## Wordpress Online Community ##

If you like to write, express your opinions, or share your creativity with others, you may be interested in starting your own blog. Internet services have opened doors to connecting and sharing with others simply and easily from your home! One of the most popular ways to share events going on around you, or express your thoughts and creativity is through a weblog, or blog. They are usually free and easy to set up a new account. Here is a step-by-step guide to the easiest way to create your own blog:

1. Find a host. Unless you want to create your own website, you’re going to have to find a website that will host your blog. In other words, you need to find a website that will let you have your own page to update, etc., but they do the work of saving and displaying your page (along with the collection of other pages from bloggers like you) on the Internet.

There are many sites that host blogs for free. You can ask your friends for input if you want to be in the same blog community that they are, or you can search online for blog sites. Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, Weebly.com, Xanga.com, and LiveJournal.com are among the top most popular free blog hosts. Also, many social networking sites, like Facebook and Myspace have a section for writing notes or blog entries, so they too could be used as a blog, but these websites are not focused on blogging. Sometimes your internet provider, like Copper.net, will host blog accounts. Go to the member’s homepage or contact your ISP to see if this option is available for you.

2. Create a new account. In order for you to have a blog page, you’ll need an account with a username and password. Your username usually ends up being the primary name for the blog, e.g., “user_name.blogger.com” would be the url to your blog and probably show up in one or two places on the site. You’ll want to pick a username that fits you well and a password you can remember.

To create a new account, you’ll often see a “sign up” or “new member” link on the home page of the blog site. You can probably find a help section for more information. When you click to start a new membership, you will probably need fill out a form with some basic information, like your email address and what you want as your username and password. These forms are often very simple.

3. Select your blog title and (if available) subtitle. Blog titles are often where you can be creative, interesting, and unique, then the subtitle kind of explains what the blog is about. Think about what you want people to know about your blog from first glance. Is it going to be a little bit of everything? Are you going to focus on a specific topic or hobby of yours? Let people know in a unique and interesting way. You may want to browse through other people’s blogs for some ideas and inspiration—perhaps of what NOT to do too!
4. Choose your colors and layout. This is the part where you can really set the mood and create the first impression you want. When people first come across your blog, this will be the first things they’ll see. A dark background with deep colors can present a dark and mysterious mood, a bright colored layout can bring a happy or exotic feel, and a neat neutral design can come across in a professional tone.

Most host sites will have several predesigned themes to pick from. This is a good place to start, especially while you take some time to learn how to make design edits. Each site is different, so you’ll have to learn how to change backgrounds, colors, and widgets specifically on this site. There should be plenty of help pages to show you how to do everything. Don’t worry if you aren’t sure you what you want your layout to look like, you can always change it later! Sometimes its fun to go with a completely different look some months into your blogging.

5. Write your first entry! You can write a short piece just to see what it’ll look like and let people know you’ve just started, or you can jump right in with your first feature-length blog entry! Be yourself! Have fun and be creative. The important thing is expressing yourself, not worrying about how many people will read it! You can always make edits to posts later, but don’t forget, as soon as you hit “publish”, your entry will be open to anyone who has Internet service, so you might want to read it over for any grammar/spelling mistakes at least once before you publish!

Written by Hannah Miller, Director of Online Marketing and Customer Service Rep, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet Services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online. Check out my blog for this and more great articles! http://www.copper.net/wire

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/creating-your-own-blog-how-to-get-started-1635522.html

1. Be Creative! The best part about blogging is that it’s completely you! You can express yourself, your ideas, and your opinions. But not just that, everything on your blog represents you. Get to know the tools, widgets, and options you have to change the layout, color, background, text. Make your blog undeniably you!

2. Change it up! Not only can you find a perfect layout, you can change your appearance and themes as often as you like! Go with the seasons! Go with your mood! Add and change up your pictures, music, and other elements to keep things upbeat and interesting.

3. Try multiple blogs. You don’t have to stick to one blog. Say you have a blog that all your friends and family know about, and there’s certain things you can’t say or write about because of who might read it. Or say you started this blog with a certain theme or tone, so you can’t write about other things because it doesn’t fit the blog. Well, why not have two? You can even use a pen name and be completely anonymous on the second blog. You could have a deep, intellectual blog and a bright, entertaining blog. You could have a dark, moody blog and a witty, professional blog. Who says you can only express one side of yourself?

