How To Start Your Own Live Music Blog: Part Two

When began our race with Lap One’s inspirational and creativity tips to help get you started and keep your blog running even when it gets tough and your creative side gets fried and your blogger legs start to wobble and burn.

Now it’s time for Lap Two. And since every blog has a story, I’ll tell you mine and give you some tips on which blog publishing tools you can use to start your own blog.

The Amazingly Short But Super-Inspiring Story Of Live Fix

Over time, little by little, I’ve created Live Fix by taking risks and not succumbing to the evil chorus of doubts that scream in my head on a daily basis.

In short, the reason I started Live Fix was because I didn’t see the type of live music writing that I wanted to read and I didn’t see anybody properly celebrating, exploring or examining the live music experience in the way I thought it should be celebrated, explored or examined.

So about three years ago, I sat down and decided to start Live Fix, even though I didn’t have everything mapped out. I just started and figured things out as I went along.

First, like most bloggers, I began on Google’s Blogger.com. Then moved to WordPress.com. Then when Live Fix outgrew that I moved to a self-hosted WordPress.org.

Now that you know a bit of the back story of Live Fix from a platform perspective (you can read more about my other fan-centric motivations here), I’ll now tell you which WordPress template and software tools I use and how I use them to fine tune and improve Live Fix everyday.

What Blogger Tools Do You Need?

That’s a great question to ask.

Because even if you have a great idea for a blog, if don’t know which tools to use than your ideas can’t be put into action.

So which blogger tools do I use?

Well, I use a lot of different tools to help me promote, market and publish Live Fix. Some of the tools I use are free and some are ones that I’ve invested in and spent money on because I wanted to take Live Fix to the next level over the last few years.

So for starters, when it comes to publishing Live Fix I’ll tell you that I’m an affiliate for many of the blogging tools that I’ll share in this series. And I’m excited to share some of them with you because I think they’re some of the very best blogging tools and affiliate programs offered on the web, and like I said, they’ve made it easier to publish posts, promote content and grow the Live Fix community.

My Kind of WordPress Template: DIY Thesis Theme

When it comes to publishing Live Fix I use DIY Thesis custom WordPress Theme. I can’t say enough how much its “rock-solid SEO, outstanding typography, and design controls that give you a full range of customization opportunities” package has helped Live Fix grow, especially the newly released 1.7 version.

If you’re a blogger like me who wants to use a theme that’s really easy to install and set up on your own, and can be handed over to a designer for tweaks and style upgrades, then Thesis for WordPress could be a great theme for you to use, too.

Like I said, I’m a content guy, not a developer. Though I do love learning about it and know a lot more than I did three years ago, I still don’t have lots of time to mess around with design code to the extent that most standard templates can require. With a great forum community that offers help and support, Thesis has been a huge asset in getting Live Fix up and running quickly and has allowed me to make design tweaks gradually over time through it’s built-in Site, Design and Pages options.

Want to maximize your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Thesis is specifically designed for bloggers like me who want their content SEO-optimized. And so far, I have seen my blog posts do very well in the search engine rankings, like Bon Iver and The Little Things, Sasquatch Dancing Guy and Oprah Flash Mob posts. And I’m pretty confident one of the reasons for SEO success of those posts, and the success of other posts and pages, is because of how Thesis is designed. Honestly, the how’s and why’s of how I’ve used Thesis specifically to help Live Fix’s SEO could take up several other posts.

But I won’t go into the details here. And I’ve gushed enough about Thesis 1.7 for now.

If you need a solid and excellent WordPress theme go ahead and buy it here and try it out for yourself. And by all means tell me what you think of it. I’d love to here how it goes.

What’s Coming Up?

That’s the end of Part Two and stay tuned for Part Three when we explore the truth that no blogger really blogs alone, and why it’s very, very(did I mention very?) important to have a community to lean on.

And as always if you have any questions about starting your own blog please drop a comment below or send them to chris@christophercatania.com.

Photo by Happy Rower