Jan 19 2008
Basic Guide For New Bloggers
There are many many blogs on the Internet and you may be one of the many who want to start a blog. Well you have come to the right place.
Basically a blog is a place where anyone can write about anything they want to. I mean anything your heart desires rather good or bad. This gives a whole new meaning to freedom of speech. However, you do have to be careful in what you say as far as hate speech or stuff against the law because unless you own you own server, you could lose your hosting account and your blog be taken down.
To start a blog, first you need someone to host your blog. This can be free or it can cost you money. If you want to be a serious blogger and hope to some day make money on advertising, you want to go the paid route. However, I am jumping a head a bit. Let me first discuss your free option.
There are many free hosting services for blogs on the Internet. I will only address the two biggest ones. The first is blogger.com (blogspot). They are owned by Google and their service is user friendly and so easy that you could have a blog up in a matter of minutes. There is no cost and if you choose to put Adsense ads up, they make it very simple to place them where you want them. Since they are owned by Google, chances are they will be around for a long time.
The first step is to sign up and register a name for your site. This is anything you want as long as it is available. The name will be your web address on the Internet (URL). Choose carefully because you want the best name possible. The final address will be a sub domain and look like this thenameyouchose.blogspot.com . You now have a home on the Internet.
The next step is to choose a template or design of your site. There are quite a few to choose from but limited compared to what you can find elsewhere for paid hosted blogs. Chances are you can find one you like. If you are a web designer or coder or you know one, you can edit and change the design to fit your needs. I am not a coder so I went with what was offered by blogger.
The next step is to add elements to your site. You can add all kinds of good stuff like ads, links and other things from the template tab in the dashboard of your account. I could have pages about stuff to add but it is best to explore for yourself.
The final step to get you up and running is to add fresh original content to your site. Try to add often and keep people interested in coming back. Some bloggers use copied material, I suggest you write everything yourself or at least approve it yourself if you have someone else write it. Bam, you have yourself a blog. They do also have a feature that if you own your own Domain Names, you can point them to your blog and eliminate looking like a sub domain.
Word Press is the other free hosting site for blogs and they are located at wordpress.com . The process is similar to blogger but there are some features like categories that blogger.com does not offer. They also have a better selection of templates. I still prefer blogger.com because it is much easier to use for beginners and much easier to add adds and stuff. To be honest, I have never used the free version of Word Press, but my wife has and she thinks blogger is easier to use. If you use the free version of Word Press, you get a sub domain like blogger gives. You site will look like this : yourname.wordpress.com .
If you decide that free is not the way you want to go, the next step would be to purchase your own hosting account. This can range from $1 a month up to about $9.95 a month depending on who you use. You may want to look at some hosting reviews to see what other think before you buy.
You also would need to purchase your own domain name. I highly recommend namecheap.com because they have been the best that I have found. You will be looking at around $9 a year for a domain name. Pick one carefully because this is what people will see first when looking for or at your site. Try to find one that fits your topic and the smaller it is the better it is to remember. This is hard because most really good names are taken but you still find some good ones, or you can search around for one that someone is willing to sell.
Once you have these two things you will need to point your domain name to your hosting account. This is done by changing the name servers on your domain account. You should receive your names servers from your hosting provider. If not, ask them for the name servers.
Now you need to install a blog software script. This is pretty easy from your hosting package if they have Fantastico. This might be something you want to check before buying a hosting service. It is much easier to install this way than through the web page of the software provider.
Most bloggers use the Word Press software on their own hosting account. It is a little harder than if you used one of the free hosting sites but you can do so much more. There are many plugins or addons that you can install for free that will make life easier and add cool features to your site. I have a few on here that improve things. There are also thousands of templates you can find at wordpress.org or other places on the Internet. Make sure that the theme (template) is widget ready and that it works on all browsers. I downloaded one before and it worked great on Internet Explorer but did not work on Firefox or many other browsers. Another plus is that the side bar is on the right side, this is better for the search engines. Once you have the right theme and add your content, you now have a blog ready to go.
If you want people to read it, you need to make sure you advertise the blog. This can be done by telling people on related forums, adding links in directories, adding it to social bookmarking sites like Stumble Upon and word of mouth. The more you advertise, the better the traffic will be.
This short guide should be enough to get you up and running with your first blog. If you have something to add that would help others, please register and leave a comment.
If at first you fail, say That Blozzz and try again!
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