Starting a Blog - Questions/Advice

MegDG2011

Hi all,

I'm interested in starting my own health and fitness blog. I would like a blog that targets 20s-30s, focusing on healthy living in everyday life with workout advice, healthy recipes, and stories of my own journey.

Some questions:

1) How did you name your blog? What did you do to ensure that your blog name was not already used?

2) Recipes - what percentage of recipes are your own originals and how many are from others? If you borrow from another blogger, what is the procedure for giving credit back to the original recipe? How much do you modify a recipe before it become an "original"?

3) Platform? I've heard of Blogger and Wordpress. Any other good resources for a beginning blogger?

Thanks everyone!

JaxJD

1) How did you name your blog? What did you do to ensure that your blog name was not already used?I would have picked differently, if I could do it all over. Pick something short, to the point and easy to remember. Check godaddy.com to see if the domain is available, that should be a big factor.   Here is a blog naming post from Burnt Carrots:http://www.burntcarrots.com/page/2/ ANd a blog 101 from Eat The Love:http://www.eatthelove.com/2011/11/food-blogging-101-how-to-start/ 2) Recipes - what percentage of recipes are your own originals and how many are from others? If you borrow from another blogger, what is the procedure for giving credit back to the original recipe? How much do you modify a recipe before it become an "original"?I don't think it is as much about original as much as listing your source.  If you do healthy eating, you can use well know recipes and just make them "skinny" or you can do 100% your own. Just make sure and give credit where it is due.Everyone has a different procedure. It's better to over-credit than under-credit.  3) Platform? I've heard of Blogger and Wordpress. Any other good resources for a beginning blogger?I use blog.com, wich is internally wordpress.org. You can monetize and the themes are free. It's a newer platform. If you are REALLY serious about it, figure out how to download Wordpress.org and self host. It will give you a lot more flexibility and you won't "outgrow" it. But it is a lot of work. Everyone who I know who has done it has been very glad and said, "the sooner the better, I should have done this from the beginning."    

MegDG2011

Thanks for all the great advice and resources!