All you have to do is make a quick search in google for "About Blogs" or "Blog information" and you'll quickly find yourself inundated with so much material that you'll probably feel like trotting off somewhere to hide your head under a blanket. Before you know it, you'll get forwarded to articles on incomprehensible things containing bewildering terms like how to "hack" a "template" (or some other nonsense) and you'll probably find yourself sitting before your monitor with a glassy-eyed stare nodding vaguely in agreement as though you were trying to convince a third-party observer that the conversation hasn't left you completely behind.
Sometimes it feels like everybody else in the whole world has already achieved the rank of "Enlightened Grand-Master Blogger" and they're able to do magical tricks and pirouettes with their web pages that just leave your head spinning.
Needless to say, it's discouraging.
That's the way I felt a little over a month ago when I decided to try my hand at this Blogger business. Like most people, I wanted to throw in the towel in the first few minutes. However, I've stuck with it, and now, only a short four weeks later, I feel pretty confident that I can find the solution to just about any blog problem that arises.
The first trick you need to learn is to simply not start thinking too far ahead. Take it one step at a time and solve each problem as they come to you. When you start being concerned about an issue that isn't even likely to be an obstacle until you get fifty miles down the road, you tend to lose heart and prematurely abandon an otherwise completely sea-worthy vessel.
So that's my main point for this article. Commit yourself to starting small and taking baby steps. Soon the sense of frustration that you feel at all the blog issues people are talking about will turn into exhilaration for all the new things you have to learn about and explore.
But getting back to baby steps, and these are some ultra baby steps (this is the "Idiot's Guide" after all now isn't it?).
How do you start up your blog? Well first of all, I would recommend getting an e-mail account at www.gmail.com. Although you probably already have an e-mail, it's a good idea to set up a new one for "blog-related" things (it just keeps you more organized). G-mail is Google's e-mail service and it is a great e-mail option. For those of you used to yahoo, G-mail has some features that you're going to really like.
Once you have your G-mail account, go to www.blogger.com. Another popular blogger is www.wordpress.com. In fact, most of the discussion groups I have looked through seem to suggest Wordpress is better than Blogger. However, Blogger has the advantage of being owned by Google. What that means is that when it comes time for you to start up your Adsense account, you get it activated a lot more quickly if your blog is with Blogger (if you don't know what Adsense is, don't worry about it, but trust me on the fact that you're going to want it eventually).
Starting up your actual Blog is easy. All you have to do is type in a name (if the name you want has been taken, try a variation), pick a template (don't get too bogged down with the choices, just pick one so you can get started...you can change it later), and start posting. Congratulations! The Blog is up and you're on your way.
Before you try to do anything else, just play around with the basics of blogger for a while. Get a feel for writing things and putting them out there. Just remember that anything you put on a blog is available to anyone who's got access to the internet (yup, pretty much the whole world). Even though you aren't likely to get too many visitors to your web at first, you should still use some discretion.
So there you go. The Blog is up and running! See, that wasn't all that hard at all. But never fear, there's plenty more to come that will befuddle, challenge and...yes...probably frustrate you. When you start feeling overwhelmed, just keep your head up and try to remember how boring a world it would be if everything was easy!
Sometimes it feels like everybody else in the whole world has already achieved the rank of "Enlightened Grand-Master Blogger" and they're able to do magical tricks and pirouettes with their web pages that just leave your head spinning.
Needless to say, it's discouraging.
That's the way I felt a little over a month ago when I decided to try my hand at this Blogger business. Like most people, I wanted to throw in the towel in the first few minutes. However, I've stuck with it, and now, only a short four weeks later, I feel pretty confident that I can find the solution to just about any blog problem that arises.
The first trick you need to learn is to simply not start thinking too far ahead. Take it one step at a time and solve each problem as they come to you. When you start being concerned about an issue that isn't even likely to be an obstacle until you get fifty miles down the road, you tend to lose heart and prematurely abandon an otherwise completely sea-worthy vessel.
So that's my main point for this article. Commit yourself to starting small and taking baby steps. Soon the sense of frustration that you feel at all the blog issues people are talking about will turn into exhilaration for all the new things you have to learn about and explore.
But getting back to baby steps, and these are some ultra baby steps (this is the "Idiot's Guide" after all now isn't it?).
How do you start up your blog? Well first of all, I would recommend getting an e-mail account at www.gmail.com. Although you probably already have an e-mail, it's a good idea to set up a new one for "blog-related" things (it just keeps you more organized). G-mail is Google's e-mail service and it is a great e-mail option. For those of you used to yahoo, G-mail has some features that you're going to really like.
Once you have your G-mail account, go to www.blogger.com. Another popular blogger is www.wordpress.com. In fact, most of the discussion groups I have looked through seem to suggest Wordpress is better than Blogger. However, Blogger has the advantage of being owned by Google. What that means is that when it comes time for you to start up your Adsense account, you get it activated a lot more quickly if your blog is with Blogger (if you don't know what Adsense is, don't worry about it, but trust me on the fact that you're going to want it eventually).
Starting up your actual Blog is easy. All you have to do is type in a name (if the name you want has been taken, try a variation), pick a template (don't get too bogged down with the choices, just pick one so you can get started...you can change it later), and start posting. Congratulations! The Blog is up and you're on your way.
Before you try to do anything else, just play around with the basics of blogger for a while. Get a feel for writing things and putting them out there. Just remember that anything you put on a blog is available to anyone who's got access to the internet (yup, pretty much the whole world). Even though you aren't likely to get too many visitors to your web at first, you should still use some discretion.
So there you go. The Blog is up and running! See, that wasn't all that hard at all. But never fear, there's plenty more to come that will befuddle, challenge and...yes...probably frustrate you. When you start feeling overwhelmed, just keep your head up and try to remember how boring a world it would be if everything was easy!
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