Setting up a blog can be slightly overwhelming if you're new to the internet. This post is aimed at those with no prior blogging experience, nor any understanding of html (the code used to create websites). Here we'll cover the basics of setting up a blogger blog, such as choosing a suitable name and web address, customising a template, adding widgets, and applying appropriate settings.
If your reason for blogging is solely to keep in touch with friends and family, or to record your thoughts and experiences, you'll be ready to start after completing this stage. However, if you wish to use your blog to promote your business, or you want to display advertisements to generate a little income, you'll need to optimise and customise it further, as will be explained in future posts.
Setting Up A Blog:
Setting Up A Blog:
- Before you go about setting up a Blogger blog you need to set up a gmail (googlemail) account, which you can do HERE.
- You then need to set up a Blogger account HERE, which you do using your gmail log-in details.
- Next you must choose a name for your blog and a website address (url). These needn't be the same, but it's best to use words that describe your business in your url if you're planning on using your blog to promote it. For example, if your business is called Zeena and you make jewellery your url should be www.zeenahandcraftedjewellery.blogspot.com, rather than www.zeena.blogspot.com. This is because including these keywords will help your website be found more easily by prospective clients later on (we'll learn more about search engine optimisation in future posts). It is also possible to use your own domain name (website address) for your blog, and this option may be preferable for businesses, as it appears more professional. However, this option isn't free or necessary and will therefore be explained fully in a later post.
- Once you've named your blog and the url has been confirmed as available (and you've checked spelling carefully for mistakes!) you can save it and move onto adjusting the appearance.
- After saving you will be directed to choose a template (a background design for your blog). If there are none you like the look of, or you have a specific theme/design in mind, it's possible to install a custom template, but this is far trickier than using one of blogger's own, so for now we'll work on a basic template by customising it with colours and fonts of your choice, to make it unique. This blog is currently using minima stretch, with a few slight changes to font and colour, but as we progress through various tips and tricks you'll see many changes occurring, all of which you'll be able to apply to your own blog, if you choose.
- Once you've saved your template-choice you can start changing colours and fonts to suit your needs, by clicking on the 'Layout' tab in your Blogger dashboard and then on 'Fonts and Colours,' where you are given the option to adjust many details. Play around here until you've achieved the look you want - and make sure you remember to save any changes!
- Now you can start adding gadgets to your blog. The 'Profile' and 'Followers' gadgets will have already been added to get you started, although these can be easily removed if desired; to do so simply visit your dashboard (see top left hand corner of blog page), click on the 'Layout' tab, then click 'edit' on the gadget you wish to remove and click the 'remove' button (and don't worry - you can always add them again at a later date if necessary, by clicking 'add a gadget' in 'layout').
- Adding third party widgets to your blog can slow down your page speed (which can affect page ranking), and some have also been known to cause errors or become infected with trojans, causing your entire blog to disappear, and making it very difficult to remove the widget; in particular live visitor counters seem to cause problems on the Blogger platform, and should be avoided unless you're using a reputable company such as feedjit. As a general rule when setting up a blog, add only those widgets necessary to improve the navigation of of your site and provide helpful functions for visitors; I recommend keeping the 'Profile' and 'Followers' widgets and also adding the following:
- Subscribe To
- Stand-Alone Pages
- Recent Posts
- Recent Comments
- Blog Archive
- Search Box
- Label-Cloud (or list, as you prefer)
- Share It.
- After adding these widgets you can move them around by dragging and dropping them in the areas provided. Once you have some followers (ask a few friends and/or relatives to sign up to get the ball rolling) you may want to place this widget close to the top of the screen to encourage others to follow, but until then it's better placed closer to the bottom (few people will follow a blog no-one else has shown an interest in). The 'share it' widget should always be placed near the top of the page (because it could bring you additional visitors, so needs to be visible), as should the recent posts widget and your profile and image (you may want to use your company logo here if you're intending to promote your business). Otherwise, arrange the widgets in an aesthetically pleasing manner, as preferred.
- Now you will want to adjust some settings so that your blog behaves in the exact way you wish. For example, do you want people to be able to comment on your blog posts? If so you need to consider moderating comments (pre-approving before publication), as blogs tend to receive lots of spam. Comments can be set up in the 'Settings' tab of your dashboard by clicking on 'Comments' and checking the boxes required. I would advise moderating comments and using a text verifier to prevent spam. Alternatively, you may wish your blog to remain entirely private, or to manually invite only people you know as members; this is possible in the 'Permissions' tab, but you are limited to 100 readers. There are numerous other tabs in the 'Settings' area and you should visit each page and check all the boxes required to modify your blog to your exact requirements. You can change these settings at any time, should you feel you need to later on.
Tomorrow we'll look at how to choose appropriate titles and how to use keywords to improve your ranking with search engines.
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