Blogger

2009-09-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

I could try and dazzle you with a hundred different places to post your blog for free as many other bloggers do, which would involve a bunch of links and would probably do more to confuse things for someone just getting started than help. I will tell you I looked around at a bunch of reviews, other peoples blogs, and whatever I else I could manage before my brain started to melt, and what I came up with was a site called Blogger.

From what I gather it is one of the simpler sites to use for beginners and it is owned by Google. It was evidently already pretty successful before Google bought it (considering it caught their attention) and they have gone on to make some of their own improvements. I choose it because I had heard of Google, and no one seemed to have anything too bad to say about it (Blogger I mean). Well posting on it anyway, evidently they are targeted by a few malicious hackers out there, so I avoid the “Next Blog” feature at the top of every page. (evidently there are some blogger's who have computer viruses on their page so just don't use the next blog feature and you should be fine) I'm sure those guys down at Google will be able to stay ahead of this problem though. (their Google)

I already had a G-mail account so I was basically already set up with an account for Blogger as well. If you don't have a G-mail account you can still sign up as long as you have an existing e-mail account somewhere. If you want to check it out you can just click the link above (the different color text up there^).

When you get to the Blogger home page just move the cursor with your mouse to the “Create Blog” button and you will be whisked away to the new account page. When you get there just sign in with your g-mail log in or whatever you have for an e-mail address. Then go down the page to fill in the rest of the blanks with your information till you get to the “word verification” blank. There you will have to type in whatever crazy crooked words are kind of floating above it to demonstrate the fact your a human and not a “robot” that goes around creating accounts for someone trying to funnel cash into their pocket with little personal effort. Then click the button at the bottom of the screen that says continue. Don't get discouraged if you have to type the verification word in more than one time. The thing is hard to read on purpose and I screw it up all the time. Just make sure you check to see all the personal information is still filled in above (like your password) to make success more likely on your next try. Sometimes stuff gets reset when you get kicked back to the verification page. So just be sure and check.

After you have cleared this hurdle you will be on a page that asks you to name your blog. This is where your “internet address” is created. Its what someone would type in the address box that all web browsers use to find things on the web (usually located at the top of your screen). It may take a few tries to get something to work here. You have to come up with something people will remember, that hopefully has something to do with what you plan on writing about on your blog. But most importantly it has to be unique to you, there can only be one person using a specific name, otherwise people would never find what they are looking for. The program will tell you if what you choose is available or not when you try to enter it. It will also offer you a few options on how you can change your name a little to make it work. If you can live with one of those just click on it and your done. If you don't like what you see as suggested options you can just try to come up with something else on your own until you find a name no one else is using already. Sometimes it will take a few tries to find a name. When you find one that works for you just hit the “Continue” button to go to the next page.

Now you get to pick out the “template” you will be typing onto to write your blog. There are several to choose from just go to one you think you may like and click in the little bubble next to its name. There are more options than you can see when you first look at the screen, and if you want to see them you can scroll down in the box. You will see a slide bar with arrows pointing up in the top and down in the bottom, just press the one pointing down to see more options. Some of the templates have a few color choices so you can just look around till you find something you like. To view a sample you can click on preview to see what the one you selected looks like. Don't worry to much about making the wrong decision right now on the style of template you choose because we can change it later if you like. Just get something picked out so you can start blogging.

Now that you have a template picked out all you have to do is click on the “continue” button and you should see a screen that has a bigger box to type your blog in and a smaller box for the title of your blog.

You are now blogging. Just type out whatever you want and give it a name in the top box and hit the “publish post” button or you can go up to the top of your post and click the word preview to get a look at what you have done before you publish. You will see a screen that says “Your Blog Post Was Published Successfully”. Now you can click on the part that says “View Blog” or on the side of that it says in parenthesizes() (in a new window) and see what you have just created. I usually click the (in a new window) one just so I can go back later to fix stuff by clicking the old window button at the bottom of my screen. Don't worry if you see something you have done wrong when you read your blog you can go back and fix it. If you want to go back you can just go to the back button on your browser and click it or you can go to the old window and click there to get you to the screen that says “Your Post Was Published Successfully” and click on the edit post button. When you get done fixing anything you wanted to fix you can view the blog again the same way as you did before.

Bumbling through building a blog

2009-09-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

   I don't know a ton about it but I am doing it. I started writing my first blog to be kind of a mass E-mail. I was doing a bit of traveling and had several people to update on my progress. (mostly to let them know the bears had failed to eat us yet) My traveling companion and I would update it when we happened upon a coffee shop using our laptop or a local library computer. We were backpacking and camping so the laptop didn't last to long. After one cold morning in a coffee shop waiting for our computer to thaw enough to boot up, we decided it would be best to go ahead and sell it while it was in any way desirable still, to a prospective buyer. That blog pretty much died then and there. It was only ever intended for family and friends anyway.(we couldn't even tell them about all the best stuff that was going on with us considering the audience) I had never even considered trying to generate enough volume to think of using a program like adsense. Nor did I have any notion what it even was. I had in the past toyed with the idea of doing some affiliate stuff, but after I found myself getting spammed off Craigslist I felt a little, I don't know, dirty. Like I was trying to trick someone into doing stuff they didn't want to. After I got spammed once I discovered I had to change the wording of my posts to something that everyone hadn't already seen,( go figure, someone else had already done this copy/paste thing) I got my links to stick, but had little in the way of volume. I figured I should give it up before the Craigslist police blacklisted me,or worse yet, came to kick in my door. (I really didn't know much about how all that stuff works and I don't know much more now) Depending on where you put a posting with a link like that on the Craigslist site people seem to get aggressively angry though.

   For all of you newer to this than I am an affiliate link is a little line of code that when clicked , drags people by the browser to a site where they can subscribe to something, make a purchase, or give up their E-mail address “to receive other valuable offers”, or what have you. Of course in the code is an identifying “signature” so you can receive your partial credit for the action of getting the potential customer there to view the fine services or wares your sponsor supplies. You can get as many link codes as you like if you just type “Affiliate program” into Google, you will be bombarded with results that all offer, the “Best”, programs around. Some of them even have the ads to entice potential clients all typed up, so all you have to do is copy it and paste it to the forum you want it in. This however has been done, and with great success according to some. Google must have a few listed on this very posting, if you look. I think there are ways to do affiliate marketing that are a little more noble than this method and I will pursue them more in the future, but right now we are talking beginner's blogging.

   In this blog I intend to go over some of the stuff that I had trouble with, to hopefully become a valuable resource to some other bumbling blogger out there, just trying to get started. I am going to include links to things I found useful as well as tips on new things as I learn more. I am at this point far from the realm of trying to offer intelligent advice to increase traffic to your site.(other than harassing your friends to “check out my blog dude”) What I can do though is give a hand in getting a site functioning to send traffic to. You can feel free to ask questions in the comment area and if I don't know the answer then, I will do my best to find it, and we will have the opportunity to learn together. I hope this can be of some use to someone. Perhaps even profitable.

Building a Blog

Blogger

Bumbling through building a blog