ArchivesFor the first post in my Exploring The Archives series, I’m going to raid my ‘Blog Improvement‘ category, and find some posts to help you get started with blogging.

This post will assume that you want to begin blogging, but don’t yet have a blog, or that you have managed to sign yourself up for a service but don’t quite know what to do with it. I can’t tell you what to write about, but I can tell you how to choose a platform, get it installed, personalise it and begin to publicise it.

There will be a lot of links in this post to articles I have already written, so you may find it beneficial to bookmark it for future reference. Feel free to ask me questions, and I’ll do my best to help.

Choosing a blogging platform

Unsurprisingly there a large number of competing blogging platforms to choose from, ranging from completely free to fairly expensive, and from cutting edge to old fashioned. I’m only going to cover one platform in any detail because, a. I use it and, b. because it’s far and away the best.

The major blogging platforms out there are:

There are plenty more, but none are serious contenders to any of the above, certainly for personal use. TypePad and ExpressionEngine are both paid systems, and whilst Joomla is a good CMS (Content Management System), the two most user-friendly systems for beginners are Blogger and WordPress.

Blogger or WordPress?

For me the only choice is WordPress, and you can read my reasons for not liking Blogger if you’re interested, but quite simply Blogger is now pretty old fashioned, lacking in functionality, and very limited in customisation. It’s hard to read 5 Blogger blogs in a row without finding 2 that look the same, and getting your own look isn’t easy.

One of Blogger’s big plus points is that it is both free and hosted by them: that is, they give you the webspace to run your blog on, all you have to do is sign up and start writing. However you can also do just that with WordPress.com and the result will be a blog that looks great, and has a lot more functionality.

If however, you intend to try and make some money through blogging (which is easy - making lots of money is another matter), or you have any desire to make it big in popularity terms, or you just want to retain complete control over every aspect of your blog, then WordPress.org (same organisation and platform, but different setup) is the choice for you. If you genuinely don’t care about money, fame or control, but just want to write, then WordPress.com or even Blogger will do you fine.

Whatever system you do decide to use, one choice will pay you back over and over - own your own domain name. Without it, whatever you write, and whatever you achieve will never be truly yours.

Installing & Using WordPress

When you install a blog from WordPress.org, you have to supply the webspace yourself, and I have written installation instructions for this here: Part 1 and Part 2. This is the full step by step installation, but you will find more and more webhosts offer an installation script called ‘Fantastico’ which reduces the whole thing to a couple of clicks and is highly recommended - ask your prospective host before signing up! I have installed WordPress for several people now, and it really is so easy - have a go, what’s the worst that can happen?

Themes: One of the first things you will want to do after installing WordPress is to customise your blog. The default installation will include some themes (another term for template) but you will be well advised to find your own. This post on where to find new themes and how to install them will get you started, and again, it’s much easier than it first sounds. Indeed, since writing that post, one of the many plugin authors has written a tool to help you install themes with one click and although you should know how to use the original method, you may prefer this one.

Found a theme that you like the look of, but wished the colours were just a bit different? Then read how to make simple blog format changes with CSS, and you can see how just altering a single code in your theme files can immediately change your colour scheme.

Plugins: These are simple collections of files (often just a single file) that you can upload to your blog, and add a new feature to it - it’s as simple as uploading the file, activating it and then enjoying the new feature, such as:

There are literally hundreds of plugins adding new facets to your blog, with more being added daily.

What Next?

You may want to setup a means to track your visitors, install a FavIcon, or just answer the question what do I do with my new blog?

But with all the fun of installation, don’t forget to actually start writing!

Feel free to ask me any questions on this post, and on future trawls through the archives I’ll be covering ways to increase your traffic, use RSS to syndicate your content, covering a selection of Quick Tips on various subjects, and ways to make money. If you don’t want to miss out, the easiest thing to do is subscribe to my RSS feed. If you don’t know how, just read this.

Thanks for visiting :-)