Starting a Blog on Blogger

Are you ready or just want to set up a Blog on Blogger.  Goggle has definitely made it very easy to start blogging.  The first step is to log into your Google account if you don't have one you will need to create one its petty quick I'm not going to bother to explain the Google sign up process, if your scratching your head at this point you have a long long LONG way to do.  If you are still wondering just do a search Google sign up should work fine, basically if you can't find something search for it!  Anyways just go to Blogger and activate it with your Google account and it will bring you to the Blogger home screen.  From here you can quickly create a blog.

• To create a new blog on Blogger click the "new blog" button that appears on the upper left of the screen after you have signed in with a Google account.  (hint its where the arrow is pointing)

Blogger Home Screen to start a new blog just click new blog! *Since I've
"started" a few other blogs on blogger they appear on my home screen,
some of these blogs exist in name only currently other are seldom updated
and their stats reflect this. *edited with paint

• After clocking on the "New Blog" button Blogger brings you to this screen where you will name your blog and create its address.  Based on what address are available you might have to change this a few times.  Don't worry to much one of the advantages of blogger is that you can change these at any time latter on.  *note if your blog is well established DO NOT change your address on Blogger it will reopen the address for registration and not redirect anything to your new address.  Instead if you want to move an established blog setup a new domain for it and Blogger will redirect to your new site.  Also don't worry about picking a template for your blog from the start this is better handled latter and the default will work fine for your first few posts. 

Blogger create new blog screen. *edited with gimp

Configurations! you have just created a Blog, Blogger should have redirected you to your Blogger homepage which should now list the blog you just created.  At this point I would recommend creating a first post, personally I usually do a post on what exactly the blog intends to be etc (it helps me focus my own intentions) but really can write about anything (though try to stay on your blog's subject).  Also do not include content over PG 13 (unless that's what you want I have no objections), if you include content over PG 13 you will be penalized by search engines and other content filters.  (Notice even here I did not use certain wording, or word combinations that may trip such content filters, nor will I be listing possible words and word combinations anywhere on this Blog, just use common sense and think of George Carlin and you will be fine.)  

Why Blogger and Why am I'm Doing a Blog

The choice to use Blogger and let the blog exist here was a conscious decision the idea is to have the blog exist off site.  I've used both Wordpress and Blogger in the past and I chose blogger for this particular project because its absolutely painless (relativity speaking) to set up plus its free and one of the goals was to do this as cheaply as possible without sacrificing quality. If in the future this blog receives a lot of traffic, something I'm not expecting, then a move might be considered but for now Blogger is the perfect developmental environment.  I have to make one disclaimer, I'm not 100% fluent in Blogger I've played around with it a few times in the past and found it quick and easy at the same time it provides easy accessibly to its underlying html.  Rolling your eyes yet at the one of the most intimating subjects for beginners ie html don't!  Any thing that I show you how do to in html I will spell out and keep easy.
        So now that this blog is started before we dive into building a site lets set up the blog and get it web ready.  Many of the aspects of setting up a blog are transferable to web-site creation and with blogger its easy to demonstrate these subjects.  Think of setting up a blog as an introduction, and a get way to learn some basic techniques that are highly transferable.  I strongly recommend anyone who is just starting their "web education" to start with a blog, share it with you friends and family, make you mistakes on it, and learn from it.  Blogs have been intentionally streamlined to allow novice user to quickly increase their understanding and skills of their architecture, and they have built in help sections.  Once you go and start to create your own site you will not as convenient and quick access to help and support to resolve any problems you might have.

Mission Statment

This blog intends to walk you though the steps of building a good site from start to finish.  To often "guides" assume a high level of technical knowledge and usually will force you to seek additional help on their subsections with out explicitly providing direction.  The other direction that guides go is web site building for dummies, I'm not necessarily referring to the line of dummies books but to the massive stack of titles that say something along the lines of "Build your First Website".  If that sounds like a title for a children's book than you won't be disappointed with the level of these guides.  There are also many companies out there that purport to make website building easy by providing you with some simplified tools common templates etc, while this might not sound bad to someone just starting out I highly recommend avoiding these sites, some will try to charge you money but all come with a single major issue and that is with the root domain name.  They will always force you to use an address structured like "theirname.com/yoursitesname" or the other way around.  This is bad, if you are building a business website this is extremely bad, for starters it will immediately make you look less professional, and secondly you will unlikely ever have good search results.  By making you use their domain name as your root name these companies are actually benefiting themselves with any of the content you might create.  Yes this blog will suffer from these issues as well i.e. the address for it is webbuildingblocks.blogspot.com.  Note the ending i.e. blogspot.com comparatively this is relativelybegnign compared to those that use their address first.

 The goal of this Blog is to show the different web site developmental aspects and what is available to someone just starting or someone who has some experience and is looking to take the next step.  To do this a site will be developed along side of this blog, with the posts directly drawing from the steps that have been taken on the site construction.  This blog is not interned for high level technical users although as the build progresses some advanced subjects will be discussed but the aim is to present topics and subjects in easily understandable terms.  The site that will be built in conjunction with these posts will be built as cheaply as possible and as such I will not be using web development and content management software priced at heart attack prices such as Adobe's creative suites.  Many of the program that I will be using will be new to me as well so I am also approaching this as a way to examine the programs used.  In a way I am writing this to organize my own thoughts as much as guide for others.  I am not currently planning on getting into css+ or HTML5 coding as this makes my eyes glaze over, my focus will be on the basics.