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Warning: this article, by necessity, touches on some technical webmastering details. If you want to set up a blog but do not want to use a free host, then this article is for you. However, if you find it too technical, you may want to consult a a friend who understands this stuff. I’ll do my best to keep the technical aspects to a minimum. I do not provide specific details of installation and configuration.

So, you’ve decided to forego a free host and use your own web domain for your new blog because of the freedom it affords you. The steps to do so are functionally simple, but there are important differences compared to using a free host. Here are the general steps:

1. Choose a domain name for your blog that best represents what you will be writing about.
• When you choose a domain name, you might consider the terms “blog”, “diary”, “journal”, or “letters” as part of the name. There are some bloggers who think that the term “blog” might not be in use in a few years. I personally don’t think it matters that much: use what you are comfortable with.
• Unfortunately, a lot of short, popular keywords and phrases have already been registered as domain names. You may have to come up with a large list of name options, and check them in decreasing order of preference.
• There are a number of websites that offer free domain name checking. For example, http://www.internic.ca, http://www.internic.com, and variations thereof for several other countries. Most Internet hosting providers also offer a domain name checking service that tells you whether the name is taken or not.
• If you plan to use your website to promote your business, it is recommended that you register your domain name for at least two years. This helps your standing in the Search Engines, and indicates that you intend to do serious business on the Internet instead of becoming a “spammer”. Of course, if you are promoting your business, the domain name should probably be similar to your business name. Your blog can then simply be setup in a subdirectory of your domain.
2. Choose a hosting plan.
• Once your domain is registered, you need to pay for the monthly cost of site bandwidth. With most hosting providers, you can register a domain and set up the hosting all in one session. However, you should understand the difference:
• Registering a domain name is like registering a business name with the government, but it also gives you your future web address, or URL.
• Setting up a hosting plan is the equivalent of paying for monthly rent for an office space for your business. If you choose the right hosting provider, you can do all the setup in one place.
• Compare the hosting plans of several hosting providers. Most of them will let you upgrade later, painlessly. But changing providers later is a pain and is best avoided, so choose carefully. If you’re just starting out, there’s no need to spend lots of money getting advanced hosting plans. Unless you have tons of money and plan a huge promotional campaign. In which case, it’s unlikely you need to read the rest of this article or series
3. Set up your blog. Here’s where things could get technical, and there are a lot of options.
• If you don’t have a technical friend you can rely on, your hosting provider may offer a service where they do this for you, as part of their hosting account package, or may charge you a setup fee. One of my providers has an administrative panel where you can enter some information (such as your new blog’s name, etc), and the blog will be set up for you after you click “install”. Many providers offer this type of easy install, but they do not always have any of the popular blogging platforms.
• If you want to use one of the more popular platforms, such as MovableType, WordPress, TextPattern, Drupal, etc., you’ll need to download the software from the source, then upload it to your new domain’s web server (host), then install it. This is too technical to explain properly in a single article. I recommend finding a host or a webmaster that will do this for you. For example, both MovableType and WordPress have teamed up with hosting providers to do this. You would have to register your domain name elsewhere, but then set up hosting with them.
• There are far too many blogging platforms and too many differences of installation to get into the details here. In fact, I could fill a book talking about the different blogging platforms. All of the popular platforms have reasonably well-written instructions. Here’s my summary of a few platforms I’m familiar with:
• While Blogger.com is most often used with the controversial Blogspot.com domain, you can use Blogger.com’s interface to set up a blog on your own domain.
• Blogger.com is very easy to set up and use. It’s a bare-bones blogging platform, but it’s not a bad starting point for new bloggers.
• WordPress.org’s WordPress is super-simple to install and has a whole host of “skins” (templates) and plugins for special functionality. I love the easy install, but many of my favourite WordPress plugins slow the website down, forcing me to disable them. This platform is quite popular amongst non-technical bloggers who manage their own domain.
• SixApart.com’s MovableType is easy to use. I enjoy the interface, and use it almost daily for a blog I write for someone else. But because I focus on free, OpenSource CMSes (Content Management Systems), I haven’t used the full version of MovableType on any of my sites. (There is an older free “personal” version.)
• SixApart also offers their own free OpenSource platform called LiveJournal. You can use their free hosting, which in principal is like Blogspot.com. But if you don’t want their banner ads showing, you have to pay a monthly fee. You can also down load the LiveJournal platform code and install it on your own domain. Unfortunately, unless you have a background in using the Linux operating system, you probably shouldn’t even attempt it.
• Drupal.org’s Drupal is arguably one of the most versatile and well-supprted blogging platforms. I’ve selected it for my next round of blogs. However, it’s not an easy install like WordPress. Furthermore, according to the Drupal community, domains set up with some hosting providers may produce database problems. I’ve encountered this issue myself and haven’t decided what to do.
• TextPattern, BoastMachine, Nucleus and several other newer platforms are gaining in popularity. They’re relatively easy to use and install. In fact, some hosting providers offer one or more of them with point-and-click install simplicity.
• Most of the above require that you at least know how to “FTP” files, and what that means.
• OpenSourceCMS.com has a detailed survey of many more blogging platforms and other CMSes. There are demos of each platform as well.
4. Set up a welcome page. Once your blog is set up, you can start posting entries. Most blogging platforms display entries in reverse chronological order. Nevertheless, it’s appropriate to start with a “welcome” post, explaining what your intent is, what you will be writing about, and how often.

