Blogging 101.1

Get Yerself a Blog

 

I am writing from the perspective of someone who uses blogger. There are a few reasons for this: free wordpress has issues. Their customer service sucks. I moved here. It works well. I've never needed customer service.

I also love the fact that, if I already have an account with any of Google's services, I have access to ALL of their services. (Do you have any idea how many account passwords I lose every year? This helps with that issue- A LOT!)

So, if you already use something like G+, you just need to take a trip over to blogger.com and sign in. If you don't have a Google account, you will need to sign up when you get there.

(If some of these steps are a little base to you, I apologize. Better safe than sorry!)

Create the Blog

 

I have two blogs, so my screen looks different than yours will if you don't have a blog yet. (In that case, you won't see any blogs on your 'dashboard' yet). Click 'New Blog'.

This will lead you to a prompt to give a title and url that looks like this:

First, pick a title for your new blog. If this is specifically, for your shop... that works as a title.

(Because blogs that are strictly sale pitch tend to fall on deaf ears and I have lots of other things to talk about, Happy.Happy.Happy.Happy.Gay is intended as a mix of arts and crafts, human rights and "can we please do something about Global Warming before we all drown?" with a side of "please buy something". So... all the things that make me happy, with a hint of Marriage Equality- cuz... it'd make me happy!)

Second, put in the url you want for your blog.

Unlike some sites, on blogger, you come up with the URL. It should match the title you chose as closely as possible to keep it memorable. Ultimately, it's your choosing, but try to keep it short and devoid of unnecessary punctuation marks. 

(If you are using your shop name as your blog title, it's not gonna make sense if the URL is something like iloveveronicamars.blogspot.com. Not only does it not make sense, it'll make it hard to remember. Sooo... do your best to get matching title and URL. At the same time, try to keep it short enough to be remembered. And... none_of_this-crap-   weird punctuations just make URLs hard to remember. Don't shoot yourself in the foot.)

Third, pick a template. Don't fret, this can be changed at a later date. Trust me, I don't like what I have up... I'ma screw with it till I get it right. (That's a later class... I'm not out to make your head explode, I promise!)

It's worth noting that you won't be allowed to hit 'create' until you've selected a unique URL. If someone else has the web id that you have chosen, the button will be inactive. Once you have corrected the issue, the button will become bright orange.

 Hitting create will take us back to the dashboard:

Congratulations! You have now created a blog... using it is another matter...


As you can see from the above illustration, the creation of a new blog will cause a banner to open on the dashboard, prompting you to make a new post or dismiss. This is the only time you will ever see this banner. From here out, if you want to make a post, push the pencil. Pun intended.

Onward, to part 2!