First, decide why you want to write a blog (for professional reasons - career building, or for your own pleasure). It is an important decision regarding your audience and the range of topics you will write about.

There are several types of bloggers.

• The Barber: knows the right people and wisdom
• The Blacksmith: like the Barber but works inside a company
• The Bridge: makes connections
• The Window: blogs inside company but also talks about things outside the company
• The Signpost: points out interesting things about a specific topic
• The Pub: creates discussions to bring in people
• The Newspaper: reports on news and happenings like a journalist

Source: Blog Marketing

Blogs can be hosted on their own dedicated hosting server or can be run using remote blog softwares such as WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, Windows Live Writer, LiveJournal and others. The Online Journalism Review published a comparison chart of some of the more popular blogging softwares.



Many weblog applications are available for users to download and install on their own systems. A wide variety of licenses are used by user hosted weblog software. Some of these are free and open-source that can be used, modified, and redistributed freely under free-software and open-source licenses. Others are proprietary software that may be licensed for a fee or have versions available free of charge.

In this course, we will use Wordpress.com and Blogger.com as an example and you can learn how to launch your own blog in a step-by-step tutorial.

WordPress is an open source blog publishing application.



First, click on the sign up button on Wordpress.com.



Fill the forms and choose Just a username, please. if you would like to give a different name to your blog.

Check your e-mail to complete registration and update your profile.

Now you can access the Global Dashboard.



In order to create a new blog, click on Register a new blog:



You have to specify a name, a title and the language which means you can set an own blog up in minutes.



Now welcome to your own blog!

Now you have a blog so what you only have to do is to improve and customize it. Access your own admin dashboard by visiting the following link: http://yourblogsname.wordpress.com/wp-admin/ and you should see something like this:

A short review of the buttons:

• Write: You can start writing a new post (a blog article you publish in a reverse chronological order), a new page (a static page on your blog, e.g. About me or Contact) or a new link in your blogroll (a list of links you prefer to visit regularly).




• Manage: You can edit, organize or delete all the posts, pages, tags and links you published. You can also access the media library containing the media files you uploaded.




• Design: Choose which theme to use as a layout for your blog. Edit the list of widgets and extras.




• Comments: Approve, unapprove, delete comments or mark them as spam. Here you can manage the comments you receive on your blog.




• Upgrades: You can purchase credits to buy an own domain, storage upgrade or custom CSS.

If you are on a Wordpress blog, click on Blog Info - Subscribe to this blog to follow its updates automatically.

Boxes on the main page

The admin dashboard consists of several boxes that can facilitate the way you are organizing your blog. In the Right Now box, there is a compilation of the numbers of your posts, comments, tags, categories, drafts, etc.



Recent Comments lets you access the latest comments on your posts.



Recent Links shows you how and where put a link to your site.



Stats shows you the number of pageviews; the list of top posts and searches (how users can find you in search engines).



Your Stuff keeps you updated about what is happening on your blog (who leaves a comment, when you publish a post, etc.).

Tabs on the main page

• Blog Stats: Wordpress lets you browse your statistics that can help you which topic to write about again. The list of referrers helps you who links to your blog. Usually, the more incoming links you have, the more your blog is worth (higher page rank; bigger network). The search terms are shown below these boxes and can help you how readers find your blog in search engines. If you want to be easily found through some specific search terms, mention those more often in your posts. The list of clicks represent the links that are the most popular on your blog.




• Blog Surfer: It lets you follow your favourite Wordpress blogs. When you are on a blog that you find interesting, click on the Blog Info -> Subscribe to this blog button, so you can follow the latest posts under the Blog Surfer tab.






• My Comments: It is important to build your own network by leaving comments on other blogger's posts and participating actively in discussionsin the blogosphere. If you leave comments on several Wordpress blogs, it becomes compicated to follow the upcoming discussions so under My Comments, you can watch how others reply to you.




• Tag Surfer: If you prefer following tags instead of following particular blogs, subscribe to tags by using the box below and watch what the whole Wordpress blogosphere has to say about your favourite terms and subjects.

Step 1: To create a blog on Blogger.com, sign in with your Google Account or just click on the Create your blog now button and create a Google account.





Step 2: Name your blog and the url of your blog (checking availability is useful).



Step 3: Choose a template that you like the most and that is all. Don't worry you can customize your template later.



Click on Start blogging and write your first post.

Next to Write, you can find the Settings and Layout tabs. If you need a new widget, just drag and drop in the main box.