4. Blog on the side. Perhaps you’re not a big blogger and, although you enjoy an occasional post, you don’t have the time or energy to update very often. Try a social network instead of a blog network. Most social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, have the opportunity for blogging, but there’s other things to do as well. From games to simple status updates to messaging friends, you can maintain an account without having to constantly write blog posts. Yet, you’ll still get a chance to write a post where your friends can see it whenever you want!

5. Look around! You can always get ideas from other seasoned bloggers. You can get inspiration on what to write about, how to design your blog page, and even ask questions from seasoned bloggers all over the Internet. Check out Technorati.com or perform a Google Blog search to find all kinds of blogs on the Internet.

6. Stay safe! Keep in mind that your posts are completely open to the public. You should be careful how much identity information you post on your site. Even if you put in small bits of information here and there, all someone would have to do is read all your entries to piece together quite a lot of information about you! You are certainly free to use a pen name and fictional names that would give away your location, school or work name to avoid sharing too much personal information. In many cases, this would probably be recommended.

7. Join the community! There are many bloggers like you out there who have some interesting stories and posts you might be interested in! From the home page of your blog host provider, you can often search for blog with similar topics or interests. You can read and comment on other people’s posts and subscribe to their sites to get updates when they post again. The more you connect with others, the more they will connect with you, read your posts, and subscribe to you!

Written by Hannah Miller, Director of Online Marketing and Customer Service Rep, Copper.net.

Copper.net is a nationwide Internet Services provider that is all-American owned and operated. Call today, 1-800-336-3318 or sign up online. Check out my blog for this and more great articles! http://www.copper.net/wire

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/blogging-articles/blogging-tips-for-new-bloggers-1623482.html

Blogging is, in itself, a pleasurable method of getting your info online, repeatedly and efficiently. It is also fitting in that even beginners can get in on the action with hardly any training. You just have to look at the popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook to realise that almost anyone can blog.

Good blogging services and tools help make blogs so easy to use. If there were no blog content management tools then blogging would be just about dead. The strength of blogging rests on the fact that it is easy to set up and use. As well as that, it organises itself and is easy to customise. If there were no blogging tools to ease this, then blogging would in truth be a chore.

Fortunately, there are dozens of blogging software packages and tools  both copyrighted and open source. These tools vary tremendously in what the provide and the level of difficulty, however, here is a list of some of the best.

1. Autoblogger Pro. If you are trying to flood your web site with popular keywords from some of your preferred blog sites and amalgamate them into your own blog, then Autoblogger Pro is the tool for you. Autoblogger Pro uses text collected from RSS/Atom feed sites which you stipulate. This content can then be used on your website or blog.

This is a great tool to use if you are seeking to get your blog’s search engine ranking higher. It also helps provide your blog with more information.

2. B2evolution. B2evolution is a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) compatible software package that helps you host your own blog server. It supports blogs in different languages and software which controls several blogs at a time that are easy to install, yet are rich and fully featured to boot. The good thing about this package is that it is free and feature rich. It is also easy to alter and expand to increase functionality. It also installs easily and can be ready to go in a few minutes.

3. BlogAmp. BlogAmp allows bloggers to set up a blog audio player in just about any environment and all the client needs to have is a web browser without the necessity of a ready installed audio player.  The player is also simple to site within a blog page or could be positioned in a pop-up window. All that you will need afterwards is a secure media server to host the audio files you need to circulate.

4. BlogChat. This clever tool made with PHP and MySQL lets your blog site to host a chat box which you can site within the page. The central server for this chat box will be with the originators of the utility and the service is offered for free. Nevertheless, there are paid services that offer better functionality and more features. The free version needs manual maintenance but is a good selection anyway.

5. Chronicle Lite. Chronicle Lite is the perfect extra tool if you use Blogger to publish your blogs. This utility acts as an interface or a file and blog organiser that lies between your blog and your personal computer. With Chronicle Lite, you can put out written documents on your PC, and easily cope with your posts and your files in regards to your blog.

6. Movable Type. This is what has made Typepad so well known. Movable Type is a software package that can be set up on most blog servers. It provides a robust word processor specially for blogs. This takes away the technical difficulties from the process of creating a blog and assists you to centre on the design of your web logs.

7. Particle Blogger. Another blogging script that installs on almost any PHP, MySQL server. It offers you a blog server and the related user interface that lets you to host your own blog site effortlessly and efficaciously. It is fully featured and easy to install.

8. The Posting Station. The Posting Station is another blog server script that allows for text, and rich multimedia blogging. It is simple to install and has an outstanding user interface that makes it a favourite among many bloggers.