In Tutorial 2/6, we used the Blogger.com’s standard template “Minima” and our blog looks like this now:

Yes yes, I can hear everyone complaining how dull it is already! But fear not, we are going to transform this blog into something much more interesting and wonderful at the end of this post. Before that, let’s look at how other people tend to customize their website/blog template. How about we begin with this site – WebHostingSecretRevealed.com?

Design of Web Hosting Secret Revealed

1. Blog Title with Logo (should be easily interchangeable)
2. Home button to let reader return to the main page
3. Other useful links to be put at the top

Actually, this is a much adopted approach for the web nowadays. This layout gives the reader a totally neat and “user-friendly” feeling. You could see many more examples around:

Design of EnGadget

Site link: http://www.engadget.com/

Design of CNN

Site link: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

Getting into action: Installing K2

We are going to use this approach to customize our blog. To begin, let’s head over here to have a look at a very popular blog template called K2. This is what we want! Customizable title and background picture with tabs underneath it, awesome. Now download the template:

The file downloaded is “k2-blogger.xml”.

Now, from your Dashboard, you’ll need to get to Layout>Edit HTML. Before we begin any modification to your blog, let’s be on the safe side and backup your current template, haha! Just in case any “unfortunate” events occur, at least we could revert back to the old one.

1. Backup a copy of your current template (the file would be “template-somenumbers.xml”)
2. Choose the file “k2-blogger.xml” that you’ve downloaded just now
3. Upload the new template to the system

OMG!!! Your blog just magically transformed into a beauty!

Still, this is not perfect yet. The downloaded template consists of some tabs and links that we will not require for our blog. Hence, some minor modifications are still needed. We could even change the title background to something we fancy. Just follow the below tips to make everything go your way.

In Edit HTML page, tick the Expand Widget Templates checkbox, and be in the Edit Template column to do this:

Change the highlighted link to the link of the title background image you would like to use.

Edit these codes to change the tabs to the links that you’d like to display.

Tada! Have a look at the customized blog now and compare it to the previous layout. Wonderful isn’t it?

To experiment with a variety of different templates, give these links a try:

• Eblog Templates
• Cheth Studios
• Mint Blogger

In the next and final installment of this Blogger Tutorial, we’ll be learning how to use some analytical tools/statistic counters to analyze and understand where our blog readers come from, what they are interested in, and how all these data could help you improve your blog contents and increase your readers. Till then, adios!

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (Confirm Cekap), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the fifth article of E-quan’s Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first four articles here, here, here, and here. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

1. Photobucket

Site: http://www.photobucket.com

Like mentioned in the last tutorial, Blogger provides the capability of attaching photos to your blog post. Your photos will be uploaded to the Blogger server and kept there, randomly. Photobucket provides a way for you to keep your photos in an organized manner. First, you upload all related photos to one folder, say “Finland Trip”. Then, you could easily use them for your posts.

2. Flickr

Like Photobucket, Flickr is also a photo repository.

Besides giving you the option to share the photos in your Flickr account to your Blogger blog, you could also first edit your photos. Flickr Edit is powered by Picnik which gives you powerful editing capabilities. Resize, crop, red-eye reduction, you name it.

3. Chat Box

Site: http://www.cbox.ws

Everybody needs a CBox (Chat Box). You need to provide an area for your readers to gossip, haha! It’s a quick way to let your readers ask you a question; respond to your readers, etc. It also keeps the history of your chats so that you could refer to them if you want to. It’s in html, no java nor flash required. Simple yet great.

4. Statcounter

Site: http://www.statcounter.com

Statcounter is an invisible web tracker that will help you monitor the traffic to your blog. By invisible it means that your reader will not know that they are being “tracked”. Haha, it is not something illegal, by all means. The best thing is it is really free, no advertisement whatsoever. You get to have a detailed report on where your readers come from, what browser they are using, which post they frequent the most, and so much more.

Even a hit counter to show daily or accumulated visits (Detailed reports showed below).

5. Search Box (Install from Blogger Gadget)

Search boxes have become a necessity for blogs. It will be so much easier for your readers to look for a particular post amongst your humongous archives of posts. Just provide an easily accessible corner of your blog to put this. Your reader simply needs to type in some keywords, and the script will automatically crawl through your blog and presents the matching posts. It is powered by Google Search.

