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You can start your wordpress blog with a head start by clicking here. As a first year buyer, WordPress already gives you a domain for one year free of cost and with this link you can secure another $25 discount!

Purpose. Why Do You Want To Start One?

Negative news articles don’t always have negative consequences. Of course, that is when we speak in terms of the affects it has on the mind of a reader and not the subject of the news. And no, I’m not referring to activists and those who are already politically-interested either but those whose life exists completely outside political interests.

That boy used to be me. The summer of 2014, during the Islamic month of Ramadan, I was introduced to a great detail about the crisis in Palestine. I recall this event as a defining moment for me. It led to greater interest in politics and religion. Even though my focus, understanding, and knowledge was premature and questionable, the role news played at that time in my life was the very first domino that was pushed, setting off the rest of the trail, bringing us to now, which is still somewhere in the middle of falling dominoes.

What started as heavy research on comparative religion, responding to hate-speech on the then-existing social platform ‘Google+’, subsequently expanded further to posting for wider causes on Instagram, and for a good period of time was lost owing to my dedication to gaming and memes, but returned again around high-school and developed into a dedicated blog, among other things. The idea to start a blog was given by one of my followers so I can hold content better and reach out wider given the expiration and limited reach of Instagram.

At this point, I write on topics of teen relevance and can help readers in some way or add to discourse in a particular field (policy or social phenomena). I constantly try to explore different topics I could write on, take notes whenever an idea pops up and delete or expand on it, all to provide at least relatively unique insight and more importantly, content of value.

How should you begin blogging? What Should Be Your First Post?

When started, I began right away addressing one of my major achievements: winning the best delegate award in my very first Model UN conference (October 2017).

Many bloggers begin with why they’re blogging. I didn’t see anything productive in following suit. Not that it’s a bad idea, but depending on quality, it’s a make or break situation. Most readers will be interested in what you are offering instead of what you may offer. People have their own busy lives and will be more likely to read work that is offering value, instead of promising value, especially when they aren’t a close friend.

Perhaps you could smartly include your vision and future prospects as a mix with a first post that does offer value. When I started, I had no such prompt in mind. Inspired by Verse 81 of Chapter 17 in the Quran, “The Truth has come, and falsehood has vanished, for, falsehood is bound to vanish.”, my blog’s tagline remains “when truth and falsehood come together, falsehood is bound to perish.” since I started, and it could have been a topic to write on in the early days.

I eventually designed a logo for my blog too, but failed to use yet another important opportunity that I realised today. Logos can be very powerful, and hold so much meaning and so I redesigned mine with stronger purpose and message that I seek to reinforce via my blog. A series of starter posts could independently discuss each of these ideas and close off with a general link to the blog.

The top left image represents enlightenment. It reflects philosophical understanding, intellect, introspection, innovation, and contemplation.

The top right image represents the global community. It highlights the importance of addressing politics, human rights, social causes, equality, and other values like giving back to the community, protecting, standing up, and ensuring cohesiveness of social communities and the global society. It also reflects the importance I give to humanitarian and social issues above national-interests.

The bottom right image represents religion and education. The picture used is of a Quran to highlight the importance of religion in strengthening the other two quadrants and it’s role in my life. It also gives importance to education: whether attained by reading, listening, discourse, etc. Education refers mostly to applicable knowledge and not to years spent in school. More importantly, it refers to how much you strive to gain on your own accord beyond what is provided and asked from you.

The bottom left image represents freedom and power. Primarily this freedom is meant to signify freedom from your own boundaries, mental health recovery, self-help, and unleashing your true potential. The breaking into freedom also shows destruction of harmful stigmas and unfair societal limitations and freedom from brainwashing, and unchallenged harmful traditional norms.

If opportunities don’t knock on your door, go out there and find them

The cherry on the top, or rather, the blue brain that covers it all, refers to you as an independent person with your own unique life, goals, purpose, skills that are different from others but yet valued. The overlapping of the brain signifies the use of intellectual capacities to strive in the path of purpose. These five elements define the purpose of my blog.

You’re Set for Starters!

Defining why you want to start a blog and how you want to start is step one. Once you figure this out, have a defining story that explains why you do what you do, even if that story is not shared as a blog post. Like mine, which is in the ‘about’ page and as a side column on the home page but not an independently standing post. It will act as a strong motivating factor.

With that being said, make sure you emotionally connect to what you blog about and are able to show your audience that you connect with them too. Without these, even if you do manage to start off strong, chances of growth under normal circumstances remain slim.

I’ll also discuss a few of the next steps but not in detail to avoid this post being too lengthy.

What’s Next?

• Decide whether you want to start your own blog or contribute to an existing blog / magazine. If it’s the former, decide what platform you wish to use.
• Designing! Make your interface friendly, and easy to understand. Most blog creating platforms have the designing process easy so that shouldn’t be too much of a hassle.
• Constantly take personal notes. Whenever you find inspiration or a rough idea, note it down so you don’t forget it and can explore it later when you’re free.
• Interact with more people. Attend events. Make friends. Expand your professional network. This helps spread your blog and in developing various skills and access to resources.
• Learn SEO and other means to make your content appear in searches.

You can start your wordpress blog with a head start by clicking here. As a first year buyer, WordPress already gives you a domain for one year free of cost and with this link you can secure another $25 discount!

Lastly, know that this field is unstable and needs perseverance. Keep trying. Keep taking feedback and finding ways to improve and by time you’ll be shooting high.

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What do you think about the new logo? What do you interpret from it? Share your thoughts as well and let everyone explore other perspectives.