Chapter 9 – Welcome To Your Very First Blogger Blog!

Now that you have a free blog setup and you want to get started blogging we should checkout all the options that are available to you through your blog software.

It is very helpful to be aware of these options from the start because they will become more and more important as you get more involved in developing your blog.

The first thing we should do is log into your Blogger account and take a look around to get started.

To do this, go to blogger.com if you are not already there, and then log into your account. Remember that you log in using your Google login information or the information you setup when you registered the blog.

Blogger Dashboard

Once you have logged in you should be at the “Blogger Dashboard”. Right off the bat you will notice three main fields of information near the top of the page.

At the very top right-hand corner you will see your login name, along with “Dashboard”, “Help” and “Sign Out”. This is your main navigation panel that allows you to get back to the dashboard screen we are at.

The next important field is the “Manage Your Blogs” box. This is the box that controls the main functions of your blog. You have the option to “Create a Blog” which we have already done. Down below this you will see the blogs you have created.

You have five main options for any blog you have created. “View Blog”, “New Post”, “Posts”, “Settings”, and “Layout”. “View Blog” allows you to see your blog as others see it. The “New Post” link will allow you to start a new post directly from your dashboard screen. The “Posts” link will show you all the posts you have created and allow you to manage them.

The “Settings” link is very important. Your settings options through blogger feel very much like the back end of WordPress. You will want to become familiar with this area of your blog to make the most of your site.

The “Layout” allows you to modify the feel of your blog within the template you chose. We will come back to this in a few minutes. First, I would like to focus on the “Settings” options.

Go back to your dashboard and click the “Settings” link. Once you have done this you will be at a screen that allows you to add more information to your blog.

Blogger Settings 

You will notice on the “Settings” screen there are three main tabs and several sub tabs to each category. For now we are going to cover the basics of the sub tabs in the “Settings” category. Let’s start with the default tab, which is “Basic.”

BASIC (Tab)

Title: This is the first field you will see on this page. The title allows you to specify what appears at the top browser in the blue bar. While having your name is important, providing additional information that will tell people what the site is also beneficial.

I am going to use an example blog here called “Nifty News”. Nifty News is a site about all the weird happenings on the internet. Since a user may not get that just from reading Nifty News we are going to create the title:

• Nifty News – Strange News about the Last Internet Trends

That’s a much better title because it tells people our brand, and what our brand is about. Keep in mind that the title is what shows up for users when they do a search through a search engine. Whatever you type here is what a user will click on to get to the main page of your site.

With that in mind try to think of something interesting to entice people to click through to your site.

Description: A good description will also help you attract visitors to your site. Try to write a detailed description about what your site is about to help users decide why they would want to visit your site. For Nifty News I’m going to type:

“Nifty News brings you fringe web news to keep you involved in the latest web trends. Don’t miss the latest Star Wars kid because you were busy reading MSN. Come to Nifty News to get the news that is really important.”

Ok, yes it’s corny, but I’m trying to have some fun with it. People do not want to read another sterile blog unless your focus is politics or something that requires you to be serious. Give your blog some personality and people will be much more likely to read your articles because they will be entertaining.

Add your blog to our listings?: Always make sure any option like this is set to yes. You want to make sure any service you utilize lists your blog so you can get maximum exposure. That is the idea behind a money making blog in the first place, right?

Let search engines find your blog?: Once again make sure this is set to yes to get maximum exposure for your blog.

The rest of the options on this page are explained pretty well by the descriptions provided by Blogger. I wanted to cover the most important ones in detail so you know why they are useful.

Another option to make note of on this page is the “Delete Your Blog?” button. It is at the very bottom of the page. While hopefully you never need to use this, if you decide you want to start from scratch this will allow you to purge all the content from you blog, including the blogger address.

This is really only to be used if you are getting rid of your blog.

• Always remember to use the “Save Settings” button when you are done making changes. This applies to any settings pages in Blogger.

Now let’s take a quick look at the other Sub Menus at the top. The next one after Basic is “Publishing”.

PUBLISHING

Under publishing there is one main option. This option is to change your blogspot address. Hopefully you have decided on a name you like, but if you have had second thoughts and want to try something else this is where you would change it.

