A guide to blogging for beginners

The blog – a 21st century diary, a platform for expression and free speech, a scrapbook of your ideas or a journalistic venture which are complied on a webpage of your making. They often contain images and links to other websites and invite comments from readers, creating a conversational platform between web users.

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There are loads of sites that provide a free blogging service which include privacy controls, photo galleries, templates and online communities.

These sites help you to create an open source that you can update as often as you like and the bonus is you don’t need to have any technical knowledge to be able to use them; all you need is an email address, a blog name and a head full of ideas.

Here are some recommended sites:

Wordpress.com – Wordpress is a widely known company who host websites as well as blogs. It is newer on the blogging circuit but has grown massively in the last year publishing over 4 million blogs. There is an option to upgrade and have VIP hosting or special features on your blog.

Blogger.com – This site began in 1999 in the US and has recently been bought by Google. It has a very easy-to-use interface and gives you a step by step run down of how to create your blog page.

Typepad.com - Typepad is a very simple blogging service that allows you to maintain complete control over your blog. All blogs are search engine-optimised, meaning that they’ll be easier to find through Google and other search engines.

Xanga.com –This is a more sociable blogging site which allows you to publish your material, including photos and videos, for free and also helps you make new friends.

Vox – Vox was the winner of PC Magazine’s Editor’s Choice Award for Best Blogging Software. It is another site with a real sense of community.

LiveJournal.com – This is another free site that is good for creating more personal blogs as it allows you to limit the people that can see your posts.

There are many more sites such as MySpace and Windows Live Spaces that allow you to create a blog space, so have a look around and see which one you think suites you the most.

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This can often be the hardest part of blogging- finding your topic, theme or niche. Some people choose not to write about one topic and prefer to vary their posts depending on what they want to write about that day. Some of the most successful blogs, however, tap into a certain audience or popular movement.

Famous celebrity blogger Perez Hilton latched onto the very lucrative area of celebrity gossip and now he is a multimillionaire and a celebrity in his own right.

Some people use their blogs as a political soapbox or just a place to rant about the injustices they see in the world, the web really is your oyster…you could even blog about oysters if you wish, it’s really that open.

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Most blogging services offer a number of page templates or blog “skins” which liven up your copy and make your page original. You can add images, graphics and quotes and on some sites even video which will all help make your blog more visually stimulating and unique.

You will have to name your blog and the most interesting or catchy names seem to be the more popular reads. Many blogger tend to user their own names, especially aspiring journalists and politicos so check the availability of your name as a URL.

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Engaging online readers can be a difficult feat, especially when you consider the fact that there are millions of bloggers, websites and other publications on the web all competing for attention.

The best way to start is to spread the word among friends; place a link on your social networking profiles like Facebook, Twitter and Delicious.

Allow comments on your posts as the more comments you get, the more popular/interesting it will look to other bloggers or readers. On most sites you will have a “blogger profile” where you can list you interest, blog themes and much more, which makes it easier for people to find you.

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There are no real rules to blogging, well none set in stone, but general guidelines are as follows:

• Try and ground your posts with events that make them current and relevant.
• Update you posts regularly, daily if possible.
• Try not to be offensive, especially if you name is tied to the blog, this could have bad repercussions.
• Express yourself- remember this is about you getting your message out there, so be creative and show off your writing talents.