Blogging

Introduction

Perhaps you have thought about making your own blog but the information on the internet on where to start a blog has only confused you. You are afraid of starting down the road to designing a blog because you believe that you need to hire a professional HTML coder. You really, really want an easy-to-follow roadmap on how to make a free blog. You want your new blog to be set up correctly, so you can concentrate on simply writing great content.

I've walked down the blogging path recently and my experiences are fresh in my mind. I'm creating this hub so that you will have a "blogging how to" roadmap to make a blog in Blogger and won't go through the frustrations that I experienced.

Consider this hub to the be the "anti-hub". No fancy photos, no videos, and absolutely no Amazon products to peddle. Just straight information on designing your blog in Blogger.

Here's my story.

My Story

Until one month ago, I had never blogged. My internet skills extended to surfing the web and, perhaps, leaving a comment or two on my favorite blogs or forums. I enjoy reading about health, nutrition, and wellness and had a number of ideas and opinions that I wanted to share. So, without thinking of a game plan, I jumped into blogging.

I started a blog, INCOMETUNES, on Blogger and proceeded to make every mistake a rookie could make. I changed templates midway through, screwed up my URL setup, made errors with HTML code, got banned from Google Adsense (but regained it on appeal), "lost" my Google Analytics code, made mistakes in formatting posts, copied licensed photos instead of royalty free, and many other goofs.

But I learned from my mistakes. I spent hours and hours reading different how-to blogs, downloaded and read free articles by experienced bloggers, and practiced with different blog widgets and third party software till I created a blog with all the standard bells and whistles. With the basics of making a blog out of the way, I now concentrate on writing quality content.

Create your own blog for free by following the steps outlined below in the exact order listed and you won't make the mistakes that I made.

Choose A Name and Theme For Your Blog

I signed up for a Blogger blog and then was stumped when asked to choose a name. I went with "Life with Dickie" simply because my 10 year old daughter insisted. The name has no connection to the theme of my blog and probably hurts in my search engine ranking. How would anybody know that "Life with Dickie" has anything connected with health, nutrition, and wellness!! However, I have stayed with the name because changing it now may disrupt some of the widgets and services that I have signed up for. I'm not experienced enough to deal with any HTML code errors.

There is no need for you to make the same mistake.

First, identify a theme for your blog. The 'theme' is the subject of your blog. Ask yourself the question - what am I going to write about for year after year after year? You must be interested in the subject but you don't need to be an expert. It's good enough to be an aggregator of information. My training and expertise is in economics. But I have always been interested in health, nutrition, and wellness. I follow different health and wellness websites. So, I aggregate the information from different websites or journals and write about a topic in my own words. When applicable, I throw in my opinion.

Now come up with a name that you will keep for the lifetime of the blog. The name should match your theme. It helps in search engine ranking. Furthermore, you will be using the blog name every time you sign up for various blogging services. As mentioned, changing your blog name later may disrupt some of the services you receive.

Then select a sub-title that matches your theme. Besides ranking your site higher in search results, it gives your site added credibility and makes it easy for the reader to understand the purpose of your blog. The subtitle is a few words, a phrase, or a couple of sentences that lets the reader know how you will approach your subject. The Blogger blog you will create will have a Description box asking you to fill in a sub-title. Mine is, "Roaming the pathways of health, nutrition, and wellness to find what really, really works." Notice that my sub-title matches the theme of my blog.

The name and sub-title will show up at the top of the blog. Take a look at how it appears on my blog.

Try not to make your chosen theme too narrow. You will run out of ideas and your blog will falter from lack of posts. Notice that my theme includes 'nutrition' which is reasonably broad and allows me to tackle different nutritional issues. I will never lack for a topic on nutrition and could write something new for years. Had my theme been focused more narrowly on, say, "low carb diets", I would have stopped writing after 20-40 posts.

Which Blogging Platform To Choose?

After choosing the name and theme, you need to decide which blogging platform to use. The two major players in the market are Blogger (www.blogger.com) and Wordpress (www.wordpress.com). Other lesser players are Tumblr, Movable Type, Joomla, Drupal, Posterous, Square Space, Expression Engine, Penzu, and Live Journal.

There is also a Wordpress.org blogging platform. Wordpress.org is a very versatile platform with great community support and many thousands of plugins to make blogging easier. You can always transfer your Blogger blog to Wordpress.org at a later date. The only cost you will have is the hosting fee (well under a $100/year). Unlike Blogger, which is hosted by Google, Wordpress.org expects you to get a hosting server from the many hosting service providers.

