What is a Blog ?

Nowadays almost everyone has it or has heard of the notion of it. Many individuals who are not tech savvy do not totally understand what it is or how to get one. First, let me explain what it really is. Blog is short for “Web log” which means a log that you maintain on the internet for everyone to access. Today we all live in digital age and if you have a hobby, talent, idea that you want to share with everybody online then you can start blog. Getting one is not difficult at all. There are quite a few options for that. Some are paid options while many are free and few could actually make money for you. Once you create your own blog, it is even easier to maintain it. If you have basic Microsoft word skills then you could easily post your content on it (or as everyone calls it “posts”).

How to get it

Decide why do you want one

Here are questions that can help you decide:
  • Do you want to pursue blogging as just a hobby ?
  • Do you want to make money online ?
Answer to these questions will help decide how do you proceed next. If you just want to pursue blogging as a hobby and do not care about money (just in it for the fame!) then you are in luck as far as the blogging platform options are concerned. If you are in it for the money but do not want to spend money upfront then your options reduce quite a lot. But if you are open to spending some money upfront then you have a whole lot of options. These options could include paying for service online for a blogging platform or paying hosting fees and setting up your own blog from scratch (this last option might need you to be technically savvy and if you are already technically good then you probably don’t even need to read the rest of the article. You have what it takes to figure it out!).

Decide where you want to publish

After you have figured out why you need it, go through the list of the blogging platforms and decide which one meets the requirements. Here is the list of the few platforms.
A) WordPress (wordpress.com or wordpress.org ): This is probably most famous among all the platforms available. Some of the top sites use WordPress to run their blog. There are currently two flavors for it. As option one you can get this blog at wordpress.com for free or as second option you can download the platform from wordpress.org and host it on your own. The first option is good for beginners however it provides limited support. For example you can neither add custom plug-in to increase functionality/flexibility of your blog nor can you put up advertisements unless you switch to paid service. You can register here for a blog if you are just in it for fun not money or flexibility. Teknocrat is built using self installed wordpress platform.
B) Blogger (Blogger) : This is a service from Google. You can get it free at blogger.com. This platform allows you to add plug-in, put advertisements and get free hosting without any charges. However there are few pitfalls. You cannot move/export the content out easily to another blog in case you want to move to another platform in future. Number of plug-ins are also quite limited.
C) TypePad (Typepad): TypePad is a feature rich blogging platform that comes at a price. You can sign up free for trial period of 14 days but after that it is a minimum of $8.95/month.
There are a lot more platforms that you can consider but these are top three today. You can do a simple search to get the list of rest of the blogging platforms.

Get your identity

Now you need to get an email address that will be used as your digital identity. Pick an email address and then register it at Gravatar (Gravatar). This gives you a global avatar/identity that you can use to login and post comments on other blogs.

Share it

Now the most important aspect. You got it, so flaunt it!. Share you blog with everyone! Put it out there by sending the link to friends.


Source - http://www.teknocrat.com/how-do-you-get-a-blog.html