1: Creating your blog

Purpose of this post

This is the first of a series of posts that will supplement our sessions. There's some background information about blogging and instructions for creating your Google account and your blog at Blogger. So that we can support you, please follow the instructions carefully. If you have any issues or questions, please complete the contact form on the blog or post in our Facebook group.

Please remember that you won't break anything when you start using Blogger. Anything that you do can be edited or deleted. Like all programs, the more you use Blogger, the more confident you'll become with using Blogger. It's just the tool we're using to share our family stories.

What is a blog?

Blog is short for weblog which is like a diary. Blog is a generic term and does not belong to a company. 

A blog refers to the whole website. The content comprises posts and pages. Understanding the difference between posts and pages can be confusing when you start out. Remember that it's best to start simple and try things out to see how they work for you and your readers.

Pages are the static content of your blog that rarely need updating. Pages can be shown as tabs at the top of your blog or as links on the side. Pages are good for:

  • introducing yourself or the purpose of your blog,
  • a snapshot of your family history research including a pedigree chart and
  • conditions for using the information in your blog.
 Posts are the content that you add regularly like diary entries or a journal:-

  • Posts are shown on the main homepage of your website.
  • They are listed in reverse chronological order by the date published. You can also have a featured post appearing ahead of your latest post.
  • You can add labels (tags) to posts so they can be filtered.
  • Posts are best used for your stories.

Why blog your family history?

  • It's fun, rewarding and easy (once you get started)
  • Store, organise and keep track of your family history research
  • Share your research with your family far and wide
  • Share your research with other family historians
  • Connect with previously unknown family
  • You own and control the content
  • You can decide what to add, when to add it and who can see it
  • You can change and delete content at any time
But remember that readers can download images and other information from your blog without your permission.

Options for your family history blog

  1. A private blog that only you can view as an alternative or to complement paper-based or other forms of electronic storage. 
  2. Invitation only blog that allows you to control who gets access.
  3. A public blog that all can view. You can direct people to the blog or they can find it online. Optimising your blog for "searchability" is beyond the scope of this program although some tips and techniques are included in the setup we've included.
See how to do this HERE.

How do you want to tell your family story?

Answering this question will define how you want to organise your blogging:-
  • Do you want to use one blog to tell all your family stories?
  • Do you want to use multiple blogs to tell the stories of different lines of your family?
When starting out, we recommend that you commence with one blog to develop your skills. We'll be keeping everything as simple as possible during the sessions. 

Blogger is a brand name and is a Google Product





Log in to your Google account to get access to Blogger

Either via your Google apps (shown in the image at the right)



 


Organising your "blogging"

  • You can create as many blogs as you want under one Google account. 
  • In Blogger, you can easily switch between your blogs to manage and edit.
  • For both these options, see the very top left corner of your Blogger account page.

What's the difference between blogger.com and blogspot.com

  • blogger.com is the backend of Blogger where you create, edit and delete your blog, pages and posts
  • blogspot.com is the frontend of Blogger where your blog with its pages and posts are displayed

Step 1: Creating your Google account

This step is only necessary for participants who don't have an email address at gmail.com. Click HERE if you need to create a Google account.

Step 2: Creating your blog

You can create and manage your own blog with Blogger. You can delete a blog as well. We'd like all participants to follow these instructions. Then we can "troubleshoot" if you have problems.
  1. Sign in to Blogger
  2. On the left-hand side, click on the Down arrow
  3. Click New blog 
  4. Enter a name for your blog - You can change this at any time. So just choose whatever jumps into your mind and go with that to start.  It is suggested that you choose a name of less than 60 characters.
  5. Click Next 
  6. Choose a web address for your blog - Choose words describing your blog until "This blog address is available" is shown.
  7. Click Save

Step 3: Managing your blog's settings 

Blogger allows you to manage many different features of your blog through Settings. Here are the basic Settings we'd like you to check-
  • Basic - Description: Insert a description of your blog up to 500 characters. We suggest around 100 characters. Too many characters and your blog layout will look cluttered.
  • Privacy - Visible to search engines: Toggle to the right to allow search engines to find your blog. Some participants might want to turn this off while they are developing their blog.
  • HTTPS - HTTPS redirect: Toggle to the right so visitors always reach the secure version of your blog.
  • Permissions - You can let other people be authors on your site. If your blog is not public you can set "Custom Readers" and invite people to read your blog. (See how to set permissions)
  • Posts - Set the number of posts to appear on the main (home) page, the archive frequency, you can set up a template and whether images display in a lightbox when clicked.
  • Comments - Comments location: Select Embedded if you want readers to be able to comment or Hide if you don't want readers to be able to comment. If you select Embedded, we recommend-
    • Who can comment? is restricted to either "Users with Google Accounts" or "Only members of this blog"
    • Comment moderation: Select Always
    • Email moderations requests to: Include your email at gmail.com.
    • Reader comment captcha: Toggle to the right
  • Formatting - Time zone: Set to your local time, like (GMT+10.00) Eastern Australian Time - Sydney. You can also select the Date header format, Timestamp format and Comment timestamp format that you prefer from the drop-down menu.
  • Meta tags - Enable search description: Toggle to the right to allow search engines to find a description of your blog. Once this is selected, your Search description should include keywords separated by commas that will allow search engines to categorise your blog. You might include family names and locations along with keywords like family history, genealogy and DNA.
Changes noted 5 July 2022: When you set up your blog, you will receive multiple emails asking if you want an email notification when comments are published. We suggest that you subscribe to this...but only once! If you select "Always" for comment modification, you will receive a further email. We would suggest that you subscribe to this as well.  

