Monday 6 January 2014

Is 2014 your year to start a blog?

As any readers would know who have been reading here since I started my blog in June 2013, it has all been a bit of a learning curve. I had a lot of help from experienced bloggers on the Down to Earth Forums while setting it up and have learned quite a lot since that time which I would like to share in case there is anyone out there who is trying to make the decision whether to take the plunge into the world of blogging in 2014.




My main reasons for starting my blog were threefold:
 
1. I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could learn the basics of setting up a blog. 
 
2. To provide a little place on the internet where my grandchildren could see what Nanna and         Nannu were getting up to in their daily lives as we live so far away from the girls and rarely see them.
      
 3.To share the many ideas I had found on various blogs when researching for craft and sewing items to make for the girls. I knew lots of other grandmothers would be interested in these projects as well. 
 

 
Here are some of the steps I took when setting up my blog which you might like to follow:
 
Firstly ... have a look at Rhonda and her friend Ernie's Blogging Workshop , click here and watch the video on how to set up a Blogger blog.
 
Just after I started up my blog Rhonda did a two part series on Blogging for Beginners on her Down to Earth blog. She has lots of tips there.
 
 
 
 
I also read the Blogger Getting Started Guide  https://support.google.com/blogger/answer/1623800?hl=en#createblog
 

 
There are probably heaps more tutorials on the net since I started my blog but here are a couple that I used at the time.

Blissfully Domestic . I think I made my header using this tutorial. However, it uses Picasa for storing photos in and I found that all my photos were being saved to my Smartphone and I couldn't delete them even though I had deleted them on my PC and had to do a Google search to find how to go into my phone settings to get rid of them. So I uninstalled Picasa. Thankfully my header didn't disappear. If you don't have a Smartphone it shouldn't be a problem for you.
 
Something Swanky  has good tutorials as well.

On link within I learned how to add that section under my posts which says 'You might also like' and has photos of previous posts.
 
I use Picmonkey a lot these days and I just noticed that they have a page of Top Ten Tutorials which I must check out as they look very interesting.  
 


These sites have freebies that might take your fancy:
 

Shabby Blogs and...
 
Then, of course, there are Blog freebies on Pinterest if you have nothing else to do with your life and want to spend a few hours browsing through all the great freebies on Pinterest.
 
I found it helped me in the beginning to find a blog that was set out in a way that I would like mine to look. Some blogs look too busy for me and I prefer the more simple look. Often I would just click on something I liked on a blog to see where it linked to which I did with the link within
 
So.....have you made up your mind yet? If the answer is yes, then come over to the Down to Earth Forums and we can help you with any questions you have on the Blogging sub-forum. Don't worry about sounding silly as I still don't know all the lingo experienced bloggers use. If you don't wish to join the forums you can email me if you have any questions and I will help you if I can.  

To blog or not to blog in 2014...that is the question?  What is your answer? :-)


 
 

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for this , Im not that computer savy and I just added link within yay. I must join the down to earth forum I think I tried once and it didnt work I might have another try xx

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  2. Hi Sharon. What do you mean 'it didn't work' ? Did you mean you weren't able to join the forum? If you have any problems just let me know and I will help you sort it out.

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  3. These are good sites even for those of us who have gotten going - new and interesting things are always beckoning. Good suggestions and good reviews as well -Thank you for another interesting post that I can use!

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    1. Thanks Kathy, I'm glad it has been helpful.

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  4. I thought I'd already commented but must not have! This is great information, and I will check out some of those links later on. Thank you.

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    1. Thanks Ree. It's hard to know sometimes if a post is helpful or not unless there are some positive comments. It's nice to get some feedback as it does take time to put a post with links together.

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  5. Very helpful, thank you Nanna Chel, I could always learn more :)

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  6. Very helpful post. Encouraging for new bloggers.

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