Build a Blog

Definition of a Blog:

A blog (a contraction of the term “web log“) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts. (Wiki)

Blogs are used for everything from an extension of a business and promoting it to a personal diary online that can only be seen by friends, so they’re extremely flexible. But what if you’ve never used one before, or want to start one and have no idea where to start or how to do it?

Choosing the Right Blog for You – What do you Want?

Well that reminds me of a conversation I had with my sister a couple of weeks ago. She’s an artist and has had a ‘proper website’ for a while, but like most people she has no experience in web design or maintenance, therefore no idea how to change or update it when needed so she has to rely on a friend who knows some web design, which is very limiting. That’s where blogs step in becuase anybody can create a website/blog and have full control over adding and changing the content very easily without having to know any web design. Realizing this she asked me for help with starting a blog, her only requirement being that it had to be free!

Obviously to have a blog on the internet it needs to be hosted so it can be seen. I’ve been blogging for a couple of years now and I feel Wordpress is the best blogging platform (software) out there and that’s what I use, and that will be the examples I use. Now there are 2 ways you can host a blog either you:

1. Use a service that hosts the blog on your behalf  (Wordpress.com) or
pros: it’s free
cons: limited features
2. You pick the blogging software that you wish to use and arrange your own hosting through a hosting company. (Wordpress.org)
pros: ultimate flexibility and features
cons: you have to pay for hosting

Wordpress For Absolute beginners

My advice for her was to start a blog at Wordpress.com which is a good place to start, and get used to how blogs work. It’s also the free version of Wordpress.org which I use on my blogs and I think is the best platform for blogging. So that sorts out her requirement – Free. Also if you want to upgrade to Wordpress.org in the future it’s easy to import all of your Wordpress.com blog over to the new Wordpress.org blog, so no worries there.

But while I talked her through setting the blog up I realised how much I take for granted when it comes to blogging knowledge, she knows nothing about blogging (I’m sure she won’t mind me saying that). So one question then leads to 20 more and one answer is a lot longer and indepth because it raises other issues. So with that in mind I’m starting an ongoing series of posts for absolute beginners using Wordpress.com, and I will be starting my own test blog to show step by step what to do.

So if you are interested in following this series then subscribe to my posts by RSS or email and you won’t miss any of them (I’ll get my sister to do that as well!).

Mandy

Don’t forget to Subscribe to my RSS Feed! If you’re not sure what that is take a look here – What is RSS?

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