provided today, anyone can just start a blog without much hassle. They also provide
.
So, if you really have no knowledge on any of this, you may read this guide for some simple ways to get your blog started.
Steps1. Find a free blogging service provider.Take a look at them on the net and see what you can do with the things they provide.
http://www.blogger.com/http://www.xanga.com/http://www.livejournal.com/http://www.wordpress.com/These are the examples, you may find more on the
Internet.
2. Sign up an Account.When you enter their website, you will most probably see a
link or an
attractive button that says
Create A Blog or something of the sort. You just need to click that and it will direct you to create an
account. Fill in your details.
3. Naming Your Blog.When thinking of a name, you might want to set a
theme or a
topic regarding the contents of your blog. If your blog is about
chocolates you can name it, "
A Chocoholic's View" or so on. They will also ask you to name your domain. This is the
address that viewers need to visit your blog.
4. Choosing a Template.
After you finished creating an account and naming your blog, they will provide you a list of
colourful templates to choose from. These templates are the
basic layout and
style of your blog, so choose what you like. They are already
pre-made and therefore you don't need to write your own codes.
5. Private or Public?
The blogging service provider site will eventually ask you whether you want your blog to be
private where only invited guests can view or
public. If your blog is mostly about personal stuff and secrets, you might as well make your blog private.
After you finished the steps above, you should be
done! You are ready to publish your
first post. You may go to the
Posting menu to type in anything and click
Publish to put it up on your blog.
Spicing Up Your Blog
1. Custom Templateshttp://blogandweb.com/http://www.eblogtemplates.com/http://www.blogskins.com/These are the examples of websites you may find blog templates from. You can also search it up by typing, "
Blog Templates for (Your Blogging Service Provider)" to find.
After you found your favourite template, you may need to
download the code or just
copy and paste if it is given to your blog's
HTML box. It would most likely be in the
Layout menu. For Blogger, it is in
Layout/Edit HTML. So you just need to paste all of that code in.
2. Spreading your blog.
You can
spread your blog by posting your
blog link to everyone. You may send it in instant messaging or even in your friends' blogs by comment. You may let
Google or
other search engines know about your blog so people can search it up. For more tips on
popularizing your blog, you may view my guide
here.
3. Adding in pictures and videos.It's better to add in some
pictures and
videos here and there in your blog posts so your readers don't get too bored reading a bunch of text. To add pictures or videos, simply click on the
Add Image or
Add Video icon in the
Post Editor while writing a post. Then put in the
address of the image/video and click
Upload.
If you want to add a picture as the
big title of your blog, you will need to change the
HTML code and add the image code in, which also depends on your template. However, some blogging service providers like
Blogger offer a
Heading Picture sort of thing in the
Widgets section that you can make use of easily.
4. Adding widgets.To spice up your blog, you can add widgets such as a comment box or a music playlist.
http://www.cbox.ws/ - Comment Box
http://www.spinchat.com/freechat - Chatbox
http://www.statcounter.com/ - Visitor Counter
http://www.mixpod.com/ - Music/Video Playlist
http://www.clocklink.com/ - Clocks
Some widgets are also provided in the blogging service provider itself such as Labels, Post Archive, Wishlist and so on.
To add a widget, click on
Add Gadget or
Add Widget at the
Layout menu, then select the widget you like to add. To add custom widgets such as the
Cbox, click the
HTML Code Widget and just copy and paste the Cbox code in.
Last Notes
If you wish to have your very own
domain and don't want the blogging service provider to add its own name in the domain, (e.g. lemoney92.
blogspot.com), then you will need to
pay the blogging service.
You will still need to pay if you are
hosting your own blog. If you are hosting your own blog, make sure you have knowledge on
database and basic coding for your blog. You will also need
Wordpress programme and a
web host. Since this is
complicated, why don't we just get
Blogger or
Xanga instead? =)
Blog is also abbreviated from
Weblog, which means
web-based journal.
Love,
Nicholas.