| BloggerTM is one of the most popular companies that offer free web blog publishing and hosting. That's why it was my first choice when I decided to write this series of articles about creating a web blog. Your first step when creating a blog at Blogger.com is to open an account and set up the first page of your blog. Of course, this blog page will be empty at first but you will need to decide on a few things before you start. Username and password for your account Display name for your postings Email address Title for your blog FTP server and path (optional) Go to Blogger.com and take a look at the Quick Tour. It will give you some ideas for what you can do with your blog. When you are ready, click on the Create Your Blog Now button. There are only a few steps to staring a blog at Blogger.com. Step 1. Create an account In the first form, you will supply the basic information for your account including a username and password. As with most Internet user accounts, the username and password can be anything you like. But keep in mind that you will want them to be easy to remember. Next, you will need a display name which is the name that will be visible when you post on your blog. Finally, you have the option to supply an email address. Click Continue to go to Step 2. Step 2. Name your blog The title of your blog should reflect who you are and/or what you blog is about. If this blog is an extension of your website, you might want to use the name of your site and just add "Blog" to the end. Or perhaps you are using this blog as part of your company's marketing scheme. In that case, you might want to include your company name as part of the blog title. For this second step, you have two choices for where you will host your blog. You can host it with Blogger.com (Blog*Spot TM) or host it on your website along with the other webpages for your site. If you want to host your blog on Blogger.com, you will use the simple form that you are seeing now. Fill in the title of your blog on the first line. On the second line, you will supply the first part of your blog's URL address. All blogs hosted on Blog*Spot have ".blogspot.com" as the last half of their URL address. So, you only need to supply the front half. front_half.blogspot.com As you would expect, it is best if the front half of this URL is the same or a shortened version of the title of your blog. myblog.blogspot.com Once you decide on a URL, you then need to click on the Check Availability link to see if anyone has already chosen that combination. If that combination is already taken, you will get a message saying so and a list of a few alternative URLs. If it passes the test, you are all set. Just fill in the Word Verification box and click Continue. If you want to host your blog on the same server as your website, you will want to use the Advanced Setup form instead. Click on the link for that option. Again, you will supply the title of your blog. Next, decide if you want your blog to be listed on Blogger.com and select the appropriate radio button. You will need to supply the details about your hosting server. Let's say that the name of your site is mysite.com and you want to put all the files for your blog in a subdirectory called "blog". The first thing you need to do is open another web browser window, log in to your website account and create that blog subdirectory folder. Your website folders and files might look something like this.
Next → Screen shots reprinted by permission from Google Inc. GoogleTM, BloggerTM and Blog*SpotTM are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. | ||
Printer Friendly Version
