websites before, years ago, and I'm long out of practice. I don't know what software to use, how to organize the layout, how to get people reading, none of that.

How can I do this? Where do I start, and where do I go from there?

[Jeff the Green]

Wordpress (https://wordpress.com/) is the platform I've used on the occasions when I've convinced myself that I actually like writing things that won't be read. (This is not meant to disparage blogging or imply that yours won't be read at all, just that it takes a lot of work and a not insignificant amount of work to get anyone to read something.) It works fairly well. If you have your own domain/server, I believe you can use their software for free and customize it to a much greater degree, as well as have any ads actually pay you.

[LibraryOgre]

It's a slog, certainly. I've been using Blogger, largely out of laziness.

One trick to get eyeballs, IMO, is to make sure you have a footprint on multiple social media platforms. When I post a blog post, it goes out on two G+ accounts, two twitters, a tumblr, and my author Facebook page, which I then share with my usual facebook crowd. I've got a link to one of my blogs here, in my sig, and on pretty much every RPG forum I frequent. When talking about things related, I promote posts that are relevant... when I talk about books I've just read over in Media Discussions, I link to the blog (http://libraryogre.blogspot.com/) posts about those books. When I talk about Star Wars Saga and decide my Classless Saga conversion (http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2013/07/classless-saga-and-other-alterations.html) is relevant to the discussion at hand, I link to it.

Biggest driver of eyeballs to my site? NOT the link to the Cranky Gamer at the top of the sig... but the link to ODE (http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/2013/08/ode-one-deck-engine.html) near the bottom. When you look at my top 5 posts, ODE has more views than the other 4 combined.