What is the best way to start a blog?

What's the best way to start a blog... specifically one with a humanitarian focus?

• I have an idea for a blog to help the people in Tennessee who are in the midst of a horrific natural disaster. What's the best way to go about setting up and running one? Is there one method that's better than another? Simple is good in this case. What things should I avoid/watch out for? Other tips? Thanks.

• Answer:

  You can use Blogspot or Wordpress to set up a blog for free. Wordpress allows more customization but Blogspot is easier to use for a novice. The instructions for posting, adding photos, etc. are pretty easy to figure out, you just need to get a feel for it. To get people to read it, link to it on social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, etc. You can use Twitter to find people in that area (you can do a search for people tweeting about the floods) and shoot them the link to your blog. Make sure you stay on topic (i.e. don't blog about the flooding one day and talk about your cat the next; seems obvious but a lot of people do this), and use wording in your blog headlines that would pop up if someone Googled stuff like "info on Nashville flooding." This is called search-engine optimization (SEO) and is meant to help people find your site if they tried to find information on your topic on Google or Yahoo.