How to Create a Blog

Over the past few years blogging has really taken off. Thousands of blogs are started each day with CNN stating recently that 1 blog every half a second is created. If you want to jump on to this train then follow along these instructions on how to create your own blog and start writing what you want on to the internet.

Where to Start

There are a number of blogging systems available across the internet which start from very easy to setup to a little more complicated. I will cover a few of the ways to get your self online.

The first choice you need to make is if you want your own domain name or if you want to use the free services of wordpress or blogger. If you go the free route then you will need to choose a name for your blog and if using wordpress it will be in the format of yoursite.wordpress.com or in the case of blogger you will get yoursite.blogspot.com. Signup for a free service takes just a few minutes. Once you have signed up you can then follow the simple online options and choose from several templates and get your blog up and running with in minutes.

If you want to host the blog on your own domain then you need to own web hosting account and use an FTP account to upload your files. The next step is to choose which blogging platform you want to use. There are several available such as wordpress, drupal, dasblog and movable type. My personal favourite is wordpress as it is a highly popular blogging platform, it is free and has many users in the community building plug-ins which enhance what the blog can do. Also you will find a lot of free templates to change the style of your blog.

First step to installing wordpress is to download the latest version from the wordpress site. Once downloaded, unzip the contents to a folder on your hard drive and rename the file in that folder wp-config-sample.php to wp-config.php. You then need to edit the file and enter database details of your MySQL database. If you use a control panel with your host you may be able to create the database, username and password and specify them in the code. If you are unsure what the values should be then post on our forum or check with your host. Next, you need to upload the files with your FTP software to the server and place them either in the root folder if you want your blog to work at www.yoursite.com or in to a folder if you prefer www.yoursite.com/blog. Now that the files are uploaded you just need to navigate to your blog, add wp-admin/install.php on the end of the URL and follow the onscreen prompts.

Now that your blog is either setup on a free blogging provider or on your own domain you are now ready to enter the world of blogging. Just be sure to update your blog regularly and keep those visitors coming back for more.