Blogger isn’t the only free blog site out there but it is by far the most popular to use when starting a blog.. Take a look on it and you will find 1,000 of crafters displaying their creations, showing different techniques and discussing all aspects of crafting. Blogging has become popular because it is a fairly simple way of creating your own little space on the internet without having any knowledge of coding or website building.
Choosing A Theme.
The most popular blogs aren’t ones about peoples lives, going grocery shopping, taking the kids to school etc. They are blogs giving advice and help on a specific subject or about your “work” around a specific topic. Choose a subject you are interested in and one which you feel you will find lots to write about. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t an expert in your chosen topic, in fact it may be more interesting if your readers can follow your learning process. So as this is about crafting we’ll assume your topic is craft related.
Making a start.
Obviously you will need to sign up at www.blogger.com, or what-ever other blog service you choose. We recommend you start your blog the “wrong way round”. Write 2 or 3 entries quite quickly before your worry about the layout or the design. Don’t worry too much about the entries, you will be able to edit them later. After writing your entries you can deal with the layout and design as it will be much easier to tell how it will look with the content there already.
Layout and Design.
Sorting out the layout can be as simple as choosing a template and maybe playing with its colours a little. Later on we will look at much more complicated designs and layouts but for the beginner it is better to stick with one of the pre-done layouts.
Widgets.
One of the clever things about blogger is the little “widgets” which can add to the side bar (you may have one side bar or two depending on which template you chose. To start with the only widget you will need is the Archive which will allow visitors to navigate to your older posts. You may also like to have the “Followers” one as this will encourage people to sign up to follow your site. It may be tempting to look at the 1,000’s of widgets available and add even more but this really is a case of less being more. Having to many widgets can be very distracting and can make your site look very cluttered. Many people will want you to install their unofficial widgets, probably because they contain adverts as well. Always ask yourself “does this add anything to my site”.
So now you should have a blog, with a theme and a few simple posts on it. Later we will look at improving the posts and just as important, getting visitors.
Starting a Blog.
Authored By: Bob Prentice.
