1. Introduction

Blogging, short for Web Logging, is the term used for something as simple as maintaining a diary or journal online. For those not in the habit of maintaining a diary, a blog is a place to jot down thoughts. It can be a record of events that can make an interesting read a few years down the line. It can be something as mundane as a daily work schedule, or it can be something as interesting as a daily record of a journey through space: check out http://spaceblog.xprize.org/, the blog of Anousheh Ansari, the first female space tourist.

A Blog can be personal—a single person’s notes—or communal, where a group of individuals contribute, like members of an organisation. Blogs can offer a glimpse into the life of a person; they can be informative; they can be the ramblings of a like-minded soul;they can be all about what someone has found interesting online; in fact, they can be a lot of things, and there are as many reasons to read blogs as there are to maintain one.

Given the ease with which a blog can be created online—there are free tools to create and host them—it is easy to understand the popularity they have attained. Blogger is Google’s response to the popular need to blog. While Blogger is the tool used to create blogs, the blogs themselves are hosted at www.blogspot.com.

1.1 The Essentials Of Blogging

All blogs hosts offer the basic tools needed to maintain a diary or journal: you need not worry about learning to code. The user interfaces are intuitive, and anyone can master the basics with ease. Adding images and links to other pages are all easily accomplished. Putting up the page online, also called Publishing, in most cases, just involves a mouse click. Previous blog entries are archived for easy access.

While maintaining a blog is similar to maintaining a Web site, people these days tend to prefer blogging sites because of the simplicity. The toughest part of maintaining a diary, of course, is finding something interesting to record.

1.2 Using Blogger

1.2.1 Creating a Blog

Blogger can be accessed at www.blogger.com. You need to sign up to be able to create a blog. You can sign in to Blogger using your e-mail ID. Alternatively, you can also create a distinct Blogger ID.

Like any Web page, your blog will have a URL—the address by which others will access it. Thanks to the popularity of blogger.com, the chances of finding your preferred blog URL are slim—for example, if you want to keep your blog name as “moneyits4u”, so keep it as moneyits4u.blogspot.com. So, once you have compromised on a URL of your choice, you are presented with a clutch of page styles to choose from. The styles differ in the font, color, and layout, and there is a preview of each. After you have finalized the page style, you can ask Google to go ahead and create the blog. “Creating” the blog is nothing but publishing a Web page online. The page, with the style you choose, could have been manually coded using HTML and scripts. Fortunately, all the necessary functions are carried out in the background, leaving your to twiddle your thumbs as the process is gone through. Simplicity, like we said, is the buzzword. Once the blog is published, it can be accessed at the URL you chose, and you can start posting to it.

1.2.2 Adding Content

Adding content to your blog is accomplished through the online text editor (at blogger.com). This editor allows for modifying of the font, font size and color, applying bolding and italicization, setting paragraph alignment, adding numbers and bullets, and spell checking—all at the press of a button. Adding images and links to other pages are also accomplished through the editor. You can also use the familiar shortcut keys to accomplish routine tasks like applying italics and so on; this feature is common to all Google services. Once your post is ready, it needs to be “published” so it becomes available online. You can preview your post before publishing it. Also, the content can be saved as a draft and published later.

1.2.3 Navigating the Dashboard

Every time you log into your Blogger account, after the first time, you are presented with what is called the Dashboard. This is an area where you can see the blogs you already have, add blogs (a user can have more than one blog), make changes to your blog settings, and add post to a blog.

1.2.4 Blog Settings

1.2.4.1 Blogging by e-mail

You need not go to blogger.com every time you have something interesting to write. You can just e-mail our post, and blogger will automatically publish it. To enable this feature, visit the “Email” link under the Settings tab. The Mail-to-Blogger Address is the address to which you need to send your e-mail posts for the blog to be updated. The BlogSend Address is the email ID where Blogger will send a copy of the post to, each time the blog is updated.

1.2.4.2 Creating RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication/Rich Site Summary) is a system by which Web sites can inform their Readers when the site is updated. Through this system a site can create a small file, called a Feed, containing information about the updated content. Readers can use Feed Readers to subscribe to the RSS system of the Web site. Feed readers access the site’s feed available at a particular URL, and display the content to readers who can remain informed of site changes—without visiting the site. Most feeds offer only a small part of the updated content, acting as an appetizer for the reader to visit the site to read all the content.

Blogger supports the RSS system, which is enabled by default. You can control the feed settings or disable it from the Site Feed link under the Settings tab. The site feed URL displayed on the page is the URL that feed readers need to be directed to to access your blog’s feeds. Under the Descriptions heading, you can choose to send entire blog posts to subscribers, or just a small part to whet their interest so that they visit your blog and read the rest. Akin to the user’s signature in an e-mail, an Article Footer is additional text appended to the content in the RSS feed. If you desire to insert an Article Footer, it can be done in the adjoining text box.

Blogger also allows you to add an Adsense (discussed elsewhere) text ad as an Article Footer.

1.2.4.3 Create a Team Blog

A Blog can become a common ground for members of a team or organisation to collectively record their views. Take the Blogger blog for instance (http://buzz.blogger.com/). A unified blog frees the reader and other team members from the need to visit the individual blogs of each team member to know what they’ve been thinking.

You can add team members under the Members link in the Settings tab. The names of the team members show up under the Contributors title on the blog. A post has its contributor’s name associated with it. Members need to have individual Blogger IDs to be able to participate, since each member has to log in using his ID. Ordinary members cannot alter blog settings or modify other member’s blogs—administrators (Admins) can. So before according that status to a member, be sure you know what you are doing. Ordinary members can be promoted to Admins from the same page.

