How to get started blogging
While visiting with my cousins, Gerald and Dan Baxter, yesterday at Julia Ann Floyd's funeral, they both asked about how to start a blog. Fortunately, Blogger has an excellent online help system that takes you through all you need to know to set up a blog and customize it to your own specifications. So I thought I'd post this entry to give them the most important links in that help system to help them get started. Then maybe they'll be able to join the others of us in the family who are blogging. Fortunately, this post can serve to guide anyone else who might be interested in starting to blog as well.

The basic concepts and considerations are found in the Blogger Basics part of the help system, but particularly in the Getting Started section.

The first step is to create an account at Blogger. Then you need to set up your blog. You'll have to make a few choices such as what you are going to call your blog. It is important at this point to remember that the name of your blog will be a part of the URL for it, so, in my opinion, it is better to make this name something relatively short rather than something like, "My observations about all the things that are important to me in the world." You wouldn't want to have to type all of that into the address window each time you wanted to visit your site.

How your blog will look is determined by the template you use. Blogger provides a nice variety of these templates, so you can choose a design that suits your tastes. And even after you have created your blog, you can change the template if you see one you like better. I have done that at least 3 times since I began blogging about two and a half years ago.

One other thing I would recommend is that you enable the RSS feed from your blog. Doing this makes it possible for those of us who use an RSS feed reader to follow what you have posted more easily. Though you may not know initially what all that means, just trust me and enable it and in time you'll understand why.

One final word about blogging in general. The value of your blog, unless you are an extremely creative writer whose prose is worth reading independent of what other sources you point to, is determined in large measure by the links you provide in your posts. A blog is a great way of pointing others to the things on the web to which you are referring. Use links liberally in your posts. Sometimes the most interesting part of a blog post isn't so much what is said in it but rather following the paths that it provides to discovery of other things on the 'Net. I believe this particular post illustrates the value of supplying links, because rather than having to explain how to do each of the things I have recommended here, I've provided links to explanations that have already been written. It saves me time and provides you the information you need to follow these directions.

I'd be more than happy to help you, Gerald and Dan, once you have created your blog. There are even ways you can enable me to have access your blog so I can help you tweak some of the settings. We can do this temporarily (while you are setting things up) or more permanently, if you should choose. I won't blog for you, but I am willing to help you get things set up properly in the beginning.

Please leave me a comment (below), or email me if you prefer, if you have questions about this explanation. One final thing I suppose I should mention. Blogger is free.

- posted by Perry @ 10:15 AM