Newbies Guide to Blogging: Part 2

Image via Wikipedia Previously I've discussed the first step in starting a blog and that is Decision making. Once you've decided what type and concept of blog you are to make the next in line is the Preparation.
Preparation . Preparation means you have three things to consider in starting your blog: Content, Design and Hosting. Content would mean that to have a blog obviously you need articles as a content of your blog and this must be related to the kind of blog you are about to create. Your first blog content I suggest, should be one that you originally created and that would be either an introduction of yourself or your the general concept of your blog. You must at least prepare 3-5 original post for your blog as a starter and the rest would follow suite as you go along.

Selecting a design for your blog is a must. If content is what makes a blog, a blog then, design adds beauty and appeal to your blog. A good design can drive visitor and readers but, off course content it a necessity in a blog. There are lots of free blog design template that you can use and here is one that I recommend eblogtemplates.com . You can choose your own design that is compatible with blogger.com or wordpress blog.

After selecting your design hosting your blog is the next thing to consider. There are two option when it comes to hosting, one is a free hosting and the other is paid hosting.You can opt with a free blog hosting like Blogger.com if you don't have enough financial capacity to maintain a paid hosting though in free hosting your blog gets only the subdomain that means you get www.myblog.blogspot.com and not www.myblog.com. Also in a free hosting you don't have full control of the technical side of your blog. If you opt for paid hosting that would mean you have enough financial capacity to maintain your blog then I suggest that Wordpress.com is the better blog platform you can use you just download the whole wordpress software and it is free and use it in your paid hosting. Now you are prepared to start your own blog. Next would be how you are to execute your first blog. See you next post.

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About Wordpress

The good thing with WordPress.com is that it features the following advantages:
It is free!You can get a blog started in less time than it takes you to read this sentence. All you need is an email address and a name. You can blog as much as you want for free, your blog can be public to the world or private for just your friends, and the paid upgrades are completely optional.
Dozen of great themes to choose from.
You can change the look of your blog with over 60 attractive themes ranging from professional to fun to crazy, and you can switch themes instantly with just a click of a button. Each theme allows you to customize your sidebar using widgets, and several themes let you upload your own photo or image for the header bar. They add themes regularly based on user requests. If you’re a CSS pro, you can also customize your CSS code.
You can categorize and tag your post.
WordPress.com includes an easy system which allows you to categorize and tag your posts while you write them. They automatically create archives based on your categories and add them to their global tag system and their tag surfer, so you get extra traffic as other people interested in the same topics as you will find your post and leave comments on your blog.
Spell-check, Previews, Autosave, Words, Photos, Videos
You can upload your own photos or easily include images from other services like Flickr or Photobucket. You can even embed videos from places like YouTube or Google. To keep you from looking too silly, they include an inline spell-checker that makes it easy to proof your posts. They also have a preview feature that shows you exactly what your post or page will look like before you publish them for the world to see.
Integrated Stats System, which gives you up-to-the-minute stats on how many people are visiting your blog, where they’re coming from, which posts are most popular, and which search engine terms are sending people to your blog.
Automatic Spam Protection using Akismet,the world’s best comment and trackback spam technology. It blocks spammers from leaving spam comments on your blog.
You can import from Blogger, TypePad, LiveJournal, and More.
You can add “widgets” to your sidebar and rearrange them without touching any HTML code or messing up your blog. Just drag and drop the sidebar widgets around, and instantly you can have fun stuff in your sidebar.
WordPress.com has a feature called “pages” which allows you to easily create web pages. For example, you could add an “about me” page with your biography, and a link to that page would be automatically added to your sidebar. You can even create an entire web site using pages on WordPress.com, with a custom home page and your blog as one of the sub-pages.
And this is an Open source.
The only thing that you are not allowed when using these platform for free is that "NO ADS WHATSOEVER IS ALLOWED" or they will delete your account with them. The free account is intended for serious and purely blog only, but if you want to monetize your blog you can use there platform in another web hosting sites that is compatible with Wordpress or accept these platform.
I use this in one of my blog about technology and life.

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