Easy Fun and Free Blogging
Zane WaltZ, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Aug 12, 2008 "Share your voice on Yahoo! websites. Start Here."
It is easy to start a free blog on Google Blogger at blogger.com. I recently began a blog on blogger.com after comparing several other blogging sites including Word Press. I chose Google Blogger because it was free, easy to use and also allows the display of Google Adsense ads to generate revenue.
I am pleased to provide a step-by-step breakdown of how I began my blog. By following these steps anyone can start a free blog. Note: It may be helpful for you to cross reference my blogs at Zane's Top 10.
Step One: Select a Blog Subject and Name
Prior to signing up for a blog you will need to select a subject. This may be a subject of special interest to you. Alternatively, you may want to select a subject for its revenue generation potential. I decided to base my blog on a subject that I both had an interest in and which also have potential to generate revenue. The blog I started called Zane's Top 10 is focused upon employment and jobs.
Step Two: Create a New Blog at blogger.com
I created a Blogger account at blogger.com. The opening page at www.blogger.com has a link for this.
Step Three: Select a Blog Title
I selected a blog title. This will show up at the top of the blog and be highly visible. A tool on the registration page will let you check to see if the name is available. In my case I used the name shown in step one.
Step Four: Set up a Blog Address
I selected a blog address. This will be my internet address. For example, Zane's Top 10 is my title and originally the address was http://www.zanestop10.blogspot.com. I initially used the free name which contains the term blogspot. Later I purchased my own domain name and now the blog is available at www.zanestop10.com without "blogspot" in the name. I will detail how to do this in a future article.
Step Five: Select a Blog Server Option
Blogger gives you the option of hosting your blog on a different server. This is more complicated, would cost money and was not necessary for me, so I did not select this option.
Step Six: Choose a Blog Template
Choose a template. Blogger offers many templates to choose from. Don't worry if you select one you don't like as it only takes a few seconds to change it later. I chose Rounders 3.
Step Seven: Explore the Blogger Dashboard
Once I had selected a template, I clicked on the "start blogging" button. This took me to a page from which I could make my first blog post entry. This page opened in a dashboard. It is not necessary to begin with a blog and I decided to explore the dashboard instead. Again, don't worry as it is almost impossible to make a mistake.
Step Eight: Set Blogger Settings
Instead of starting to blog immediately, I clicked on the "settings" tab. This opens a screen where I could enter more information. The description entry is important and should contain keywords as part of the description. The description appears under the title on the front page of the blog. The description, like the blog title, will be the same for every post you make. The posts themselves can vary. Make sure the description describes your blog and not an individual post. The settings page also includes other settings options which I left on the default settings. I then saved the page.
Step Nine: Arrange Blog Page Elements (Gadgets) and Google Adsense
I wanted to complete the template options for my blog before writing my first post so I clicked on the Layout Tab. This opened a page where I could add and arrange page elements (now called Gadgets on Blogger). The template, by default, includes a title block, an about me section, blog archive and an area where your posts will appear. I wanted to delete the about me section, so I clicked on edit and then selected delete and save. At this point I wanted to see the resulting blog as it appeared so far. I did this using the preview tab which opened a new window. Alternatively you can select "view blog" at the top of the page. The "view blog only" option shows changes after they have been changed.
Keep in mind that the changes you make on this page are part of the template. In other words, the template appears the same with every post, so any changes you make on this page will be seen on every post as part of the main page.
Adding other elements (gadgets) to the template is easy. First I clicked on the top "add a page element (now Gadgets)" button. A separate window opened showing all of the many options. This is critical information as these are all of your choices for the template customization options. They include adding Google Adsense, Link List, Blogrolls, Google News, HTML, JavaScript, YouTube videos, slideshows and several other items you can add to your template.
For the blog I started I decided to use Google Adsense. Google Adsense includes ads by Google that are often seen on individual websites. Because I wanted to feature these ads, I had to register with Google Adsense. To register, see this page www.google.com/adsense.
Google Adsense ads have two advantages. First, they pay me anytime someone clicks on them. It does take quite a bit of effort to set up and run a useful blog and some income will help to keep it operating. Secondly, I am able to track some useful statistics about my blog traffic through the Google Adsense Tracking known as Google Analytics. Google Analytics can be found at this website www.google.com/analytics.
Google Adsense ads are designed to be related to your page subject matter. If the page is a well-written page it will attract relevant Google Ads.
I have at least one Google ad on each page. Go to this article if you would like to see how relevant the Google Ads appear to the subject matter. see www.zanestop10.com/2009/01/top-10-nursing-jobs.html.
You may also want to add some links and a subscribe button for the RSS feed to your blog. If you are not familiar with this, it stands for "real simple syndication." RSS allows your blog visitors to subscribe to your posts and receive them automatically. Blogger provides this for free. To install it, just go to the layout page and select it from the gadgets.
The items I added to the template in Blogger can be moved simply by dragging and dropping them while on the template page. It is necessary to save the changes if you want them to appear in my blog. Make sure to save all changes.
Step Ten: Begin Posting
Finally I was ready to write a post. I clicked on the tab "Posting." I again was presented with the screen I started on. I simply had to enter a "post title" and then enter my article. I was able to add a photo. I took the additional steps of keyword optimizing my article and of locating a royalty-free photo site. I will discuss these items in a future article. If you would like to read these future articles you may want to subscribe to my Zane Waltz Associated Content Producer Page.
I then inserted a description of the post in the label box at the bottom of the post. I clicked the "preview post" button and voila! my post appeared. I liked it, so I closed the preview window and clicked the publish button. I then clicked the top "view blog" tab and there was my blog fully published.
My future task will be to add more articles and useful information to my blogs. I also would like to customize the template and customize the blog name in logo format. Marketing of the blog will follow, but for now I want to focus on the quality of the information and the presentation. When I am satisfied with those items then I will begin my marketing campaign.
Simply by starting my blog and posting some articles it will help my blogs to become indexed by the search engines like Google and Yahoo and to begin to move up in search engine rankings.
Future blogs will discuss keyword optimization, template layouts and designs, building a link network and more.
Sources:
www.zanestop10.com
www.blogger.com
Thank you for visiting How to start a Blog on Google Blogger.