The first step toward blogging, I believe, is to decide if it is right for you and what you want. If you enjoy writing (no matter how lengthy or short) to some degree, or just want to reach out to the rest of the world somehow, I say go for it. Try it out. The rest will follow. If it doesn't work out, you've lost only a few minutes of your time to it and probably figured out what worked better because of it.
The second step in planning your blog, is to figure out which host/provider is right for you. I highly recommend Blogger / Blogspot for people of all ages and levels of internet expertise. However, to be fair, I would like to start off with a few others.
Wordpress - Personally, I have never really done very much with Wordpress. To be completely honest with you, the dashboard looks... well... boring? So, it doesn't interest me. However, I will say that having looked over the dashboard, Wordpress does seem fairly easy to use. I consider it the "popular-person's" blog as many prominent people use it. It would seem that many people who use Wordpress get a lot of comments on their blogs. I am uncertain if this is how it is across the board for Wordpress, or if it is simply because the blogs I have read there have usually been written by someone a bit more prominent or popular.
LiveJournal - This is where I started off my blogging. I have been blogging since... I believe sometime in 2006. In 2009, I chose to move all of my previous blogs here so that I could have the experience of more followers and a higher probability of gaining an audience. LJ (as it is referred to on the site) is very simple to use as far as posting goes, however, it becomes very difficult if you should want to edit your background by creating your own. Seriously, at one point, I pretty much deleted an old LJ because things got too hairy with my editing to make it pretty. Also, LJ wants to make money, so there are a lot of backgrounds to choose from, but only a select few are "free". So if you are a person who cares about the asthetic portion of your blog... don't use it. I was unable to gain much of a following here.
Blogger / Blogspot - This is my current favorite. I can be either simple or advanced, and still be quite happy with the outcome. Furthermore, it is similar to Wordpress without the boredom. I have greatly enjoyed gaining more of a following, and I have also heard from some who do not openly follow me that they do read and enjoy it. As far as editing the background goes, it is very simple to do. There are people all over the web whom I have learned a great deal from as they posted tutorials on their blogs teaching myself and others how to do much of what is done. I really recommend trying different things out if you are interested in creating your own.
There are many others out there that I have not mentioned. I recommend doing your own research for what you would like.
Homework:
Yes. We here in the blogging community do have "homework". But it's all good because it's fun. So here's what you'll need for the next tutorial -
- Come up with a screen name for yourself. Just in case, come up with 2-3, because chances are, you will not be able to use the first as it may be someone else's.
- Decide what you want your blog to be about. Do you want to do tutorials, reviews, create an online magazine? Or perhaps you just want to journal online or share recipes or photos. You can do whatever you choose to do with it. It's all yours.
- Decide on the title of your blog. What do you want to call it? I suggest something creative that has meaning to you and will continue to have meaning for you down the road. Make certain that it also relates in some way (even vaguely) to what you will be posting.
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