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How to Make a Simple and Professional Blog or Website
Creating a blog can literally be done in 5 minutes. Having and maintaining a website or blog is often a fun, educational, and sometimes profitable way to entertain and inform others. There’s so much opportunity and so many niches that have yet to be filled. Let’s discuss, first off, what a blog is and what capabilities it has. We’ll then look at how to create a blog or website.
A website is a group of related web “pages” that is used for any number of purposes, such as entertaining, informing, showing, exchanging, and more. It is more often professionally designed and owned by a company or organization than an individual. Text, images, videos, and interactive material are just some of the things offered on websites.
A blog is a specific kind of website that’s often created and maintained by an individual instead of a company. It’s often a simple website with text, pictures, and occasional video that is updated in a chronological style and updated frequently. Many blogs provide opinion or commentary, some review, and some are just personal thoughts.
Let’s say you’re looking to build a blog. What programs should you use?
Google’s Blogger/Blogspot is one of the most popular choices now. It’s run by Google, so you already know and trust the company. It features a very simple setup (you just need a gmail account, and if you don’t have one, you may create one for free) and no editing to get started. What you do have, though, is the option to edit template layouts, styles, and colors, among other things. You can also upload pictures directly from—and only from—your Google Picasa Web Account. Only able to access your email? You can submit posts directly through your email. 1 gigabyte of storage is provided. A warning: Blogger and Blogspot are fairly popular, so it’s not always easy finding an address. When you do, your account with be http://www.xxx.blogspot.com, or something very similar.
All in all, Google’s Blogger and Blogspot are very popular and easy to use. You can write within the blog to update or from your email. One click and your blog is posted on a clean page in chronological order. It’s a good, trustworthy program.
Wordpress is another popular blog out there. While no template editing is possible, there are plenty of “themes,” or different site designs, that you can get for free and with two mouse clicks. You can change the look at any time, but if you want to do specific site editing, you’ll have to pay a minimal fee. While some view the lack of creativity in terms of design a fault, others enjoy the simplicity of not having to worry about frills. You’ll automatically have stats shown on your “dashboard,” or creation main page. This is a very nice feature to have, and you can always install something more complex in addition to the free stats provided. You also get a whopping 3 gigabytes of storage and can pay to add more. You can also upload PowerPoint files, word files, and adobe files for free. As of May 12, 2009, you can also submit posts through email, even including images at this point. Your web address will be in the form of http://www.xxx.wordpress.com.
Overall, Wordpress is another trustworthy company that offers a great, free product. Users may enjoy doing something on the internet that’s actually not run by Google.
Others blog sites:
There are other blog sites out there other than Blogspot and Wordpress, but they’re certainly not as popular. LiveJournal was once popular but has waned in the past few years. Xanga suffered much the same fate. TypePad is popular for professionals and small businesses. Edublogs is suitable for teachers and students. There are many, many more available as well.
Capabilities:
Many sites and blogs provide free applications called widgets. These are basically software add-ons that allow you to perform extra functions on your site. This might include playing videos, adding organized lists, earning revenue, adding other gadgets, and more. The choices for this free service are practically endless! The ways of getting templates and other things are also limitless.
Website:
Now that you’ve read up on blogs, you’re probably wondering why you would ever need a website. Well, if you’re looking to be taken seriously or want something that truly stands out, a website might be the way to go. It will likely take a lot more effort and more money, but you’ll be able to essentially design your own look and your own way of entering information. Unlike blogs, you don’t need to “post” in chronological order to attract readers. Good websites with lots of information or entertainment speak for themselves. Let’s say you’ve created your own jewelry business and want to reach out to people through the internet. Here, a blog is definitely not the way to go. You need a beautiful design, a way to showcase photos of your jewelry, and order forms. A blog simply doesn’t have any of these capabilities. Of course, having your own website means a lot more time and money.
You’ll need money to:
-have your website designed
-purchase your domain name (www.xxx.com, .net, .org, .info, etc.)
-pay the company that is hosting you
-possibly pay for upkeep
Want to see how many visitors you’re getting on your site? You can easily install analytics and see how many people are going to your site, how long they’re staying to read, where they’re reading from, and when they’re reading. This information is not only interesting, but it’s valuable too. Did you know you can make money with your website or even with your free blog? By using Google AdSense and other programs, you can earn a small income just by letting ads show on your sites.
If you really want to look professional, go for a website. If you’re looking for readers in a more fun environment, go for a blog. Either way, professionalism means proofreading your writing, choosing non-offensive material to showcase, and finding colors on your site that don’t make it hard to read!
While a blog is free, a website will require a lot more work, but will generally pay off in the end. Costs aren’t too expensive, and the chance to create something of your own is hard to refuse. Not sure what you want? Set up a free blog first and decide what you want to do from there.
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