Keep in mind that you can combine a regular website with a blog. In such an instance, the main page looks like a regular website, but there would be an area on the page with a “featured article”. My suggestion, if you’re just starting out, is to keep it simple. There is time later to re-design your website, and to customize the page template. I know I’ve glossed over a lot of very technical details, but you can learn along the way.

In the next article, I’ll talk about how to promote your blog, whether you’ve used a free host or a private host. In a still later article, I’ll talk a bit about ad networks and how you might earn some advertising revenue.

(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, Chameleon Integration

Raj Kumar Dash is a writer, author, and Internet consultant. Visit his hubsite at http://www.chameleonintegration.com/ to find the full introduction to blogging. (A free ebook on blogging is in the works.) Newbie bloggers can also visit Raj’s BlogSpinner blog at http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/ for a “how-to guide to blogging”.

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It’s inevitable. Everyone hits the wall. Whether you’ve been blogging ten weeks, ten minutes, or ten months, eventually you’ll find yourself with absolutely nothing to say.

Or so you think.

So what in the world do you do when you’re stumped?

1- Talk about what you’ve already talked about

Pick a topic you’ve gone over before and give it some spin.

Try a new angle, like playing devil’s advocate. For example, if you are a search engine journalist, and last week your position was that most mainstream sites need Google traffic to survive, try proving your point from the “con” perspective, instead of the “pro” position.

There are dozens of ways to write about the same thing. By putting your point another way, you might give someone in your audience what a client of mine referred to as an “Ah-ha!” moment. That’s when they realize the true value of the items for sale at your site to them and their business.

2- Talk about what someone else is talking about

If you want to have a popular blog, find other bloggers in similar areas, and talk about what they said in their posts. Friendly debate can often spark the soap-opera like drama that will have both your audiences visiting both blogs to see what “the other fella” had to say.

As an added bonus, if both of you are using Trackback in your blogs, you’ve got yourself a mini-link party that other people who are speaking on similar topics will want to join..

3- Have yourself a good rant

The intimate nature and voice of blogs lends itself well to the opinionated, angry ramble. But as a professional, don’t let yourself get too unfocused, and remember to back up your opinion with facts.

4- Feature someone, something or somewhere

I like to call mine “of the Day”.

As I zip around the Net conducting my business and research, if my attention is called to a resource or tool that my audience might find useful, I hit my blog bookmarklet and save that bad boy for later.

Then when I get too busy for a full blown tip, I’ll crown the resource, feed, tool, download or freebie the featured “Deal of the Day”, changing the word deal to something else more appropriate as needed.

After a while, my audience started to look for it as a feature, as opposed to being upset at the interruption in my mad, mad rambles.

5- Let someone else talk for a change

Invite a guest blogger, or post an article that offers free reprint rights, the same way you would in a newsletter. Of course you want to leave the resource box intact, or let the guest promote their site, which brings me to the most common complaint about this tactic.

“But I don’t want to send people away from my site.”

Guess what? You’ll never believe what I found out. Ready?

In a recent startling discovery, I’ve found that 100% of my visitors eventually turn off their computers or take otherwise drastic measures that cause them to leave my site. Apparently this is beyond prevention, though you can stall them for hours sometimes with good content.

Of course you don’t want to send them on their way prematurely, but if you’re a good blogger, and have done what you can to make sure they sign up to your blog email updates or site feed, they’ll be back. Just be sure that you’re giving them a good enough reason.

In the meantime, since they’re going to leave anyway, it might as well be somewhere that gives you some direct or in-direct benefit.

So there you have it - enough material for five more days of posts.

Happy Blogging!

Need more than five days worth of blog posts? Get more at http://www.freetraffictip.com/blogaboutthis .or learn more about blogs and RSS at FreeTrafficTip.com .

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Okay, you’ve decided start a blog and you’ve put together a rough publishing plan: how often you’re going to post long and short articles, who is writing, who is editing, who is managing the webmaster-related tasks (blogmaster). [See link at bottom.]

If you’re a small business owner, you’re probably going to have to wear all of these hats. But if you’re prepared, the next step is to set the blog up so you can start posting articles (sometimes called “entries” or even “posts”). (All links shown at the end of this article.)

You have two blog hosting choices:

1. Set up your blog on a free host such as Google’s blogspot.com, or Typepad’s Livejournal or WordPress’s WordPress.com.
2. Set up your blog on your own domain that you’ve registered and that you own.

This article will focus on choice #1. A follow-up article will discuss choice #2.

