“The RoseBouquet”

A quick review of the assignment last week in preparation for setting up a blog. You were to mull over or consider these questions;
1. What would you most enjoy writing about?
2. Picture your target reader. Who would you be writing to?
3. Go do a Google search to see if anyone else is doing that already. Is your angle better? Are they finding a following? Then you likely would too!
4. Prepare your personal testimony for the “About me” page.

You have those answers all written down or at the tip of your tongue? All right. Then let me guide you into starting your first blog.

First we need to consider some practical aspects.

If you consider yourself computer illiterate and you can’t handle anything more complicated than logging in to your email account at yahoo or gmail and posting an email, then we’ll stick to the very simplest blog of all.

If you are more computer savvy and would like something with more class, something you can personalize, and where you can control what ads appear there, or even make some money with your blog then I have another suggestion for you.

The Simplest Blog.

Go to one of the many web-based free blog sites and sign up for an account. Choose your username carefully as it is likely to be part of your blog’s address on the web. Would you do good evangelism if your blog address ends up as, //poopydiaper.blogspot.com? Maybe this would work better, //meaning-of-life.wordpress.com?

Where are those free blog sites?
wordpress.com
blogger.com
zooloo.com
livejournal.com
There are many more, if you want to do a search for them.

Plus, some that charge;
Typepad.com (free trial period then < $5/month)
squarespace.com 14 day free trial - (5 price plans!)

This site has done a review of the top 10 and compares them;
blog-services-review.toptenreviews.com/

Now, there is a certain stigma that comes with a blog that is a sub-domain of another site, such as yourname.blogger.com (the part before the first dot is a sub-domain). There is also the matter that on many of those blogs, the true site owner will put up advertising banners and make money on the clicks from YOUR visitors to the blog. You usually cannot delete a blog you start there. The site owner would rather leave it up so they can continue to profit from those ads.

The second option, should you want to avoid those negatives, is to get a domain (you can do register one at GoDaddy.com for less than $10/yr), and some low priced hosting service. Then you download and install the free WordPress software from WordPress.org, following the instructions. You can hunt through 100s of free templates and personalize your blog so that it is distinctively your own. It is possible to switch between templates or “looks” with just a click or two selecting the one you want today.

You will learn some things as you go, but I would strongly advise installing the Akismet plugin to handle the spam of people hoping to place comments on your blog that will draw traffic to their “unwise” sites.

With either type of blog, you then must bookmark your login page, and make a regular habit of going there to post your thought-provoking blog entries. in WordPress (and some others) you can with a click activate auto-notification to some blog directories and feeds that you have a new post entered, and this will start to draw visitors to your blog.

From there on it is up to you to write good content that will win over friends and present the good evangel to those open to it.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to search and visit other blogs to see what they are saying, and perhaps making a good comment so that that blogger will come to see your blog. All with discretion and good manners, mind you, remembering the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.

P.S. I offer a hosting service at an excellent price, and could install WordPress for you for a very reasonable fee, if you don’t mind waiting until I can fit you in.