Get Started Blogging with Blogger

As I mentioned in a previous article there are many platforms that you can use to get started in the blogging business. The two most popular are Wordpress and Blogger. I personally prefer Blogger because it is easy to learn and use. Wordpress is considered more powerful, but I believe that with all the improvements that Google has installed in the new version of Blogger, it has pretty much caught up with Wordpress.

Setting up a Blogger Account
The first thing you need to do is go to blogger.com and set up your account, that is pretty easy and self explanatory so I will not go into detail. When you get to the part where you chose your template, if you don't see anything you like, just pick something to get started. The neat thing about blogging is that there are a lot of blog designers that offer free templates for you to use or if you know how you can design your own. You do have to initially pick a template and then after the blog is set up you can make changes.

Blogger Template
My political website, The Political Coffeehouse and Mike Warner's Blogger Revenue, are both designs by Amanda at Blogger Buster. Amanda has designed some really neat blog templates for use with Blogger and gives the templates away for free. When I was working on the look of The Political Coffeehouse I had a few things that needed customized. I emailed my questions to Amanda and she, again for free, helped me customize the look of the site the way I wanted. The neat thing about working with Amanda is that she not only is an excellent blog site designer, but communicates very well with us non-techies. There are many helpful sites that have information on how to install widgets and customize your blog, but not many where the technician is able to communicate well with the average layman. My hat is off to Amanda. If you do want to use a custom template, the easiest time to do it is before you get started blogging. Later on if you want to give your blog a complete new look, it is possible, but a little complicated.

Blogger Settings - Basic
When you first set up your blog you can go to the settings and click on Basic. From this screen you can change your blog name and give your blog a description. If your blog is about dog grooming and training, put that in the title and description. The key words concerning the market you are entering should be used as much as possible throughout your blog, but only as much as makes sense. What I mean by that is, don't repeat words in a fashion that would make no sense to the reader. If you do, it will be considered keyword spam by the search engines and your site will be banned. If the search engines ban your site, you will have a mountain to climb in order to get traffic. When you are ready for the world to read your blog make sure to check yes for "Add your blog to our listings" and yes for "Show email post links"

Blogger Publishing
Under Blogger Publishing you will click yes to send pings. This will enable a signal to be sent to different sites when you publish articles on your site. Ping sites are read by people interested in reading fresh content. The rest of the page is where you will put your custom domain url when you are ready. I will write a post on how to publish with a custom domain at a later date. If your are reading this and I have not done it yet, send me an email and I will help you through the process. I will say that I go through godaddy.com and they are very easy to work with.

Blogger Formating
The first option you will see is the option to pick how many posts will be on your home page. You can adjust this whenever you want in order to get the look you want. The rest of the screen is self explanatory.

Blogger Comments
The next thing to do is decide if you want to allow comments. There are a lot of theories about whether or not to allow comments. Some publishers believe that readers will spend more time on your site if you allow comments. It is a fact that only a small percentage of people ever leave a comment. If you are going to allow comments make sure you only allow comments from registered users and click yes for word verification. That will eliminate or help eliminate comment spam.

Blogger Archiving
The most important thing on this page is to make sure you click yes to enable post pages. This gives each post that you publish its own page on the internet. For ease of use and to make sure you do well in the search engines, this is very important.

Blogger Site Feed
For now just set the sight feed to full. Blogger has a built in system for people to subscribe to your feeds with atom and rss. I will be posting further instructions on how to set up a feed through feedburner that will enable you to track who is visiting your site as well as offer a useful feed for those that want it.

Blogger Email and Permissions
I don't really use the email page. It is self explanatory. Permissions will let you pick either letting anyone read your blog, select people or just yourself. When I was pondering the idea of Mike Warner's Blogger Revenue, I selected only letting myself have access to the blog. Now it is available for the public to view.

This is the basics to setting up your Blogger account, from here you can start posting to your site whenever you want. If you like to write, blogging can be a lot of fun.