lessons learned - starting a blog
May 9, 2008 – 8:22 pmSince I just launched this blog, I thought I would outline the steps I took to get it where it is today while it is still fresh in my mind. I am by no means a code jockey, so this may seem pretty basic to some of you. I hope this helps you improve your current blogs or get up the nerve to start one.
From the time I decided to start a blog until the first posting took me about eight hours over three days to complete. So there isn’t really that much work involved since everything is so turnkey nowadays (gotta love those plug-ins).
Before you get started, I suggest you create a bookmark folder and name it “my blog”. You should bookmark all the sites below and set your computer to remember the usernames and passwords. It is also a good time to create a folder on your desktop called “blog” where you can save all the themes, plug-ins, logo images, etc. in one place.
Disclaimer: there are no affiliate links in this blog.
Step 1: Domain Registration
I used GoDaddy but any of the multitude of domain registration sites will work. The hardest part of this process was picking a domain that (a) was available and (b) one I liked. I started an email thread with a few people whose opinions I trust to bounce around ideas for the blog name/domain. I suggest you pay the extra money to have a private/anonymous registration so no one can look up your registration info (name, address, email or telephone number). Once you buy the domain you will have a log-in account which you will need to use a little later to change your nameservers.
Step 2: Site Hosting
I chose LivingDot to host my blog. The main reason is they were recommended by several people I trust and they support Word Press, which is what everybody who is anybody seems to be using these days for blog software. All you need to do is got to LivingDot and sign up for a basic account (they call it a personal blog account 1 - at $10.95/month).
Step 3: Change your nameservers
You will need to reassign the nameserver from your domain registration company to your hosting company. I logged into my GoDaddy account, clicked on my domain and selected “nameserver”. There I replaced the two existing nameservers with the ones provided by LivingDot during the set up wizard. For your reference, a nameserver looks like this - DNS01.LIVINGDOT.COM (make sure you use the exact ones provided for your account).
Step 4: Upgrade to the latest Word Press version
Create a service ticket requesting to upgrade your account (at the time of this post - the current version is 2.5.1). For LivingDot, you need to create another account at LivingDotSupport (see why you need to bookmark all these sites now?). From my experience and from what others have said, this request usually takes less than one hour.
Step 5: Create a Word Press account
Now you need to create a Word Press account next. You need this account so you can get your API key. The API ket is used to activate certain plug-ins. After you log in, click on your username in the upper right corner. Then you will see your API key (don’t share it with anyone else - it’s your little secret).
Step 6: Pick a Word Press Theme
This is probably the hardest part. There are thousands of templates varying by color themes, column layout etc. Just look around until you find three or four that you really like. All you need to do is download them to your blog folder as you find them. You can unzip and upload them later. Here is where I found my free theme. If you later decide to change your theme (I have been told but have not tried it) your content will be fine and the changes will not mess up what you have already created.
Step 7: FTP Client
You will need an FTP client to upload plug-ins and the theme(s) you chose (you can use the default theme provided with your account but that is very boring and looked down upon by top bloggers like Jim Kukral). If you use a Mac like me, go with Cyberduck. If you are on a PC, I am sure you can Google a comparable ftp client (or go buy a new Mac). You need to log into your cPanel and create an FTP account (ftp server, username and password). Once you are connected, you should see the folders for your blog.
Step 8: Upload Theme
Unzip the file for the theme you downloaded and then fire up your ftp client (Cyberduck). Enter your ftp server (usually ftp.youblogname.com), username and password. Navigate your blog files to public_html, then wp-content, then select “themes”. Use the drop down menu to “upload” a new file. It will allow you to navigate to your blog folder and select the desired theme you want to upload.
Step 9: Upload Plug-ins
There are quite a few plug-ins you should consider for your blog. When you log into your WP account, there is a link on the far right side called 
“plugins”. The ones to use are Akismet, which filters out suspicious spam type comments; Contact Form ][, which allows you to have an email submission form like I have on my “contact me” page; Disqus Comment System, which is a really cool comment solution (just go to their site and check it out - add it, trust me); FeedBurner FeedSmith, allows people to subscribe to your blog posts easily; WordPress.com Stats, provides you stats on who is visiting your blog.
Step 10: Make your theme files editable
OK, this is essential and kinda tricky if you’ve never done it before. Open up your ftp client, navigate to public_html, then wp-content, then themes, and then open the folder for the theme name you are planning on using. Now you want to select all the files in that folder, right click them and click on “info”. Check all the boxes as shown in the screen shot and click “apply”. This will allow you to customize your theme and make other changes. If you don’t do this, you will have problems in the future when you want to make changes to your blog (just do it and get it over with - even if you never make changes, it won’t hurt anything).
Step 11: Make Your Logo
Now that your files are editable, you can create and upload a logo for your blog. I had a friend that does graphics whip mine up for me in about 4 minutes (literally). All I did was send him a picture I took with photo booth and asked him to make something cool. Then I took the gif and uploaded it via ftp to my blog and replaced the logo.gif file that was in the images folder of my theme.
Step 12: Customize Theme
This is probably the most technical part to creating a blog because it requires some knowledge (very basic, trust me) of HTML. Log in to your 
account and click on “Design”. Then click on “Theme Editor”. There you will see a box full of HTML that is the stylesheet for how your blog works. I suggest you open up a text editor and copy and paste all of the code in the style sheet into the text file and save it to your blog folder. This way if you make a change to your stylesheet and it screws up your blog, you can copy the original code back and revert to the original version. Alternatively, you could re-ftp that file for your theme and accomplish the same thing.
OK, let’s try to customize the blog. Anywhere you see a # symbol followed by numbers, letters or both, is where colors can be changes. The colors are in hexadecimal format. I use mainly dark grey (#696969), black (#000000), red (#CC0000) and yellow (#FFCC00) on my site. If you read the html, you will start to understand what the various colors will change.
For example, #footerbox{background:#696969;height:30px;line-height:30px !important;margin:0;padding:0;} if the dark grey bar across the bottom of my website.
Another example, a:hover { text-decoration: underline; color : #EE0000; border: none;} is what makes my links in my right sidebar red and underlined when your mouse over them.
OK, so you got a domain, your moved it over to a hosting service, you set up a Word Press account, found a theme and ftp’ed it up to your site, you added some plug-ins and customized the theme to look the way you want. Now it’s time to start blogging! What are you waiting for - try it, you’ll like it. Good luck!
