Setting up a blog on Blogger

Sarah Sutherland gave out some notes on how to set up a blog as part of the session I did with you all last Tuesday. If you didn't get those or lost them, this post just recaps the essentials from those notes. It's a bit long but it covers everything you need to know to get started, I think.

First, go to Blogger and click on the Create Your Blog Now link. As the Blogger front page says, setting up a blog involves three steps – creating an account with Google, choosing a name for your blog and then a design template.

Creating an account

This is pretty straightforward. If you have a Google Mail account, you will already have done what you need. If not, you need to sign up with Google, give them your email, set a password etc.

Watch out for one thing – Google/Blogger will send an activation email to the address you give – you’ll need to click on the link in the email to activate your account and your blog properly.

When you log in to Blogger after you've set up your account, your user name will be the email address you gave them.

Choosing a name

This can take a while. Blogger hosts millions of blogs. So there’s a fair chance the name you want will be taken. If it is, try combinations of words and numbers. The name you choose will form part of your blog address – also known as the url.

Blogger offers to host your blog on its Blogspot hosting service. At some point in the future, you can choose to host it elsewhere if you want. But for the moment, go for Blogspot.

That will make your blog address http://yourblogname.blogspot.com

In this section, you also get the chance to set your screen name - this is the name that appears after posts you write. You can go with your full name. Alternatively, if you want to remain relatively anonymous, go for your first name or even a nickname.

Picking a template

When it comes to the design of your blog, Blogger offers a number of pre-packaged templates to choose from. The choice on offer isn’t brilliant at first. But once your blog is set up, you will be able to tweak this template in various ways. You will also be able to choose from a wider range of templates.

So don’t waste too much time on this. Just pick whichever one you find the least offensive.

Writing your first post

Once you’ve done this, you’re in a position to set up your blog. However, it won’t appear until you’ve created a post. Blogger will offer you the opportunity to do this straight after you’ve chosen your template. Click on Start Posting and you go to the Posting window.

This looks rather like the kind of windows you see on web email services. You’ve got spaces to enter the title of your post, then a main window where you write the body copy. You can format that post in simple ways using the buttons at the top of the window.

NB - Make sure you’re in the Compose window, not the Edit HTML window – the latter shows you the code that underlies your blog, as well as the things you write.

Adding Links

The web is all about building links - between sites, documents and people. It's easy to add links to your blog - to interesting things you find online or sites created by other people on the course. To do it, you use the Link button - the one that features a chain link.

So - how do you add a link? Say you mention The Guardian in a post and want to turn it into a link, so people can click on the word and go direct to the site. To do that, highlight The Guardian then click the Link button.

A dialog box comes up asking you to enter the web address for the link you want to add. In this case, add http://www.guardian.co.uk. Then click OK. The link will be added to the copy. Don’t forget the http part. That's it. When you publish the post, the words The Guardian will appear with a link embedded.

Adding Images
You can add pictures using the Add Image button – it features what looks like a miniature landscape. Click this and you can then upload a picture you’ve got on your computer or link to one online somewhere.

Blogger lets you make some simple choices about where to put the picture and how big to make it. Play around with this a little to see what suits you best.

If you do choose to use/link to a picture from another site, it's good blogging ethics to mention where you got the picture from and add a link to the site. Most bloggers like the idea of sharing content/ideas, so long as people give credit for where they got things from.

OK - that's enought to get you started - remember, if you get stuck, try the Blogger Help pages, which are pretty comprehensive.