Building Your Blog - Easy as 1-2-3

The whole point of blogging is that it allows you share information on the web with NO need to know code or any special experience in web design.  Advanced users may choose to customize, but when you are first starting out you can accomplish quite a lot by using the pre-set templates and gadgets. (More on what those are later).

STEP ONE:
To get started, simply go to Blogger.com and click on the "Create Your Blog" button.

STEP TWO:
That will take you to a screen where you get to choose the name and "URL" or address for your blog.

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator.  This is what someone will type into a search engine or the address bar of their computer or mobile device to find your blog.   This is informally referred to as your blog address.

Each URL can only point to ONE particular place on the World Wide Web.  So if your name is Sally and you want to name your blog "Sally's Fantastic Blog" you can certainly do that, but chances are that you may not be able to make that as your URL as it is quite possible that some other Sally already claimed that address.  (I just checked that particular example, and for right now that address seems to be available.  Still, it could change at any minute if someone else chooses that particular URL).  The point I want to make is that your URL must be unique, but your blog title does not.  Because of this it is not necessary that your title and your URL match.   Some people prefer that they do to make it easier for readers to remember your URL.  One thing to keep in mind is that you may want to change your title at some point, which is very easy to do.  Your URL, however, will stay the same as what you originally set it as.  So use some careful thought when planning what your URL will be.

For an example, one of the blogs I have written has to do with genealogy and family history.   The TITLE of the blog is "Spirit of Elijah", based on the scripture in the Bible that says:

"And he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the children to their fathers"        Malachi 4:6 .

However, when I set up that blog back in 2011, the name "Spirit of Elijah" was already in use.  So for my URL I chose http://myfamilyhistoryadventures.blogspot.com/   It is easy for me (or others) to remember and still conveys what the blog is about.

STEP THREE:
Next you will choose your template, which is the background color and format for your blog.  There are several different pre-set designs to choose from.  You can change this whenever you want without altering any of your content.  So experiment with a few different looks to see what appeals to you the best.

With just these three steps you now have a blog!  It does not have any content yet, but the basic structure is all there.  You will use the tabs in the upper right hand corner to begin adding posts  to your blog and to set features such as privacy settings and whether or not you want to allow other people to leave comments.