Lots of books have been written on various aspects of portrait photography, there is no way  a blog post can even begin to touch that subject, however, if you are interested in learning about how make nice portraits, then just maybe, this can point you in some productive directions.

For portraits, you don’t want the background to be busy and distracting from the image; so, it is blurred and typically black or white.  You don’t want the background in focus, so you have he person(s) stand far enough in front of the background that the background is blurred or at least not crystal sharp. I highly recommend Photosig as a way to learn what works, and does not work for photos.    Read 100 critiques, and then write 100 critiques that generate positive responses.   Photosig separates us from the pride of ownership of our photos, and allows us to learn.

The second thing I recommend is studying the portraits from masters such as Karsh And most importantly enjoy what you are doing !