Whenever someone with not much experience with online technologies tell me that they want to create a blog I suggest them to go with blogger/blogspot.
Why?
Reasons are:
1. You don't have to signup for any hosting.
2. You don't have to get your own domain (Though I strongly recommend getting one). You can host on .blogspot subdomain.
3. You can start very quickly. You only have to click some buttons and fill some forms and you are all set. You don't have to download any package, do FTP, create MySQL databases and many other stuff that self hosted blogs require.
4. You can test the waters before getting too serious. I have seen many people getting excited with blogging and later find it as a burden.
5. You don't have to manage many plugins and other technical stuff. Although their are many you can choose from when you get comfortable.
6. ITS FREE. Yes you don't have to pay any fees to blogger to create and host your blog. To make the deal more sweet you can earn money by displaying ads from Adsense. Blogger and Adsense both are owned by Google and they are integrated together well. You can signup to Adsense from within the blogger dashboard.
7. You can always get your data if you don't want to keep your blog with blogger any more.
8. You can create a private blog that only users you allow can read.
In short if you create your blog with blogger you only need to have passion to create great content and share it with others.
Now if you are ready lets start with the steps to create your first blogspot/blogger blog:
1. Go to blogger.com and sign in with your google account. If you do not have a google account click on the link saying "Create and account" below the login box and create you account
2. After log in if it ask for your phone number its up to whether to provide it or not. If you don't want click on the "skip" link. You may not see this page and go straight to the blogger dashboard. If that is the case move on to the 3rd step.
4. A new box will open within the same window. It will ask you to fill these fields:
i. Title: This will be the title of your blog. If you haven't decided yet no need to worry you can change it anytime later.
ii. Address: This will be the URL of your blog if you want to host it as yourblog.blogspot.com. If you are going to use your own domain you don't need to think much about it. Choose any and you can point your domain later to this blog. If you are going to host it on blogspot domain you can either choose carefully now or you can change it later.
iii. Template: This is the design of your blog. You selection will determine how your blog will look like. You can change it later so no need to think too much at this stage.
5. After you have filled all the fiends above click on the create blog. This will create your blog on blogspot subdomain you have chosen in previous step.
After this you will get redirected to blogger dashboard and you can see your blog listed as mine. I have highlighted it in the box. If you can see the same your blog is created and you can start posting by clicking on the "start posting" link or that "button with the pencil icon" on the right side.
Thats it!
Congratulations! You have created you first blog and you are ready to to post to it.
I will write about the various settings you can do to make it better and more functional. Meanwhile take a look through the blogger dashboard and make yourself familiar with it.
Have fun and do comment.