If you’ve visited any number of blogs, no doubt you’ve seen little text ads crying out “free blog”. There are numerous choices and this article has no intention of listing all of them. While I have registered with several free hosts including Typepad and Wordpress, I’ve found that Google’s blogspot.com uses a very simple, easy to use blogging platform and client (interface) called Blogger.com - so I’ll focus my example on these services.

To clarify, Blogger.com has both the blogging “platform” and the “client“. A blogging platform is the software that generates the blog pages for you. Examples include MovableType, WordPress, TextPattern, Drupal, and Blogger.com. Every one of these platforms has an administrative panel page where you can manage your blog - add, edit, and delete articles; add article categories; etc.

The admin panel page is typically called the blogging client and its features are platform-specific. However, there are standalone software applications - also called blogging clients - that you can download to your computer, and which do not work from a web browser.

With these standalone clients, you can write your blog entries and pretty much post to any of the platforms. That means you can have one client to manage multiple blogs on several free (or private) hosts. (But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.) I’ve tried numerous standalone clients, but use two of them exclusively.

One is Zoundry.com’s BlogWriter, which is a true standalone client. The other is Performancing.com’s Firefox Extension (PFF), which works as a panel within the Firefox web browser. (While I find both of them highly efficient, I am not necessarily endorsing them.)

Other choices are Qumana, w. bloggar, Loch Journal, amongst many others. For those of you familiar with Microsft Word, Blogger.com has a plugin that lets you manage your blog directly from MS-Word. You don’t have to learn a whole new interface - beyond the setup stage.

As this article is intended for absolute beginners to blogging, I’m focusing on Blogger.com’s platform and default interface. The steps are relatively simple, and you don’t require a degree in computer programming to set up a blog - unlike some of the other platforms.

1. Go to http://www.blogger.com and sign up for a free account. (I’m using them as an example. Feel free to pick whatever you like.) The form will ask you to enter your real name, a screen name, a password, and email address. If you have a GMail (Google Mail) account, use that. For your screen name, keep in mind that it will appear at the bottom of each article/entry that you post live to your blog. So pick something suitable. Rules for names are provided.
2. Now create a new blog.
• You’ll be asked to enter a title for the blog and a sub-domain name.
• The title will appear at the top of your blog at all times - unless you change the page template. (More in a future article.)
• The sub-domain name will be part of the domain “blogspot.com”. For example, if you are starting a blog to promote your plumbing fixtures store, you may want to use something like “home-plumbing-tips“.
• This will mean that your blog address/URL will be http://home-plumbing-tips.blogspot.com. (Some bloggers and readers don’t like hyphenated sub-domain names, but I see nothing wrong with them.)
• You could, of course, use something like “plumbing-fixtures”, but it will not convey the idea that you are providing helpful tips.
• Now it’s entirely possible that someone has already registered the subdomain you want on blogspot.com. If so, you’ll get a warning message and you’ll have to choose another sub-domain name.
• As a result of this, some of my blogspot.com blogs have fairly lengthy sub-domain names, which are easier to remember because they’re hyphenated.
• You’ll also be asked a number of other optional questions, and be given a chance to enter the URL of a digital picture of yourself, if you have one elsewhere. (There are several services, including http://flickr.com, that let you upload pictures and graphics for free. The only drawback is that the terms generally say that in return for free hosting, other people can use your images, with some conditions.)
• Next, choose a page template. All of the free hosts have some pre-formatted page templates. Pick one from the samples displayed, and you can customize it later - although this does take a bit of technical know-how. Once the template is selected, Blogger.com (or what have you) will create the blog for you, and you can start posting entries.
3. Post a “Welcome to Such and Such Blog” entry.
• You should see a button that says something like “start posting“. What’ll happen is a edit page with a form will appear. There will be fields for the article/ entry title, the body text, and a date/time stamp (which defaults to right now). There will also be a number of tabs that let you use the large text area like a rich-text editor. Play with the tabs and “buttons” a bit; get acquainted.
• On blogger.com at least, there is a link that says “show preview“. You can click this link and see what your article will look like formatted (but not with your template features). When you’re happy with the “welcome” article, click the “publish” button. (If you’re not happy but don’t want to lose what you’ve written, you can click the “save as draft” button and come back later to edit and publish.)
• Depending on the time of day, and since this is a new blog, the article should publish very quickly. You’ll see a message like “100% complete”. Voila, you now have a live blog. You can click on the “View site” tab to have a look.

You now have a blog. Get acquainted with the adminstration panel. Most of the popular blogging platforms have fairly thorough details, but sometimes they may be a bit too technical.

Now that you have your blog live and running, the next step is to post several more relevant articles in short succession, then start promoting your blog. I’ll talk about blog promotion in Part 4 (after 3b, which is an overview of setting up a blog on a private domain).

Links: Part 2: Planning Your New Blog

Raj Kumar Dash is a writer, author, and Internet consultant. Visit his hubsite at http://www.chameleonintegration.com/ to find the full introduction to blogging. (A free ebook on blogging is in the works.) Newbie bloggers can also visit Raj’s BlogSpinner blog at http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/ for a “how-to guide to blogging”.

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