learn wordpress now – how to blog!

You’ve got something to say and a message to get across. What’s the quickest, easiest way to get online and find an audience for your pitch? Why, get a blog, of course!

But how do you get started when you know absolutely zilch about blogging?

Here’s the lowdown on how to blog, broken down into six easy steps.

1. Decide what you want your blog to look like. Sketch out on paper what a visitor would see on the screen and think about what the header (if any) will look like and how the user will navigate around. Work out what you are going to say in your blog and how often you will say it. It helps to start a list of the blog posts you’re going to write and when you are going to publish them.
2. Choose your blogging platform. Most blogging software is free but if someone else hosts your blog for free it may come with restrictions. If you want to own the blog and do exactly what you want without anyone imposing any rules you’ll want to go for a WordPress blog on your own domain. (That’s what this blog is!)
3. Chose a domain name. The best sort of domain is one where the words explain exactly what the blog is about. For example, if your blog is going to be about how to breed spiders then a good domain would be spiderbreeding.com (or.net or .info). Don’t make it your own name (joesoap.com) unless you are already a celebrity spider breeder.
4. Get a hosting account. This means signing up with a webhost company that will let you put your blog on their servers.  This costs a few bucks a month.
5. Install the blogging software (WordPress) and choose a design template for your blog that fits in with your ideas in 1. above.
6. Get blogging! Write your introduction or ‘welcome’ page. Write your ‘about’ page. Tell your visitors how to contact you. But primarily, establish a routine and start writing your blog posts: every day, every week, every month.

That, basically is ‘how to blog’. Want to know more? Download one of my tutorials and see these six easy steps fleshed out, step by step.

• How To Build A WordPress.com Blog (free, but with restrictions)
• How To Build A WordPress.org Blog (on your own domain, in your own hosting account)

Just do it!

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