1.2.4.4 Archiving

One of the advantages of online journals is that the writer is freed from the worry of keeping track of his earlier posts. A prolific blogger, had he been using pen and paper, would be quickly burdened with the need to find storage space for the stacks of journals, and once stored, retrieving would be another bother. For blogs, this is a non-issue. Earlier entries can be periodically archived, so unwanted clutter can be avoided on the blog page. At the same time, they can be easily accessed.

Under the Archiving link in the Settings tab, you can choose the frequency with which this archiving occurs. Entries that are archived are visible under the Archives link on the blog.

Under the same link, you can also decide whether to allocate one page per post. Doing this allocates a URL to each blog entry. Compared to having many blog entries on a single page, the one page-per-post layout allows readers to go directly to a specific post without scrolling through an entire page of posts trying to find the one they want to look at. The flip side is that there will be a lot of clicking to be done if someone wants to read through a week of posts. It is recommended you use the one-page-per-post layout if your posts tend to be about a page in length; if you only jot a few lines in most of your posts, it is better to avoid this layout.

1.2.4.5 Comment Control

Readers of your blog would like to be able to air their views on it— they might agree or disagree with what you’ve expressed, or they might just want to offer words of appreciation. The Comments link grants the ability to manage readers’ comments. If you would like what others have to say about your thoughts to appear on your blog, you can choose to Show, otherwise, hide them. Under the “Who Can Comment?” title, you can decide whether all readers should be given the power to comment, or whether it should be restricted to registered members of the blog.

If you’d like to be informed whenever a comment is added to your blog, you can enter the e-mail ID you’d prefer the alerts to be sent to in the Comment Notification Address field. To avoid irresponsible comments or spam turning up on your blog, it is best to enable Comment Moderation. This way, every time a reader who is not a member of the blog adds a comment, you are informed by e-mail, and the comment doesn’t show up on the blog unless you choose so.

The popularity of your blog can be determined by the number of other sites linking to it: say someone with a blog of his own reads your blog and likes what you have said, and offers a link to your blog on his. This would be called a back-link. Enabling back-links will reveal the number of other sites that have linked to your post.

Word Verification is a feature that can prevent the use of software programs to enter comments, mostly spam, to your blog. Word Verification uses an image containing a series of digits or letters as a part of the commenting process. Since only human beings can decipher the content of the image, such commenting programs can be blocked. Enabling Word Verification is recommended.

1.2.4.6 Publishing Options

You can choose to host the blog you create at Blogger.com at some other host besides blogspot.com. Blogger allows you to configure the service so that every time you click on the Publish button at blogger.com, the blog on the other host gets updated. The server settings are included under the Publishing link.

Weblogs is a blog indexing service that keeps updated information about all blogs. Someone tracking blogs—newly-created or newly-updated blogs—can find the latest information at Weblogs.com. Blogger can be configured to notify Weblogs every time your blog is updated. This way, your blog will figure in the recently-updated blogs list at Weblogs.com.

1.2.4.7 Changing Templates

The Template tab allows you to modify the page layout of your blog. The Pick New link offers more page style options than were presented during sign-up.

1.2.4.8 Customising the Template

Nothing speaks more about your dedication to blogging than a customized template, which requires modifying HTML code—and, to an extent, is not recommended for newcomers to blogging. The Edit Current link allows you to customize the layout. The Beta version of Blogger, discussed later, allows significant customisa- tion, which can be done even by HTML-illiterate users. This is a strong reason to switch to the Beta version.

If you want more blog templates then go to www.finalsense.com

1.2.4.9 Making Money from your blog

AdSense is a programme promoted by Google that involves putting text ads onto your site and making money every time a visitor to the blog clicks on the ad. If you intend to convert your blog into a money-making operation, Blogger can help you. You can find the option to enable AdSense under the Template Tab. Before you can start making money, you need to sign up for the AdSense programme. Then you can choose the size and colour of the ad box you’re willing to show on your blog.

The content in the ad box comes from the servers at Google. Details of the AdSense programme are covered thoroughly in another chapter. But briefly, the ads that will appear in the box will be dictated by the content on your page. Every time a visitor to your blog is motivated to click on the ad, you earn. The AdSense programme administrators will review your blog to see whether it is worthy of inclusion, and only then can you hear the ring as the pennies add up.

For more information see the Goggle Adsense post.

1.3 The Beta

Google now offers an upgraded beta version of the Blogger service, albeit with two important caveats—you need a Gmail account, and the switch-over is permanent. So do not use your existing account to “test” the beta, since you will not be able to switch back to the old Blogger if the new one is not to your liking. It is better to create a new identity and then test the Beta.

1.3.1 Additional Features

At first glance, not much distinguishes the Beta from the original Blogger interface. The Settings tab and all its contents are similar.

To change font type and size, and font colour and page colour, visit the Fonts and Colours link.

1.4 Concluding Remarks

Blogger has been a popular destination for blogging enthusiasts thanks to the easy to use and configure tool, the clean, Spartan layout, and absence of ads in the hosting service. The enhanced tweaking capabilities of the beta version will only increase its attractiveness. Incorporating AdSense offers a convenient way to earn money from your blog—if the content is interesting enough!

TO GET GOOGLE ADSENSE FOR YOUR BLOG READ GOOGLE ADSENSE POST AND ALSO TIPS AND TRICKS.