Want to Write a Personal Blog? This is how you set it up

Someone once commented that it is blogs that are causing the internet to grow.  This is probably true with well over 200 million blogs in the world and growing all the time.

Blogging is one of the best ways to build a personal or business brand. There are many reasons to blog. The evolution of business and technology is making writers of us all.

Everyone has something to say and everyone has something to contribute.  You will be amazed to find that there are people in the world who share interests with you and would love to read what you have to say. Even if you don’t intend having a large audience writing and posting a blog is a way to get stories out of your head and into the world.

So you’re all fired up, how to do it?

This post of mine is not intended to be an exhaustive “how-to” but rather a gentle point in the direction to get you going.

The worlds two biggest and free blog sites are Blogger.com and WordPress.com.  There are hundreds more but these are the most well known. Blogger is owned by Google and WordPress has a wonderful community which is a very good resource for help.  So it pretty much comes down to preference.

Don’t get lost in technicalities or worrying that you might be doing it wrong.  You’ll learn as you go.  The good news is that even if you mess up, right now very few people are watching. Blogging builds on it’s own momentum.  As Nike said in the 80s, Just Do It!

It’s a piece of cake to get started.  For Blogger, go to www.blogger.com you will need a Google account if you don’t already have one.  If not just follow the instructions to set one up.  From there is couldn’t be easier.  You’ll be presented with a detail or two to fill in and then click ‘next’.  You’re on your way. The page you are now on is your “dashboard” and it from here that you will customise the look and feel of your blog. Keep it simple and start writing.

For wordpress go to wordpress.com and click the big orange button that says “Get Started”.  Follow the instructions and you’ll be blogging in no time.

I’d be happy to help you with any specific concerns or questions so feel free to leave a question in the comments or email me at Ryan@Hogarth.co.za.

Good luck.