From Connie's Consultant Class of March 24, 2013
How to set up a Blogspot Blog
A blog really isn't anything complicated. It is basically a means for publishing your work on the web in an easy to read and easy to update format. Some blogs are very personal, akin to a journal, while others are more like a newspaper or magazine. Blogspot (also called Blogger) is free and is easy to use.
To set up a blog:
• At the start page for blogger, click on link that says "create your blog now." Blogger now is part of Google, so if you have a Google account (which allows for things like gmail) you should use that to set up your new blogger account. If you don't have a Google account you will need to set one up. Be sure to check the "terms of service" box. (One should really read through the terms but the rules are pretty standard for this sort of service.) Save your username and password some place. In fact, I would encourage you to write it down some place. Don't lose this!
• When you're done, click on the "continue" button, which will take you to another page. If you did something wrong or you supplied a username or password that doesn't work, Blogger will stop you from proceeding until you fix the error.
• The "Blog Title" will be what appears in the title portion of your blog. I recommend you make it something that reflects what the blog is about, hence mine is Stampgram’s Studio because it is where I share my art. Some people like to just name theirs with a name like Connie’s Place. That is fine too.
• For the address of your blog, It is helpful to use your username. So, in my case, the blogger blog address is http://stampgram.blogspot.com/ Unless you know what you're doing with ftp functions, you should use blogspot.com to host your blog. The "word verification" section is a security set-up the blogger folks have; simply type in the word you see in the funky font into the provided box. Click "continue" when you're done.
• You can choose any template you want for your blog, and you can also change the template later if you would like. Click continue when you're done.
• After waiting a few moments, you should get a screen that says your blog has been created. Good for you! Click on the "start posting" arrow and you are ready to go!
Step 2: Get posting!
• The posting screen for blogger is pretty straight-forward. Give your entries a title, type in the appropriate window, and use the editing tools for your blog entry as you want. To post or "publish" your post, click the "Publish" button. If you start writing something but you don't want to post it until later, click "Save" to save it as a draft.
• It is a good idea to give your posts some labels. This will make it possible to search for that post in the future. To do this click on "labels" and enter some topics separated by commas. For this post I am giving it the following labels: Connie, blog set up.
• Scheduling a post. Maybe you want your post to publish at a different date or time. You can create it now and have it post automatically at the date and time you choose. First make sure the time zone is set to your own zone. (How to do this further down in this post.)
• Click on "Schedule", click "set date and time"
• Choose the date from the calendar
• Add the time you want it to post.
• Click "Done".
• When you publish your post, blogger will process the information and then, if everything worked (and it usually does), it will give you the option to "view blog." Take a look at it; you should notice a couple of things:
1. The address for your blog-- something like http://stampgram.blogspot.com/ -- is the address for your blog.
2. Readers should be able to post a comment to your post by clicking on the "comments" link.
Step 3: Do some adjustments to your account
• There are a number of different things you might want to do to make your blog a bit more useful. But here are a couple of things you really should do no matter what.
• Blocking blog spam. I know, hard to believe, but yes, the world of spamming extends to blogs too. Fortunately, Blogger has a pretty decent security feature that will eliminate almost all spam posts from your blog. Here's what to do: If you aren't already logged in, log in to your Blogger account. You did remember your username and password, right?
• From the "Dashboard" screen, click on the name of your blog.
• Click on the tab "Settings."
• Click on the link near the top of that page under the tabs labeled "Comments."
• Set "Who Can Comment?" to "Only Registered Users." It isn't essential that you do this, but I'd recommend it.
• A bit further down, set "Show word verification for comments?" to "Yes." This is a security feature that requires the comment poster to type a specific word that shows up as slightly distorted text in a window.
• Select "Save Settings" at the bottom of the page.
• Time zone. It'd be nice if the time was right on your blog, right? Here's how to do that: If you aren't already logged in, log in to your Blogger account.
• From the "Dashboard" (or Design) screen, click on the name of your blog.
• Click on the tab "Settings." (It is toward the bottom of the left sidebar).
• Click on the link labeled "Language and Formatting."
• Under "Time Zone," select the right time zone.
• Select "Save Settings".
• Doing things to customize your blogger blog. There's lots of stuff you can do customize your blog. At a minimum, I'd recommend including some links to your family or friend’s blogs or other blogs you like to read, but there are a lot of other things you can do, too-- include pictures, lists of stuff you like, etc.
• If you aren't already logged in, log in to your Blogger account. From the "Dashboard" screen, click on the name of your blog.
• Click on "Layout".
• You should see a sketch of how your blog layout looks. Click on " Add a Gadget" From here, chose the type of gadget you want. Be sure to save you page element (gadget) additions and double-check that it worked.
• Repeat for each type of gadget you want to add. ALWAYS SAVE your changes after additions or changes. This is all you need to do to set up your blogger interface (though, as you can see further down on this page, there are some other things you will probably want to try to do sooner than later). Easy, right?
To post to your blogger blog from now on, here's all you need to do:
• Once again, go to http://www.blogger.com
• Log in with your username and your password. DO NOT click on the "create your blog now" because that will just get you back to step 1.
• After you log in, you should get to your blogger "dashboard" which has a link to your blog.
• Click the link to manage the blog or click on "New Post" to make a new post to the blog.
This information is adapted and updated from an article by Steven Krause found at http://www.stevendkrause.com/academic/docuverse/blogger.html
No comments:
Post a Comment