This is going to be an overview of how to set up a blog. Whether you want to learn how to set up your own blog or learn how to set up someone else's blog doesn't matter.
How to set up a free blog, like on Blog spot, is a little different than setting up a blog on your own. However, once you've set up your blog on Blogspot or on a place that allows weblog hosting, how to start a blog is very similar. The differences are in the interface and steps, not the concepts.
Blogs go by different names. You may have run across the terms weblogs, or web logs. Bloggs are simply an online journal. Bloggers, the people who run the blogs, call what they do as "blogging". Now these online journals can be about anything really. They can be, personal blogs, business blogs or corporate blogs. There's sports blogs, celebrity blogs, news blogs, technology blogs, mom blogs, or of course the ever so infamous marketing blogs promising to teach you how to make money blogging.
People tend to pick a subject, sometimes called a niche, and stick to that. Other blogs don't really have a defined topic and wander to wherever the blogger's heart desires. This is most often the case with personal blogs which are often treated like online diaries.
If a person records their blog in audio, it's referred to as a "podcast" which can be downloaded to people's Ipods or other mp3 devices and listened to "on the go". If a person records their blog in video, then it's referred to as "video blogging".
Everyone wants their blog to be the top blog of the blogosphere. The blogosphere is simply the name given to the realm of blogs as opposed to other platforms.
Well, you will need some sort of blog software if you are hosting your own blog. Many web hosts have blogging software available to you. You can also use a blog host like Blogger or WordPress. Now there is a difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Wordpress.com will allow you to create free blogs, but they (and other blog hosts) restrict what you can and cannot do with your blog especially if you are thinking about blogging for money (having Adsense blogs is one of the most popular methods). However, the advantage is that you can create a free blogs and if you are just getting started, that may be the way to go.
Wordpress.org is where you can download the free blog software called WordPress and host it on your own site if your host doesn't have blogging software already. If your web host does have blogging software, but not WordPress, you can fairly easily install it yourself if you so choose.
You will also need a blog template. Blog templates are often with your blog software whether you've paid for hosting or have used a free blog host. Your template choices are limited with the free blog hosts, but if you've hosted your own blog, then there's a bunch of free and paid blog templates you can choose from.
Blog widgets, also called plugins or gadgets or gears depending on the flavor of blogging platform you chose, are for all intents and purposes little snippets of code that enhance the functionality, and sometimes the look, of your blog.
If you have created a free blog, then you usually are limited to what they supply. They usually have a widget that allows you to enter straight text and html so you can do that, but if you don't know html and can't have someone write some for you then it won't help that much.
Again, even with being able to add your own html, you have to be careful to not violate their TOS (Terms Of Service or Terms and Conditions).
Online blogs can be a great thing. You may or may not be able to blog like a celebrity but you can certainly create a celebrity blog. In fact, why stop there? Why not try to create a celebrity like blog? Okay, that was a really bad pun, even I have to admit it.
It's easier to get top blog if you focus the main topic of your blog to one thing. If it's a business blog then you'll want to keep it about your business, products, industry news and the like. An auto blog should stick to automobiles, not gardening. Staying focused will help you, but to really get ahead and have popular blogs you need readers BUT if you are trying to make money blogging, you need buyers, not readers. Not that there's anything wrong with readers, it's nice knowing your blogs are being read, but if you are trying to make money then you need a great percentage of your traffic to be buyers.
If all you want are readers, or at least the majority of your traffic (people coming to your site) as readers, then use the social sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and the others. If you want people to find you through the search engines, then we need to touch on your SEO.
There's two kinds of SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is essentially making your blog something that helps people using search engines find you. This is one of the reasons that it's better to be focused on on topic or niche. You help people and search engines by using keywords throughout your blog.
The first kind of SEO is called "On Page SEO" and all that means is that you've set up your blog and posts with relevant keywords in relevant spots so the search engines will match the right kind of searchers with the right kind of blogs. Hmmmm, sounds a lot like an online dating service. In a way, it kind of is.
How to find keywords and do proper research is beyond the scope of this document, but I'll briefly hit on a few of the important things. Keywords are essentially words or phrases that people would type into the search engines. There's several different ways to find that out and since that's more advanced than what I'm doing here, I'll only give you a few suggestions.
Using your brain is really going to make the difference here, when you sit down to figure out how to create your own blog, think about what people will search for. For example, if your blog is going to be a dating" "blog, then if you were looking for information on dating you might come up with things like "online dating" or "online dating safety", "Christian singles" or "Asian singles". By the way, if the terms you come up with are three or more words, then that is what they mean when they talk about "longtailed keywords". I don't know why they had to make the terminology so countertuitive, but they did.
Now you will use your keywords in your post title, the first paragraph, the last paragraph and a few places within your post. DO NOT put it in where it doesn't fit. That's called "keyword stuffing" and the search engines will actually penalize you for it.
Just read your document and if the keyword sounds natural where it is, leave it, if it doesn't then replace it with something else. There's an actual system of something like you can use your keyword once for every 100 or 200 words, but it still has to sound natural.
Offpage SEO is when other people link back to you. This is often out of your control, but if someone is linking to you, then you can always ask them to use your keywords in their anchor text.
What does that mean? Well, when you have a link that you click on, the actual words you click on is called the anchor text. If you have set up your sports blog to be called something like "My Favorite Sports" and the person uses the words "Steve's Blog" then that only helps you if someone is doing a search for "Steve's Blog".
It would be much better for them you use the words "Sports Blog" or something that represents the topic of your blog. Using your keywords will help you in the search engines for people looking for your topic. The more backlinks you have (people who link to your site from theirs) the better you look to the search engines.
Though it should be mentioned that another blog having to do with sports has more "muscle" in the search engines than if your link is coming from 'The Offical Poodle Fan Club'. Search engines like it better when related sites link together. Other links won't hurt you, it may drive traffic to you, but it won't really help you in the search engines.
So know you know a bunch about blogs. Several of the weblog hosting sites, err sorry, blog host sites, have tutorials that will help you install your blog. If they have Fantastico, then it's only a couple of buttons to push and some really straight forward blanks to fill in. Shouldn't take you more than a few minutes.
The free blogs will also walk you through it. Many of the options you can go back and fill in later if you can't make up your mind.
SO go forth, and set up your own blog today.
What Is A Blog
What Do I Need To Have A Blog
How Do I Get A Top Blog?
It's All In Your SEO
On Page SEO
Off Page SEO
Go Create A Blog