[Update: I've switched my blog from the Blogger platform to Wordpress.org. I did this to take advantage of the flexibility of the Wordpress.org platform. All the guidelines mentioned in this hub still stand. And I still believe that Blogger is a great platform to "get your feet wet" with blogging with no experience needed in HTML coding.]

Go with Blogger or Wordpress.com because many of the third party blogging services and software are geared to servicing these two platforms. If you choose to use a third party widget on your blog; you will find that all you have to do is provide your blog’s URL and the name of the blogging platform and the application will do all the work (I discuss some of these third party widgets below). With other blogging platforms, you may have to take additional steps and, perhaps, some basic HTML coding. You don’t really want to spend time on that.

Both Blogger and Wordpress.com are free to use. A few of the others mentioned above are fee paying sites.

Wordpress.com is the favorite of many because it has a number of widgets that make your content management easy and fun to work with. It also has great community support.

However, I went with Blogger for the following reasons. Like Wordpress.com, it is extremely easy to set up (just sign up and you have a blog!). It’s a Google product and more integrated with the other tools that Google has like Analytics and Adsense. It openly allows you to monetize your blog. In fact, it has a tab on your blog dashboard that makes it easy to sign up for Adsense and the Amazon Affiliates program. In contrast, Wordpress.com does not encourage monetizing your blog. You will have to switch your Wordpress.com blog over to Wordpress.org in order to monetize.

Select Your Template

You will have a blog as soon as you sign off. It will have a basic design template with your name and sub-title on top. Any changes you make to your blog will be done through the Dashboard, which is the "back-office" for your blog. The Dashboard is the area where you write new posts, edit posts, design templates, change settings, manage comments, monetize your blog, and check your blog traffic statistics.

Don't be tempted to explore your blogging Dashboard and sign up for different widgets yet. Take a couple of days to select your template and modify color and look. Blogger has a number of design templates that you can choose from. You can mix and match colors to get the design that you want. Don't be afraid to play around. Blogger allows you to preview your template as you change colors, fonts, backgrounds, and templates.

Don't worry if nothing satisfies you. Go to www.btemplates.com to select from hundreds of free blogger templates. Once you have selected your template, download it into Blogger. The instructions for downloading are on the FAQ page of the btemplates.com website.

By signing up and selecting your template, you have taken the first concrete steps to designing your blog.

Change Your Blogspot Name To Your Own Domain Name

The domain name that Blogger gives you is http://yourblogname.blogspot.com. If you are happy with it, then skip this step and go on to the next.

Blogger hosts many, many blogs. The majority of them are of very poor quality. As a result, the reader may associate your blog with poor content. Furthermore, the blogspot.com name belongs to Google. They can yank it anytime you violate the Terms of Service. All your hard work will be lost. As a result, you may want to change your domain name to http://www.yourblogname.com. Also, having your own domain name gives your blog further credibility.

The easiest way to change domain names is through Blogger. Simply go to the Settings/Publishing tab in your blog Dashboard and check for the availability of your chosen name. Checking availability means checking to see if www.yourblogname.com, www.yourblogname.net, or other combination is available. If available, then go ahead and follow the directions to purchase. Blogger will automatically redirect all internet traffic from your original blogspot.com name to the new name.

You can also select and buy your domain name from GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com) or HostGator (www.hostgator.com). They have frequent sales and the cost to purchase your own name can be only $5-$10 a year. Once you buy your domain names from these companies, they will provide clear directions on how to transfer the domain name to Blogger.

I purchased my domain name from GoDaddy. Just be careful because they try and sell you additional services, which you don’t need at this stage. The above is the only step where you have to pay money to create your blog.

Select Your Widgets

Go to the Design section of your blog Dashboard. You will see an outline of your blog, which will have a number of “Add a Gadget” links. Click on one of them and you will be directed to Blogger’s collection of widgets. At last count, there were over a 1000 of them. Selecting cool widgets is a personal preference and you can add any that you like. Don’t hesitate to add them to your blog to see whether they will add value. You can always uninstall them with a click if you should change your mind.

However, there are some basic widgets that you must add to your blog. They are

(1) Profile – Readers want to know about the author of the blog. The more readers identify with you, the more likely they are to subscribe to your feed. Some blog authors write a whole page about themselves. I chose only a few words. Put your picture in the profile. It helps personalize it.

