Once you decided to make a blog, you need to choose a platform to manage it. There is a lot of platforms where you can start a blog, but you may choose one adjusted to your necessities and your abilities. Before continue, you should know that you need have HTML knowledges, at least the basics. All the blogger tools like statistics or widgets are managed by HTML, is not hard because in the most of cases you only must to copy and paste the code and it will work. But in other cases, like editing themes, you will need to have certain level of knowledge to get the wanted look.

Hosted or Self-Hosted ?

This is the big question when you going to start a blog. Now, I will tell you the basics about this kind of platforms:

Hosted: This kind of platform is free. You won’t have to pay for a domain, storage or bandwidth. This kind of platforms are simple, perfect if you want an space in the web for sharing photos,some videos or whatever without a lot of requirements. It give you a subdomain, this mean that your blog will be something like www.yourblog.theplatformname.com. The functions are not hard to handle, in fact are too easy. Now you can have a website without being a Webmaster. It’s simple! There is no HTML to learn and no new software to download and install. The following is a little list with the most popular hosted platforms:

• Blogger.com: another Google’s tool recognized for the orange logo. This is a good choice to a simple blog, it’s very easy to customize because it has a WYSIWYG editor ( What You See Is What You Get ) and you can place codes, photos, polls… with a simple click and draw. Here is two screenshots with the Blogger Dashboard and the Blogger Panel.
• WordPress.com: WordPress is a great platform to blog, and in wordpress.com you can get a hosted blog with this platform, a little limited because you can’t use all the wordpress features but still being very good. Check how looks the WordPress.com Dashboard.
• LiveJournal.com: LiveJournal is an online journal service with an emphasis on user interaction. A basic, fully-functional account is free, while Paid accounts receive access to premium features. This is the LiveJournal Dashboard.
• Blogware.com: Blogware is a tool for creating blogs. Allow you to share pictures, video, links, documents, newsletters, opinions and more, with family, friends and colleagues. This is the Blogware Dashboard.

With whichever you choose, you will be able to create posts, share photos, information and have fun. But there is a series of advantages and disadvantages with a hosted platforms :

Advantages

1. Its free.
2. You don’t need to download or install any software, all is in the web.
3. It’s unnecessary to know HTML.
4. It’s very easy to use and manage.

Disadvantages

1. You won’t have your own domain, for example www.yourblog.com. Instead, you will have a subdomain, something like www.yourblog.blogspot.com, www.yourblog.wordpress.com or something similar with that structure.
2. No FTP access.
3. You are not able to create more pages.
4. You haven’t full control of your blog, like editing or using php files.

As you can see, with a hosted platform you will get a basic blog. It is not bad but if you want to get something more professional, you should get a self-hosted blog.

Self-Hosted: this kind of platform is very professional, because you will have your own domain on the net, you won’t have any strange extension on your link, instead you will have something like www.yourblog.com. To get this, you have to buy and spent money registering your domain and getting a package. Micfo.com and Godaddy.com are some web hosting companies where you can host your blog, buying a domain and getting a package which give you a limit of storage, bandwidth, supported formats and more. The following are the most popular platforms used in self hosted blogs:

• WordPress.org: WordPress has been converted in the preferred platform for bloggers with own domain. Due to its power, plugins and the big support it has, wordpress is the best choice if you want to have a blog with your own domain. Notice that wordpress.org is different to wordpress.com, because .org basically is the blogging platform, wordpress.com give you free hosting with that platform. This blog is made with wordpress, and you can check the great dashboard here. At first glance you can notice that the self-hosted platform has more functions than the hosted platform.
• MovableType.org: Movable Type provided users for the first time with the features necessary for Movable Type to serve as a light weight content management system for web sites. It also provided a framework to developers to define their own custom asset types as illustrated through the Media Manager and Podcasting plugins for Movable Type. Thus are some screenshots of this platform: Dashboard, Compose Screen, Template Editing.
• b2evolution.net: b2evolution is a great blog tool, It includes all the features of traditional blog tools, and extends them with evolved features such as file & photo management, advanced skinning, multiple blogs support as well as detailed user permissions…Not to mention third party plug-ins!. This is the b2evolution Dashboard.

As you can see, a self-hosted blog give you full control of your blog, you can use php files, edit whatever as you want and more. Let’s check the advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages

1. You will have an own domain, something like www.yourblog.com.
2. Full FTP access.
3. You can create and edit many pages as you want.
4. You can use php, asp or another kind of format while your host support those format.
5. Full blog’s control.

Disadvantages

1. Is not free.
2. The setup can be complicated.
3. You need to know about HTML.
4. Problems with the hosting.

Self-Hosted Platforms are for people with motivation and want to have a professional blog. I really consider that there is no disadvantages if you have experience with hosting and HTML. And about the cost, if you monetize your blog in a couple of months you will get your money back , is like a invest.

If you have a problem and you are not sure about your proper platform for you, don’t be afraid to ask me , send me an email or just leave a comment in ths post, I will be glad to help you.

Probably this is one on first thing you notice when you visit a blog. A Web Feed is a data format used to share frequently updated content with other users. In the case of blogs, podcasts or forums, this is a great tool to provide the most recent post to your readers.

How it works?

All right, you now the meaning of Feed, but now what? well to get the information provided on the Feed, you need to use an Internet Aggregator. Once you got an aggregator or feed reader, you need to subscribe to the respective feed. You can subscribe to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. Once subscribed, the reader checks the user’s subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

You can subscribe to a feed in two different ways, by an reader and by Email. If you chose the email subscription, you will receive the content directly in your inbox.

The Formats

There is two kind of formats:

• RSS: RDF Site Summary or colloquially knew as Really Simple Syndication is the most common kind of feed format. Is a format used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”, contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that’s easier than checking them manually.
• ATOM: The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources. The usage is identically the same than RSS.

So as blogger, what format may you choose? Well the most of blogger use RSS and this because that format is more compatible with more readers, nothing more. With an ATOM or an RSS feed you will get exactly the same content .

As first post of this guide to beginners, I will start by the most basic and elemental thing which is the Blog.

What Is A Blog ?

This site is a blog! may be the meaning could be taken as something obvious but it’s not for everybody, in fact, there is a lot of people with some idea about what is it, but they don’t know exactly its meaning. “Blog” have some many meanings, so lets check some of them:

A blog is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Source Wikipedia

Blog — (weB LOG) A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. Source BlogsCanada

A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. Source Blogger

Blogs, or weB logs, are basically online journals or diaries which are great for sharing information and ideas. Source BBC

If you still with a doubt, lets collect all those meanings in a single one. Basically a blog is a space on the net, a website where you can share your ideas, your knowledge or simply your life, just like a diary. The entries or posts are displayed in reverse chronological order, this mean that the last entries are displayed in the top, this way your visitors can read the last written content.

The Comments

For each entry, the visitors can make comments and share their ideas about the related topic. This way, you as blogger – blog administrator – can reply those comments, making the entry some fun and nice to read.

You have the authority to approve or decline any comment, even you can add an option to moderate the comments, and those won’t be displayed until you read and approve the proper comment. In the most of comments, the visitors drop their blog link to expand their network, but this technique will be taken in other post.

The Archives

“The archives” is a list with all the entries posted on your blog. You can manage this list by year, month, week or even by day, but the most common kind of archives are listed by month, is the most reasonable taking the fact that it can reduce this list quite a good way, much more than if you do it per week or day.