Today's post will focus on blogging: how to get started, the differences between blogging platforms, and tips for beginners.
Why do we blog?
Blogging has become a popular way for those who have a passion and enjoy writing to get their ideas, thoughts, and feelings across to the public. Since the early 1990's blogging has had a steady rise in popularity, to the point that microblogging is used day-to-day by millions of people worldwide through services like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Through the use of blogging you can share your thoughts and opinions with the public, spread the word about important issues, and start open discussions on the topics most important to you.
Blogging allows you to:
Through the use of blogging you can share your thoughts and opinions with the public, spread the word about important issues, and start open discussions on the topics most important to you.
Blogging allows you to:
- Share your views and explore new ideas through feedback and discussion.
- Provide useful information and feedback to the public.
- Start discussions on topics that need to be addressed.
- Make yourself more easily recognized by members of the community you are addressing.
From cupcake recipes to video game reviews, if it's a thing, you can blog about it!
Okay, I'm interested. But how do I start?
The first step to creating a blog is to find the right service for you. There are many blogging tools out there, and all of them are unique in their own way. I spent some time learning about the most popular blogging services available, and listed each pro and con below.
Blogger
Blogger is owned by Google and directly tied to your Google account. If you have a gmail address or Google+ account you can quickly and easily set up a blog on this service.
Pros: The service is free and has it's own customizable templates to choose from, as well as the option to edit colors, add your own background image, and add "gadgets" to the page. These gadgets offer many add-ons to your blog, such as a +1 button for Google+ users to like your page, an image slider, and even Javascript and additional HTML capabilities (though these are not necessary to create a working blog). If you have purchased a domain you can use the domain name on the service.
Because Blogger is a Google service, there are many features created by the company for use with the platform. Google Adsense allows you to add specific ads on your blog that will generate revenue based on the amount of blog views. The more popular your blog is, the more money you make.
Google also added Chrome extensions to help with updating and sharing your blog. The Tiny Tweetr! tool, for example, allows you to select certain text from your blog and add a "tweet this" button for readers to click to share the quote to their twitter followers.
Cons: The text editing options for the service are almost the same as Google Docs, with less features. While Blogger gives you the option to change color and text size, you cannot indent whole paragraphs, or save your font formats for use in the future. There are not many themes available, and the customize options are limited.
Wordpress
There are two types of wordpress, and I will give a short description of each below:
Wordpress.com is perfect for beginners. It is a free blog-hosting service owned by the web development corporation Automattic. This service is powered by the Wordpress software, and is easy-to-use. Wordpress.org is for those of you who like to spend some time working on the layout of your site. Wordpress.org allows you to download an updated version of the Wordpress software to use on your own web host, and contains more plugins/css/php options.
For this blog post, we will be focusing on only the .com version of Wordpress. For a review of Wordpress.org, please visit wordpressbeginners blog post on the subject.
Wordpress can be hosted by Wordpress or self-hosted on your own server, and offers a lot of plugins and features that are unavailable on sites like Blogger and Tumblr. With hundreds of free themes to choose from, 24/7 live chat support, and the ability to upgrade to a custom domain ($18 for a .com custom address), it's no wonder Wordpress is pretty well-known as being the most popular blogging software on the market.
Pros: Premium security, and backups are included with your free account. Over 200 free themes to choose from, as well as the option to custom design your own. Integration with social media sites, allowing you to instantly share your blog posts to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. The ability to share stats, comments, and polls without the need of plugins.
Cons: People who have never used Wordpress before may have some difficulty learning how to customize and edit their pages to their liking. The amount of customization available, while awesome, can be overwhelming. While you do not need to be an expert at coding, it is suggested that you have basic knowledge of html and css before trying any advanced editing of your blog.
Tumblr
Tumblr is a free social blogging platform designed to share all types of media with one click. Because Tumblr makes it so easy to upload photos/videos/and music, the site is mainly used for artists and designers to share their work to the public easily. There are many themes available on the service, and it requires no knowledge of html/css to use. Like Blogger, Tumblr takes a matter of minutes to choose a theme, customize it, and start sharing posts.
 |
| The Tumblr Dashboard allows you to click a single button to immediately upload any type of media. |
While Tumblr can be used for long-form blogs, it is mostly popular because of the ability to share images and videos through social networks quickly and easily. If you simply want to share interesting things and become a part of a social community, Tumblr is the way to go.
Pros: Many free themes to choose from, and over 1000 themes available for purchase. There are quite a few add-ons available for the service that are easy to install and add tons of features.
Missinge for example, adds many customization and dashboard tweaks (such as adding a quick reply button, and a magnifying glass to photos) makes the Tumblr experience that much easier. The ability to share music, videos, links, and photos with one click is awesome and the layouts Tumblr chooses for the different formats look nice on any Theme you use.
Cons: While Tumblr offers the ability to customize themes to your color tastes, it is more difficult to change the exact layout or create your own without the knowledge of html/css. Tumblr makes it very hard to install ad-space on your blog without purchasing a premium account, which will make it difficult to make money from your blog if that is your goal. Tumblr is known as a casual "short-blog" environment where photos and videos are key. If you are looking into long-form blogging, Tumblr isn't the best place to get started.
TLDR! Which one did you like best?
All of these blogging platforms have their own perks, and it really just depends on the blogger's layout preferences, knowledge of html, and what type of blog they intend to create.
Tumblr has a lot of great options available for people looking to share images and other files, but for a blog that mostly long blocks of text it wasn't the right fit for me. I liked the sleek themes and options wordpress offers, but I have never used the service before and the dashboard was a little overwhelming. For someone looking to get my posts out as soon as possible, I didn't have the time to read tutorials or spend hours trying to get my blog looking perfect.
Blogger was automatically connected to my gmail account, which made it quick and easy to get an account set up. There aren't a lot of theme options, but if you're looking for simplicity and the ability to write long blog posts, it's a great choice.
For information on more blogging services, visit the links below:
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/08/16/best-blogging-services/
http://startbloggingonline.com/blog-platform-comparison-chart/