(2) Pages – adds stand-alone pages to your blog. I have added two pages to my blog. One invites readers to write for my blog. The other is a disclaimer. Feel free to copy the language on the pages for your own blog.

(3) Blog Archive - this widget keeps an archive with links to all your posts.

(4) Sociable - you want your readers to bookmark your posts to all the popular sharing sites like Facebook, Twitter, Stumbleupon, etc. This widget has the icons for all the social media sharing sites. You click the ones you want to use.

(5) Follow By Email – some readers would prefer to follow your posts by email. Make it easy for them by selecting this widget.

(6) Subscription Links – mine says “SUBSCRIBE TO LIFE WITH DICKIE” and has an orange logo underneath. See the next step for more detail.

Join Feedburner

Your readers will need an easy way to subscribe to your post feeds. To have the posts feed directly to their bookmarked sites, you need to join another free Google service called Feedburner. Once signed up, you will go back to the Design section of the Blogger Dashboard to download a “Subscription Links” widget. Make sure this widget is prominently displayed in the top right hand corner of your blog.

Personalize Your Address Bar By Adding A Favicon

This step is not necessary but it helps to brand your blog. A favicon is short for “favorite icon” and is an image that appears on your address line. Google has made it easy to add a favicon to your site. Simply go to Design/Page Elements tab of your Blogger Dashboard and click on link next to Favicon. Upload your favorite image. Google will automatically resize it and you will have a favicon. You can remove or change your favicon anytime you want.

My favicon is “DP” for Dickie Paria and is in the address bar when you click on my blog.

Favicon images must be an exact square. The best size is 16 pixels by 16 pixels. Sometimes the Favicon Edit function on the Dashboard may get “buggy” and refuse to resize the image that you have uploaded. In that case, upload your image into this free re-sizing website http://www.resizemypicture.com . If you don’t want to use your own picture, you can check out the free favicons at www.freefavicon.com .

If you would like to create initials for your favicon, then use this free site http://www.favicon.cc/ that I used. You can also google for “create a favicon” and many sites will come up that will create favicons for free.

It's also very easy to have a cartoon as a favicon. Use this free site, www.kusocartoon.com, to upload your own image. Once uploaded, Kuso gives you six different types of cartoon to create out of your image. Download your image and use www.picresize.com to shrink your cartoon image to 16 pixels by 16 pixels.

Add Google Analytics

Your Blogger Dashboard has a “Stats” tab that shows you (1) your visitor traffic by All Time, Monthly, Weekly, Daily, and Now, (2) which posts are read the most (3) links from where your traffic came from, and (4) a list of countries and a world map which lights up to show where your visitors came from. The last is a really nifty feature and I’m always amazed to see where my readers came from.

Google Analytics is a “Stats” tab on steroids. It’s a free service from Google that you need to sign up for. Once signed up, you will be provided with a code and directions to implement in the HTML coding section of your blog.

You need to be careful implementing this step. Go to the Design tab in the Blogger Dashboard and click on “Edit HTML”. First download your template and then follow directions to copy and paste the Analytics code into the HTML. Then save your HTML. If you have made a mistake, you will see error messages. No problem. Simply upload the template that you had earlier downloaded and everything will be back to normal.

If you have copied and pasted the Google Analytics code correctly, you will start to see the results in 24-48 hours. Simply log into Google Analytics anytime you want to check your statistics. Google Analytics is a very powerful tool and it will take you many days or weeks to fully understand it. You can start by reading the basics here http://www.google.com/support/analytics/?hl=en.

Start Posting

Almost every blog that you follow on the internet has ads in the blog. You should add that feature to your blog. You will make money if readers click on the ads or buy products through your blog. Some long time bloggers make six figure incomes from blogging. As mentioned in the beginning of this hub, Blogger makes it easy to monetize your blog.

However, first, you must post 2-4 articles in your blog. Advertising services like to see content on your blog before they put ads on it. It takes me only an hour and 15 minutes to research, write, and publish a 400 to 600 word article. Take a couple of days to think about and write good content. Make each post at least 300 words. Contextual ads, which I’ll explain below, will be more optimized for your site.

Writing articles optimized for search engine ranking is another hub to itself. However, there are some steps you can take from the first post onwards that will help make your posts more interesting.

(1) Use Images in Your Posts

Blogger makes it very easy to add images to your post. When typing your post, you can click on a button to pull in images into your post. The images can be dragged to anywhere on your post.