As mentioned on the page the name you choose is subject to availability. You also have the option to register a domain through blogger and point it toward your blog. If you decide to go with a domain to use with your free blog this is an easy option to get things setup.

If you already have a domain name you would need to change the settings with your registrar to point it towards your blogspot blog.

FORMATTING

The next tab gives you access to all the formatting options for your posts. By default the options are set pretty well. You may want to scan down the list and read the description for each so you have an idea of what each setting does. This way if you are looking to change something down the road you have a good idea of where it needs to be done.

COMMENTS

The next tab is the comments screen. The comments screen controls all the specifics about who can post to your blog. These options are also set appropriately by default.

The two options you may want to look at by default are the “Who can comment” options and the “Enable Comment Moderation”. People who can comment is set to registered users. This is good because in theory it will cut down on the amount of potential spam your blog receives.

Some people like to make it so that anyone can comment on their blog. This way, no one is left out whether they have an account of not. The thing to keep in mind here is that you may want to enable the “Comment Moderation” options if you choose this setting. This way you can check to make sure people are not link spamming in their comments before their feedback is posted to your blog.

The last option to not is the “Comment Notification Email” setting which will send you an email whenever someone comments on your blog. This is great if your blog is new and you are eagerly awaiting feedback or if you are very active in the comments section of your blog.

On the other hand, this may start to feel like spam when your blog becomes bigger. If that becomes the case just remember you can always go back in here and disable this option.

ARCHIVING

The archiving options control how your blog handles older posts. This is usually a setting that people toggle to work on a monthly basis.

It will basically give your blog a chronological storage system so people can go back and check for posts during certain months if they choose. This is one of the many ways readers can access data on a blog.

The options that are set by default are fine.

SITE FEED

Your Site Feed controls the settings for the RSS feed on your blog. You may have heard of RSS or seen “Atom” on other blogs. This is a way that users can subscribe to your blog like a magazine.

Whenever you post new content those subscribers will automatically have it sent to their subscription program. I will go into more detail on RSS in future articles.

For now just be aware that these options are here. Once again the descriptions of each setting are good enough to understand what they are for.

Be aware that it is not good netiquette to limit your blog feeds. Keep the option set to “Full” to keep your readers happy. The “Post Feed Redirect URL” is important if you are using a RSS service like feed burner to manage your feed. This will be more important to you down the road so for now don’t worry about it. We will come back to this when we need to.

EMAIL

The email section allows you to setup an email address to be notified whenever content is posted to your blog. This can be handy if you have a multiple author blog. That way you and your friends are aware of when something has been posted.

This can be useful for proof reading someone else’s work to make sure there are no errors in the post.

The other option allows you to setup and email address to use to post content directly to your blog. This is more of an advanced practice by bloggers and I would say don’t worry about this for now.

OPENID

OpenID is a login system that works by setting up a list of trusted sites. It can be useful for quickly logging into some service or allowing other users that you trust to quickly access services you offer.

For a detailed explanation of what OpenID is and how it works you will want to click on the “Learn more about OpenID” link that is on this page.

It is not important to utilize OpenID to get started using your blog.

PERMISSIONS

The permissions area allows you to add users to your blog. These users can be other authors you are working with if multiple people are creating content for the blog.

To add an author all you need to do is click on the “Add Author” button and you will get a drop down box that asks you to submit the email address of the person you would like to add to your blog.

The section below this titled “Blog Readers” will allow you to specify who is able to access your blog. By default this is set to “Anybody,” which is what you want for a money making blog.

If you wanted a more private blog you could set it to “Only People I Choose” or “Only Blog Authors”. This is really only important if you are working on a private blog with people. I assume that because you are reading my website to learn about creating a money making blog that this is probably not the case.

Congratulations

You now know all the basic settings and functions of your Blogger blog. The details we covered will help you get your blog setup exactly the way you like it.

Because this article ran a little long I am going to cover the “Layout” category in the next article entitled “Understanding Your Blogger Layout Options”. This will help you customize the look and feel of your site to get it exactly the way you want it.

If you have read enough about setting up your blog for now and would like to move onto the next topic which covers Writing Your First Money Making Blog Post then click on the link below to get started!