Give Mom the Gift of Blogging for Mother’s Day

Some bloggers make a living blogging, while others are happy to just keep in touch. Whether mom is an entrepreneur or retired, blogging makes it easy to connect, no matter how far apart we are.

Did you move away from home? Having trouble keeping in touch with mom? Why not set up a blog for mom this year? Even though we get separated we can still share stories.

Here is our free guide for setting up a blog for mom.

Choosing a Blogging Platform & Hosting Mom’s Blog

Every blog is powered by a blogging program that automatically manages the site layout, design, and archives as the site grows. The three easiest and most popular blogging platforms are Blogger, TypePad, and WordPress.

• All 3 are easy and straightforward to use.
• TypePad costs $50 per year, but both of the other platforms are free.
• Blogger allows you to set up mom’s site as a subdomain off blogspot.com, or publish the software to another domain name.
• WordPress allows you to set up mom’s site as a subdomain off of WordPress.com, or install the software on a host like Dreamhost.

Due to being open source, WordPress is feature rich and quickly growing in popularity. Our blog uses WordPress, and it is what we recommend using to publish new blogs.

You can register a domain at GoDaddy for less than $10 per year. Here is a free video on how to point your domain name’s DNS at your host.

Setting Up WordPress

If your mom might want to do something entrepreneurial in the future, it might be best to host the blog with a hosting company rather than on WordPress.com. Some hosts, such as Dreamhost, offer one click install of WordPress.

Askimet, a comment spam blogging plugin, comes with the core WordPress download, but you have to sign up for an account at WordPress.com to get an API key and activate the plugin to get it to work.

Designing Her Blog

What is mom interested in? Would she like to write about her life, her favorite interests, or use the blog to help keep in touch with the family?

There are thousands of free WordPress templates to chose from. If you can’t find one that fits perfect, you can buy a logo from a logo design company such as The Logo Company, or buy a custom WordPress theme from a blog designer. Search around for a blog that looks good to you and ask them who designed their blog.

Adding Links to Her Blog

Ensure the sidebar links to mom’s blog login page so it is easy for her to make posts.

Create a blogroll if mom is an avid blog reader (or you think she will become one). For bonus points link to mom’s new site on your blogroll and link to your blog on hers.

What websites does mom frequently visit? If you know mom’s favorite news sources and websites add them to her sidebar grouped by category.

If you do a good enough job adding all of mom’s favorites to her blog template she might want to switch her home page to her blog.

General Blogging Etiquette Tips

It takes time to get the hang of blogging, but a blog is like Reese’s. There is no wrong way to write one. Having said that, it helps to follow common blogging etiquette tips. A few of them:

• Attribution – make sure you link to others if you talk about them or quote their work. The easiest way to get others to pay attention to you is to talk about them.
• Comments – keep them relevant. If you don’t have anything nice to say, then… ;)
• Spam comments – make sure you use software like Askimet to automatically block comment spam, so you don’t take out the frustration of deleting them on real people.
• Lists – people love reading easy to read lists and other content that is broken down into easy to digest chunks.
• Periodicity – if you want many people to read your blog it helps to publish regularly.
• Read more than you write – the best blogs are the best because they work as thought filters. One of the best ways to improve your blogging is to read other blogs.
• Expressing emotions is great – that is what allows people to feel empathy toward and relate to you.
• Mistakes are fine – there is no wrong way to blog. Off the start few people read a new blog so it is quite hard to mess up, and it is our errors and our humanity which make reading blogs so enjoyable.

Inspirational Resources

You may want to create a blogroll for some of the best blogs offering blogging tips, like:

• ChrisG – Chris Garrett blogs about blogging and marketing.
• Copyblogger – Brian Clark’s blog about blogging and copywriting.
• ProBlogger – Darren Rowse’s website about making money from blogging.
• Performacing – group blog about blogging.
• Successful Blogging – Liz Straus’s blog about blogging.

Reading passionate blogs about blogging will offer mom lots of tips about how to get into blogging, and will also help provide inspiration needed to stick with blogging.

Other helpful blogging resources:

• PostWisdom is a Firefox plugin that offers free blogging tips, citing relevant posts and blogs for each tip
• Amazon also sells many books about blogging
• the Wikipedia offers a great background article on the history of blogging
• Dave Winer discussed blogging in this video and this article
• in 2000 Rebecca Blood wrote one of the first posts about the history of blogging and what it had became up to that point

The First Post

Surprise mom by writing the first post for her. Let her know how special she is and thank her for all she has done for you. You may want to post that on your blog, and link to her blog at the end of your post.

The Second Post

Take an hour or two to show mom how to login to her blogging software and write and edit posts. Also show her how to edit posts, add categories, and find the latest news and scoops so she can be first with the story.

If you can’t be together year round, at least you can still read her recent thoughts and comment to let her know you love her. And if mom falls in love with blogging that is another bond you share.

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