Be careful which images you choose. Many images are copyrighted and you can only use them if you pay a royalty. Why pay when there are many sites that offer royalty free images for reuse.

Go to Google Images and click on the “Advanced Search” link near the search bar. Now type in your search and click on the button that says “Only images labeled for reuse”. The images that show up are the ones that you can use for your blog.

Another site that has tons of free photos (many high quality ones) is Everystockphoto (www.everystockphoto.com). They aggregate photos from many different sites and are, in effect, the search engine for free photos.

Other sites that have royalty free images for reuse are iStockphoto, Stock.Xchng, BigStock, ShutterStock, and Dreamstime. You can also try Zemanta which I explain below in more detail.

(2) Use YouTube Videos

YouTube videos can be freely used. Again, Blogger makes it extremely easy. When typing your post, click on the button that pulls in the YouTube videos. Type in the name of the video you want and the video will show up in the search box. Just click on the select button and the video will be inserted into your blog.

(3) Use Jing or Skitch

Ever wonder how some blogs or websites have some cool writing on photos? Or have images on their blog posts that were pulled from the web? It’s easy if you use Jing (http://www.techsmith.com/jing/) or Skitch (http://skitch.com/).

I have both and it took me only 10 minutes to play around and learn the functions. I use Skitch more frequently since it is well integrated with my Macbook. Go to the website from which you want to pull information or images. Open Skitch and drag the cursor around the area; click to create an image; use a couple of nifty features in Skitch to draw arrows and add words; save image on your computer or on Skitch; and then follow Step 1 to upload the image into your post.

Read my post, "Rich Man, Thin Man; Poor Man, Fat Man", to see how I integrate Skitch pictures in my post.

(4) Try Zemanta

Zemanta (www.zemanta.com) is a free tool that really helps “jazz” up your post. Once installed, it shows up as a box when you are writing a new post. Drop in keywords from your post and Zemanta will provide related royalty free images that you can drag and drop into your post. It helps link text in new posts to old posts and recommends your post to other users.

It was a tool that I was really looking forward to utilizing. Unfortunately, I use the Safari search engine on my Mac and Zemanta really slowed down all my applications. I had to uninstall it. However, Zemanta is more optimized on Firefox and Chrome. So, give it a try if you use those search engines.

Use Link Within Or Dhiti

You want to keep your readers on the blog for as long you can. The more posts they read, the more likely they are to subscribe to your blog or click on your ads.

One way to have them read another post on your blog is to create a link in the text of one blog post to another blog post. Another way is to attractively lay out some posts at the bottom of every article. The two third party applications that do this are Link Within (www.linkwithin.com) and Dhiti (http://dhiti.com).

They are both free and extremely easy to use. Simply sign up, drop in your blog URL, and indicate the blogging platform that you use (Blogger in our case). They will run an algorithm on your posts to generate the links at the bottom. The more posts you write, the more accurate the algorithm becomes. The links at the bottom of each article will be contextually related to the article.

I started with Dhiti. However, I didn't think their contextual algorithm was that good. One reason could be that I didn't have sufficient number of posts on my site. I used it for two months and then switched to Link Within.

My personal opinion is that Link Within's contextual algorithm is better than Dhiti's. Also, Link Within has nice "squares" at the bottom of your post making it aesthetically pleasing. You can go to any post on my blog to see the Link Within effect. Link Within automatically picks up a photo in your blog post to show in the square. You have a choice of showing 3-5 squares or stories at the bottom of your blog post. If you don't have photos, it will show text. Dhiti does the same but it's squares are different sizes and it takes up more room in your blog.

Don't hesitate to try both of them. They are free, easy to install, and easy to uninstall. When I started using them, I installed and uninstalled 3-4 times just to compare and contrast.

Comments

Blogger has a basic commenting system. It does the job.

However, there are two free commenting systems widely used by bloggers. They are Intense Debate (www.intensedebate.com ) and Disqus (www.disqus.com ). The advantage of these systems is that they have a notification and reply system, inline media embedding (meaning that you can post images and videos in your comments), and mobile commenting among other features. The comments become more interactive and helps create a community around your blog.

Both commenting systems are easy to install. Simply add your blog’s URL to the Intense Debate or Disqus website and indicate that your blog is hosted on Blogger. Follow the clear directions on how to install the code into Blogger with a widget.

I tried Intense Debate and was quickly disappointed. It seemed very buggy. Sometimes the comments showed up and other times it didn’t. I quickly uninstalled the widget and am back to Blogger’s basic comment system.

