Hosting your blog –
Hosting your blog Free Hosts On your Website A Separate Blog Site
Costs free No additional cost other than your existing hosting charges Approximately 150 $’s, to register a domain name and buy webspace.
Advantages : No loss if you decide to stop, good way to start off into blogging later you could shift purchasing your own domain You can be sure that blog stays online as long as you decide to and you have complete control over your blog. You can have substantial revenues through advertisements and affiliate link marketing.
Disadvantages : Your blog can be removed by your provider if you don’t stay within their guidelines You jeopardize your liberty of leaving your blog unattended as it can reflect a careless webmaster The costs and the loss if you decide to pull out your blog.
We are going to look extensively at one method of setting up your blog with a free host and lay out the guidelines to host on your own domain, if you are planning to host on your own domain then you need to familiarize yourself with it on the guide to setting up web hosting guide available free on the calicutnet.com/it it education zone.
Step1. Go to http://www.blogger.com and click on the arrow “Create your blog now”
Step 2. Create your account – Here you will enter details like username/password (make sure you write it down in a safe place or not to forget it, you will always require these to update your blog or edit posted information)
Check the ‘I agree with the terms and conditions’ and move on to step 3.
Step 3. Name the Blog – The best name for your blog is to match it to the topic that you are intending to write about rather than using “my blog” or “blog1”. Give some thought into naming your blog because it won’t attract much attention without an appealing name and also make sure the name is easy to remember so the reader comes back to you or refers a friend to read your blog. Once you have decided on the name and description for your blog fill it out. You are nearly done with setting up your blogging account; it gets a lot more interesting from now on. Ignore the advance settings arrow [this is a function by blogger.com to set up their blogging service on your own domain space, we shall discuss this in the next half of this chapter]. Click on continue and go to step 4.
Step 4. Choose a template – use your creative side now, think about the topic your blogging on and invest your thought into this area because once you start your blogging then it would be very unpleasant to change your template as your readers tend to get used to these attributes of your blog. But you can always upgrade your template and there are no restrictions, choose a templates that suits you best and continue.
Step 6: Congratulations – Your blogging account is ready and now you are a blogger. Are you ready for seeing your first blog post on the net, read on – these guides are brought to improve IT awareness at no cost to you by calicutnet.com but, these are highly professional guidelines for which you would normally have to pay a fortune on the internet, information is money in the information age, so the more you are equipped with it the more you can accomplish, we empower you, check out our other guides on calicutnet.com/it. Continue to your first blog post:
In case you are planning to set up your blog on your own domain and host check out this guide to know all about web hosting and come back to this guide
www.calicutnet.com/it/domain_registration/name_registration_guide.htm
www.calicutnet.com/it/web-hosting/web_hosting_guide.htm
The following are the guidelines of a blog keep them in your mind at all times throughout your blogging future, you are not limited to any of them, be most creative and try to add enhanced ideas to make your blog more interesting, always think out of the box, but to think out of the box, you need to know what is inside a box. Here they are:
Blog guidelines:
• Personal, casual or informal, transparent and frequently updated.
• Journal entries in reverse order (most current on top)
• Includes links to third parties
• Includes reader comments
• Includes “Trackback” function showing who is linking to it
• Includes “Blogroll” (links to other Bloggers)
• Offers RSS feed (In detail in the next chapters)
• Includes archives of past entries
Sample Blogger Code of Ethics from Forrester’s Charlene Li:
• I will tell the truth.
• I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
• I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
• I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.
• I will never delete a post.
• I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
• I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
• I will strive for high quality with every post – including basic spell checking.
• I will stay on topic.
• I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
• I will link to online references and original source materials directly.
• I will disclose conflicts of interest.
• I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships
Some other providers of blog hosting and blog content are mentioned below, check them or you will need them at later stages in your blogging future, bookmark this page in your favorites tab to check back even later.
http://www.blogcatalog.com
http://www.bloguniverse.com
http://www.bloggingnetwork.com
http://www.bloghosts.com
http://www.diaryland.com
http://gob.phaeba.net
http://www.greatestjournal.com
http://www.blogdrive.com
http://www.orblogs.com
http://www.weblogs.nu/directory
You have to get the word around that you have a blog and make sure that you have put in your best effort before you start gaining visitor hits, and once you have visitors make sure you request them to spread the word of your blog, search other blogs, doing similar activity as your blog via blog searching engines like http://blogsearch.google.com, and link them to your blog and ask them for a back-link, A blogs rating and search rankings depend on the number of pointing inwards from other blogs to your blog and based on the originality and quantity of quality content.
You would like to read some texts about link building, search engine optimization content writing, and more blogs in your chosen area to build a blog that can turn itself into a real web hit.
In the next chapter we shall learn a very important technique ignored by many webmasters, Interactivity is one of the main elements, how many times have you gone back to a website that has never asked you for any information about you or your opinion or comment, when you make your blog make sure you add forms and areas where visitors can interact with your blog.
This guide and many more guides are available for free on www.calicutnet.com/it for you to equip yourself with more knowledge when diving into the internet.