by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: January 27, 2009   Last Updated: June 17, 2010

The whole purpose of you reading this article is because you are a beginner and you are looking for some advice suitable for beginners wishing to make money online from blogs. You are overwhelmed by the amount of technical speak and advice. You don't have the time to search this site and that, nor the inclination at this stage. You simply want to get a blog set up and take that first step on the road to success. I am therefore not going to make suggestions for you, I am going to tell you how to do it.

The first step is to decide upon what the subject of your blog will be. Choose something very specific that is important to you, that you enjoy and that you know you have a lot of potential writing material about for a long time to come. It may be your favourite sports team, your favourite singer, the arts and crafts hobby you enjoy - any one of an endless possibility of subjects. Take some time, however, to make sure that you choose the right subject that you are passionate about.

It is now time to sign up to a blogging site. I have no hesitation whatsoever in referring you to Blogger, who are part of Google (heard of them?) They are by far and away the best site for beginners to the blogging world. Avoid particularly WordPress at all costs. This site is overly technical, extremely user unfriendly and has a list of do's and don'ts as long as a very long arm! It is totally unsuitable for beginners and could turn you off blogging altogether - it almost did for me!

When you get to Blogger's home page, you will have the option to "Take a tour." I would highly recommend that you do so and get a feel for the site before you begin anything. Only after this should you sign up, choose your template as prompted and name your blog. The name and web address which you attach to your blog are very important, particular the latter (the URL.) The URL is something which can never be changed and will be used by the search engines to find you online. If, for example, your blog is therefore about pigeon racing, the part of the URL which you will be asked to determine should be something like "pigeonracing" or "pigeon-racing."

You are now at the stage of making your first post. There is no requirement to write a ten thousand word essay, here - in fact you would be ill-advised to do so. Blog posts should be short, snappy and to the point. Don't use up all your material in one go and possibly frustrate your reader at the same time. You are attempting to catch the reader's attention

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