I decided not to try Disqus since I heard of another new commenting system called Livefyre (www.livefyre.com ). The buzz in the blogging world is that it is better than Intense Debate or Disqus. I have signed up for it but Livefyre has not yet put together the system for Blogger. They are working on it and I’ll install it as soon as it is ready.

Sign Up For Google Adsense

The Blogger Dashboard has a tab called “Monetize” that allows you to sign up for Google Adsense. Simply follow the directions to sign up and the ads will start showing up on your blog after your application is approved. It may take a week for your application to be approved. Google sends you an email to notify you that it’s been approved. Sometimes, you may start seeing ads before you receive the notification email.

Google Adsense is a contextual ad placing service. The ads will be different for each person viewing your blog. The ads are geared towards your blogs content and the path that the reader of your blog chose to come to your site. If you have only 2-4 posts, the ads may not be consistent with the theme of your blog. However the more posts you add, the more contextual the ads get.

Using the “Monetize” tab, you can easily change the placement of your ads on your blog. Google provides tutorials on which areas of a blog or website are most likely to be clicked by your readers.

It is a Pay-Per-Click service, which means that you will get paid if a reader clicks on the ad in your blog. Do not click on any of the ads yourself! That will get you banned from the Adsense program. You receive a terse email from Google and the ads disappear from your site. You can appeal only once by filling out the appeal form at this site but it is extremely difficult to be reinstated. If you lose the appeal, then you will never be reinstated.

I did get banned from Adsense and won on appeal. Between getting banned and winning on appeal, I looked at other advertising services. A Google Adsense copycat is Adbrite (www.adbrite.com ). You can also sign up for Kontera (www.kontera.com ) or Infolinks (www.infolinks.com ) which integrate text ads using keywords in the body of your post. You can also check out Addbull, Exit Junction, Dynamic Oxygen, Smowtion, and Affinity Click.

Sign Up For Amazon Affiliates

Next to Google Adsense in the “Monetize” tab is the sign-up for Amazon Affiliates. Click on that and follow the directions to sign up. Once signed up, you can directly add Amazon products to your posts.

Blogger and Amazon have made it extremely easy to add a product to the post. When you start typing a new post; an Amazon “box” will open up near the post. The box has a search bar and you can search for Amazon products. Once the product has been selected, Amazon will give you a choice of putting a link, image, or image and link into your post. Simply drag and drop to your article.

If you don’t have a specific product in mind, then highlight a keyword in your post and Amazon will pull up related products. To get an idea of what a blog post looks like with Amazon products integrated into the body of the article, read the post, “Run Without Injury, Run Without Pain, Run Barefoot”. Read the entire post and you will see how I integrated the products to match the content.

Unlike Adsense, which is pay-per-click, Amazon Affiliates will pay you a percentage of any sales. The percentage is small but the sale of one product will provide a commission equivalent to several clicks on Adsense.

Amazon Affiliates also has a number of ad widgets on it’s website that you can integrate into your blog. Two of them, Product Cloud and Omakase, are contextual just like Adsense. You don’t have to select what products to advertise. Amazon picks the product ads depending on your blog content and the reader’s choice of keywords to reach your blog.

Start Blogging and Marketing

Follow the steps listed above on how to design a blog on Blogger and you won't make the mistakes that I did. Your blog will be correctly set up and all you have to do is write great content on a consistent basis.

It's never too early to market your blog. For starters, create an account on Facebook and Twitter. "Friend" as many people as you can. Let your contacts know that you will be starting a blog. Then post your article links on Facebook and tweet it on Twitter. It's no use making a blog on Blogger and writing great content if nobody will visit.

Start your marketing by finding me, Dickie Paria, on Facebook and sending me a "friend" request. I promise to reciprocate. Or follow my tag, DPPhD, on Twitter. And, I'll follow you. We will both benefit as your Facebook and Twitter blog links will be visible to my friends and my blog links will be visible to yours. Do this today even if you haven't started your blog.

As promised, the above hub is your roadmap on how to design a blog on Blogger. Don't procrastinate. Identify your theme, name, and sub-title and sign up on Blogger. All the other steps listed will take you less than a week to create and that includes researching, writing, and publishing your posts.

Please tell me of your experience in following the steps listed above. Leave comments at the bottom. I promise to reply. It will help me update this hub and keep it relevant for all who are looking to make a blog on Blogger.                             

Good luck!

BEST WISHES FOR SUCCESSFUL BLOGGING