Tips on using BLOGGER.COM

Some links from Blogger.com's Help pages that I feel all new Blogger.com users ought to know. These tend to the the Frequently Asked Questions from those new to blogger.

• How do I create a blog that Blogger will host for free?
• How to delete your Blogger.com blog
• Using the Blogger.com editor
• How to moderate comments in Blogger.com
• How to delete comments
• About protecting your Blogger.com user name and password
• How do I control who can view my blog

More tips, for blogging newbies:

#1 - Write down your User ID, Password, and Blog URL somewhere (keep it safe, until you've committed it to memory).
I've seen many people get all caught up in the excitement of creating a new blog for the first time that they forget their User name, password or the blog URL. They'd lament that they can't find their blog or login etc.

#2- When creating your new blog, just choose a blog design quickly. And move on!
I've personally experienced this myself -- you spend ages choosing and mulling over the blog design template, colours, layout etc. My advice is to just quickly choose a design to get through the process. It's more important to familiarise yourself with how the Dashboard (the admin stuff) works. You can always change the design later.

#3 - Choose a consistent blog name with your URL
For instance, if I want my blog to be called "Rambling Librarian", then my preferred URL is also "RamblingLibrarian.blogspot.com". This is for consistency.

#4 - Blogger.com Vs Blogspot.com
I get this alot: Newbie creates a blogger.com blog. Then says "my blog can't be found". I'd tell them to check the URL. The blog URL should be "blogSPOT.com" and not "blogger.com". Example:

• MyFirstBlog.blogger.com is incorrect
• MyFirstBlog.blogspot.com is the correct URL

So far, only Blogger.com has this sort of arrangement. If you signup for a Wordpress.com blog, your blog url would be MyFirstBlog.wordpress.com. See what I mean about consistency? :)

[See also: Creating blogs with Blogger.com, 26 May 2008]



This work by Ivan Chew is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. For permissions beyond the scope of this license , please contact via RamblingLibrarian@gmail.com.