Why You Should Love… Blogging

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To kick off the Chad’s new technology blog and my Why You Should Love… series of tutorials, I thought it made sense to start with blogs themselves.

All you need to know is:

1. Saying interesting things is fun.  There’s something very satisfying about getting support for your opinions, and even having someone disagree with you is recognition that what you are writing is interesting (unless you are writing something stupid for the sake of it).  

And if people feel strongly about what you are saying, it’s likely they will use your blog’s comment system to leave a message. Then someone else might come along and decide to comment on both what the previous commenter said and what you said, and so on. Everyone knows how much fun a chat about a controversial issue at the pub can be. Blogging is just an extension of that.

Don’t forget, another advantage of blogging (that is especially enviable for us reporters) is that no one cares how you write. There’s no style to keep to, or word limit. Just write. What you write is far more important to the success of your blog.

 

2. Blogging is easy. It’s no more complicated than you sitting down and writing about your opinions on ANYTHING. Whether that your opinion on how to revitalise  Mansfield’s flagging music scene or your answer to the Obama vs McCain? question is entirely up to you. 

Of course, internet users have been posting their opinions on websites for years – long before someone decided to call that blogging. But now we have websites like WordPress (the site that looks after this blog)  which make things much more exciting by channelling other people who are interested in what you are writing towards your blog (more on tags another time).

 Obviously, the number of people attracted to your blog depends on how interesting the subject you picked to blog about is. But the beauty of the internet is that even if your topic is as niche as, say, stereoscopic photography – there’s bound to be someone else out there who likes that too.

3. The software used to create blogs is easy, and free.  WordPress is a fantastic tool.  To get started, visit www.wordpress.com and hit the Sign Up Now! button. Enter a few details and you are up and away. Beware, the username you pick will also form the address of your blog. For example, Chadtechnology is our user name, so the blog’s address is chadtechnology.wordpress.com

  Once you receive a confirmation email from WordPress, you are ready to blog.

You will be taken to your Dashboard, which is a fancy name for the bit where you design and manage your blog. Imagine the sort of features you would want if had your own website (and how much time and money that would cost). The Dashboard can do most of it for you in seconds.

To make things bit prettier than the standard template and set yourself out from the crowd, first choose a theme.  If you hit design, you will be presented with lots of beautifully designed themes and a variety of layouts. If you decide you don’t like it, don’t worry - you can change it at any time.

Change the picture and wording at the top of your blog as soon as you can, it makes all the difference. Hit Design again, then custom image header to change the image. You can use your own or just change the colour of what’s there already. Change the text (which will say something like Just another WordPress Blog) by hitting the Settings button, and change the Tagline. You can also rename your blog here if you wish.

Add a small picture of yourself, or something that represents your blog, by clicking on the Users button.  You will be the only user, so click on the name and from there, you can upload your pic. It’s such a very small picture so if you want it to be of you, just use a headshot.

4. Get blogging ASAP.  Hit Write, write something, spell check it, then publish it. It’s that easy! But you’re not quite done yet. Think of words that relate to your blog, then add them as Tags, using the Tags box at the bottom of the bit where you wrote your blog. For example, if you were talking about Mansfield music, you might want to include the names of the relevant venues (Black Market, Town Mill, Intake etc) It just means that more people will pointed in the right direction, towards your blog.

That’s it for now. More on blogs soon.

 

Any questions or suggestions, leave a comment!

Tags: Ashfield, Blogs for beginners, getting started with Wordpress, internet beginners, Mansfield, Mansfield Chad, Nottinghamshire