In our previous, why you should blog, we’ve mentioned two free famous blogging platform to date, Blogger and WordPress. This article will guide you how to setup blog in Blogger. Setting up a blog in Blogger is super straight forward, however if you need some visual guide, here it is. In this article, I’ve provided some tips to get you out of common setup surprises as well.
Here are the 5 steps to setup your blog in Blogger.
1. Go to blogger.com from your favorite web browser. Here you will see a sign-in box.
2. Log in into your Google account. If you don’t have one yet, you need to register first before you can create your first blog.
3. Once you’re signed in, you will be brought to your main Blogger dashboard. All your blogs are found here. Blogs you follow can also be accessed from the dashboard.
Click “New Blog” to create your first blog.
4. In the screen that follows, enter the needed information:
Title: This is the title of your blog that appears on every page.
Tips: Should be something creative and memorable to attract readers. Picking the perfect title can be hard, but it’s important. It could be your name, your brand or your trademark.
Address: This is the address people type in the url to find your blog.
Tips: This should be unique, you cannot take the address you want if it is already taken by others. You may want to specify another which is relevant to your blog.
Since this in blogger, it will have a trailing address “blogger.com” e.g. yourblog.blogger.com. If you want to really own an address or url, you have to buy a domain name eg. yourblog.com, yourblog.net.
In this case, you have to setup Blogger to point to your owned domain name. See advance setup guide.
Theme: Customize the look of your blog through themes. Blogger has nice templates available to help you start your blog. It is displayed in the panel, scroll through the available themes and pick one that suits your blog.
Tips: You can always fine tune the theme later.
5. Your blog is almost ready, click the “Create blog!” button at the bottom of the window to finally create your blog. You’re now all set, the blog is now created and you can start writing or you may want to add widgets whichever you wanted to do next.
Adding Widgets to your blog
There are several widgets available to provide additional information on your page. These widgets can be easily added to specific location within your page.
1. Goto “Layout”, then scroll to where you want to add the widget. Click “Add a Widget”.
2. Below window will appear. Choose a widget to add, then hit the + button.
Tips: Depending on the kind of widget, there will be additional information or parameters you have to enter. Don’t forget to hit save.
After save, it will go back to previous screen and click “Save Arrangement”.
If you want advance customization of blogger templates, I have tutorial for you as well. (underway)
3. Preview your page if that suits your taste, otherwise, play along the available widgets until it satisfies how you want your page to look like.
Writing and Publishing your First Article
First, let’s talk briefly between Page and a Post. There are many definition between the two. Here is a quick glance in simplified form. Page is something static and typically don’t have a date like about page, contact page, etc. while Post is something dynamic and has date. This is where you constantly write your articles.
Some tips on visiting a website and a blog.
1. In the dashboard, there is a create Page or a Post option like below. For simplification, let’s go ahead and create a Post. Click “New post”.
2. In this window, enter the post title and your article.
3. Click “Preview” to view your page as page visitor and click “Publish” to finalize your post.
That’s it, happy blogging!
If there is something you need help on about this topic, kindly share it in the comment box below.
