I’m not a blogger however I do see lots of advertisements for free websites etc. The one thing I do know is write about what you are passionate about! These are the blogs that seem to be most popular because the passion comes through in one’s writing. Good luck with it!

Have a look through the questions on MoMs. There have been similar questions to this one asked and responded to. Good luck

Blogger or WordPress are the two main blog sites I think

My old work used Posterous, and I found it easy to use and there is a lot of tips on how to use it. Whatever you do choose, youtube for hints! Good luck!

I second everything Michelle had to say the ‘net’ is your oyster and you have so much opportunity out there. Blogger definately is a favourite – word press is usually second. It all depends what you want to do etc x Good Luck

I write a lot of content for blogs via wordpress and have found it really easy to use, although its been my experience actually working a webpage is more appealing for the reader. You should be prepared to do a lot of work with social media platforms, mainly facebook and twitter to capture your initial audience, unless it is a really specific topic site that people are likely to search for. Google good SEO practices too! Michelle has covered most things that i can think of! Good luck!

Great advice Michelle, thanks so much. I’ve also thought about doing a blog but really didn’t know where to start or what I should consider. You’ve helped a lot with all your advice.

I use blogger as well – very easy to use, I just forget to update it and add more posts 🙂

Thanks Michelle for your comprehensive answer. I feel like I’m learning a new language and I’ll have to become a lot more tech savvy! The Blogging Glossary link will be very useful. You’re right, it does all sound a bit daunting but I think I just need to jump in and start and then it will probably be an evolving process like you said. Thanks for the advice.

You have a number of choices when deciding which blogging platform to use. Most popular is Blogger (owned by Google and it’s the one I use), the other is WordPress.

I can tell you about Blogger only as that’s my experience. It’s free, however you can pay a small fee to have your own domain name which I have, you’ll have many different layouts to choose from and they can also be customised.

You’ll learn as you go, I’ve slowly ditched a lot of things that I had on my blog and stuff I participated in to get my blog up and running, however once I realised they weren’t really for me and not the direction I wanted for my blog I got rid of them. I’ll give you some examples:

Comments: You can choose not to let people comment on your blog if you wish, after dealing with so many spam comments and comments that were totally not relevant to my blog posts, I turned off the comments and it was the best decision I’ve made – I got so sick and tired of all those ”you follow me and I’ll follow you” posts and “check my blog out” and “I’m your latest follower” with no other relevant comments left. Many people would disagree with turning off comments, however it will also depend on the type of blog you have. If readers need to contact me they do, I get my fair share of emails and I respond to readers that way.

Google Friends Connect: You know the lot of GFC icons you see on blogs – the people who follow you, well, I got rid of that as well, same as the Linky followers. From my perspective they just make a blog look desperate and they take up space, however it’s personal choice.

Blog Hops: Lol! I hate them. When I first started my blog I participated for about a month and it became clear they weren’t for me, you need your comments open to participate and the GFC or other followers badge like Linky or whatever they use now. Blog Hops produced a truck load of spam comments, were so time consuming for nothing much really and I found them to be childish (that’s just me though, plenty of bloggers still go for them).

Social Media: Most bloggers add the icons from social media sites they belong to so people can “follow” them on those sites. I initially started off with the typical Twitter, Google Plus icons etc that said follow me, I then made my own and ended up taking them off my blog, now only having a link to Twitter. I really don’t like the Follow Me wording, much prefer wording like You can find me on Twitter or whatever sites you belong to. Once again, that’s just a personal thing as the follow me stuff sounds desperate and immature.

No one sets up a blog to not be read and trust me readers will not just come to you, you will need to network to get readers to your blog – that’s why many bloggers go for the follow icons, join blog hops and join various sites to promote their blogs, you can link your blog to places like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, Google Plus and many more as well as having the comments field open for engagement. What you do initially may well be, not what you finally end up with once you have a solid reader base.

Blog layout: That’s entirely up to you, however a few tips: Don’t junk up your blog page, it will look messy, will take too long to load and won’t be easy for your readers to navigate.

Technical stuff: Things can and will go wrong, you need to be computer savvy, read updates and know where to go to fix problems to keep your blog running smoothly.

There are so many other things to tell you but you will come across them as you set up your blog.

Here is a link to common Blog terms you will come across and should know: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/6063/Glossary-39-Blogging-Terms-to-Know.aspx

If you need any further info please ask, I’ll pop back in here often, I hope it all goes well for you, it might seem daunting at first but once you get the hang of it all, you’ll find it very rewarding and for me it’s a great hobby.

I would be interested in hearing answers to this too as have been considering this for a while