Step 4: Using Themes to change the look of your blog

Blogger has dozens of themes but, during this short program, you should use one of the six Contempo themes. We're using Contempo Light in this blog.  By using Contempo,  it's easy for us to help you if you have any difficulties. Different themes have their own idiosyncrasies and we can't know everything about each one of them.


The Contempo theme has some good basic features and a clean layout. So it is a good one to start with. Once you have played around and understand how Blogger settings work, then you can branch out but, for now, find your feet with this one so that we can help you. There are five different colour schemes to choose from in this theme. The layouts and features are the same just different colours and fonts.


In our next session, we'll look at styling your blog using the Customize features.

Step 5: Using Layout to change the look of your blog

Your blog is divided into different sections depending on the Theme that you're using.   In Contempo's Layout, you'll see-
  • Sidebar (Top)
  • Sidebar (Bottom)
  • Search (Top)
  • Header
  • Page List (Top)
  • Ads
  • Page Body and
  • Footer
Within each section, you can add, remove and edit gadgets. You can also click and drag to rearrange the gadgets. Gadgets are the building blocks of each section of your blog. 

Here are the gadgets we'd like you to use in each section of your blog and the order we'd like them to appear in-
  • Sidebar (Top)
    • Turn all gadgets off
  • Sidebar (Bottom)
    1. Contact form gadget
    2. Blog archive gadget titled "Find a post"
    3. Labels gadget
    4. Remove or turn all other gadgets off
  • Search (Top)
    • Turn blog search gadget on
  • Header
    • Turn page header gadget on
  • Page List (Top)
    • Turn pages gadget on
  • Ads
    • Turn AdSense gadget off
  • Page body
    • Turn Featured Post gadget on
    • Turn Blog Posts gadget on
    • Turn Popular Posts gadget on
  • Footer
    • Turn Attribution gadget on
Your layout should now look like this!


Before you exit Layout, it's wise to save the changes by selecting the save icon on the bottom right-hand side of the page. 

Your activity

Please follow all the instructions above to set up your blog.  

Well done, you've now created your blog. You're now ready to start publishing your posts and pages.

Remember any questions or comments can be sent through the blog's contact form or posted on our Facebook group.

What's next?

References 

Blogger has excellent help HERE.
A quick YouTube video HERE.

Popular posts from this blog

Click here to follow our blogging musings!

Before you begin, please read about the program  HERE. Three ways to find information in our blog- You can use the looking glass on the top right of the home page to search the blog. You can go to a selected post by using the link below. You can use the labels in the blog. There can be accessed from the drop down menu if you see it on the left hand side of the screen or, otherwise, by selecting the three lines at the top left of the screen. Here are the links to the six blogs that support the content of our program- Creating your blog  includes your activity to create a blog Adding pages to your blog  includes your activity to publish a page Adding posts to your blog  includes your activity to publish a post Composing your pages and posts Adding images and videos to your pages and posts Comments, Contacts, Sharing and Following Changing the look of your blog Reviewing the current Layout of our blog Setting Permissions - who can author or read...
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2: Adding pages to your blog

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What is a page? Pages are the static content of your blog that rarely need updating. Pages can be shown as tabs at the top of your blog or as links on the side. There's no limit to the number of pages that you can have in one blog. However, we suggest that you limit pages shown as tabs at the top of your blog to three or four. There's no limit to the number of pages that can be linked on the side of your blog. Pages are good for: introducing yourself or the purpose of your blog, a snapshot of your family history research including a pedigree chart and conditions for using the information in your blog. Creating pages Sign in to  Blogger On the left-hand side, select a blog From the menu on the left, click Pages In the top left, click  New Pages  Enter a page title and content - see 4: Composing your page or post In the top right, click Preview page, Save  or Publish - Once a page is published, it can't be saved but only republished by selecting  Publis...
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8: Reviewing the current Layout of our blog

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In  1: Creating your blog , we covered the various areas of Contempo's Layout . In this post, we'll show how we've used the Layout and gadgets in our blog- Sidebar (Top) - not used Sidebar (Bottom) - used for- Contact Form gadget Pages gadget Blog archive gadget and Labels gadget Search (Top) - used Header - used Page List (Top) - used for Pages gadget Ads - not used Page Body - used for- Featured Post gadget Blog Post gadget and Popular Posts gadget Footer - used for Attributions gadget Sidebar (Bottom) Here you can see the gadgets we've used and how they have been configured for the contact form, page list, archive and labels. Search (Top) Page List (Top) Page Body Here you can see how we've configured the page body to show the featured post and popular posts. Attributions Here you can see how we've included a copyright.
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