6. Recent Comments (Install from Blogger Gadget)

“Recent Comments” is a gadget that allows you to show latest reader commentary on one column of your side pane. The motive that many bloggers start implementing this is to encourage readers to engage in discussion on the posts you have written. If a reader sees another reader commenting on something, he/she might feel want to participate too and the chain goes on. This is definitely a good way to attract your readers to come back to your blog for updates.

7. Facebook Badge

Site: http://www.facebook.com

Since July 2009, Facebook’s official user count has already reached 250 million! Almost everyone has a FB account nowadays – your friends, family, colleagues, even your bosses. By adding a FB Badge, you could show your current FB status on your blog. Your readers will know what you are up to lately and if they like, they could also easily add you on their FB from there. Get to know more friends, expand your social circle!

8. Twitter Updates (Install from Blogger Gadget)

Every now and then, instead of writing a full-blast post, you might want to update your readers about your current mood, things you are doing, and whatnots. If you have a twitter account, you might be doing just that already! Now, it is easier than ever to integrate your twitter update straight to your blog. Your reader could now track your presence, every second, haha. “Going shopping now, blog laterz..”

9. Google Translation Gadget

The translation tool is something really awesome – totally translate your blog to another language! This might only be an extra add-on for your blog but you might never know how useful it really is to your readers. Powered by Google Translate, this gadget gives you a dropdown menu so that your blog could be translated to a language of your reader’s choice. I do not know many languages but I tried with Chinese Language and Bahasa Indonesia and it’s “freakingly” accurate. Salute to Google Translate for this.

Do you feel powerful already? Try enrich your blog with these addons today. In the next entry, we’ll be talking about how to apply custom templates to your blog (instead of using the boring ones Blogger provides, haha). I’ve also narrowed down some great places for you to get free quality custom templates. Don’t miss it!

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (Confirm Cekap), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the third of article of E-quan’s Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first two articles here and here. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

The writing interface on Blogger.com

This is your writing window and you might want to get a bit familiar with the interface:

Some key functions on the writing panel:

1. The Undo/Redo button
2. Strikethrough, YEAH! So you could write something like this: “Although I’m a rocket scientist smart, I tend to be humble.”
3. The highlight button, example “That freaking T-shirt costs $100?!? NO WAY!”
4. Hyperlinking. This is really useful to lead you readers to another site by clicking some text. For e.g., please click here. (Ooppss, I mean the word “here” is demonstrating a hyperlink, not an example on how to hyperlink is available there, haha!
5. Insert Image button. We’ll talk more about this.)
6. Preview gives you a snapshot on how your post will look like when published. It is always advisable to preview your post before really hitting the “Publish” button.
7. Labels functionality. For your posts, you are able to tag them into categories of your wish, e.g. Food&Travel, Work, Rants, etc. If your reader clicks on Food&Travel, all posts with the associated label will be sorted out and presented to him/her. How convenient!

What to write in your first blog post?

Now, you may wonder, “How should I write my first post?” The answer, unfortunately, varies. For me, my first post was about what my blog title meant. As a general guidance, you might want to consider these three points when writing your first post:

Who are you?
An introduction of you as the owner of the blog, maybe some particulars on your occupation, location, and interests.

Why are you blogging?
This is quite important to your readers but it is more important to yourself, really. Knowing why you want to blog is a great motivation to keep on doing so and you may find yourself writing more quality posts.

What will you be blogging about?
By having a general idea on what you will be writing in the next posts/future and relating them in your first post, it will get your readers coming back for more as you write.

I must admit that the above is a more conventional way of starting your blogging journey. It should work for most bloggers but there are also available tips on the net on writing your first post, creatively/differently. Have a look!

• 5 Simple Ways to Open Your Blog Post with a Bang
• How to Write Good Blog Post
• Writing Effective Blog Posts

Getting into action

Haha, I think I’m dragging too much on the introduction. We will really write our first post now.

To set an example, I have already created a new blog “E-quan Travels”. The idea of this blog is to share with my readers the places I’ve been to and the memories along the journey. Let’s see if you could get some idea on how to write your first post by seeing how I write mine.

First, a snapshot on my Page Elements:

Writing the text

On the bottom you could see the words “Draft saved at..”. Blogger automatically saves your work periodically so that you wouldn’t lose it just in case unfortunate event happens, say BSOD?

Attaching a picture

First, you’ll have to click the “Insert Image” button. You will then see the images below:

Click “Choose File” and choose the picture you would like to attach

After successful uploading, you will see a thumbnail of the picture. You may click “Choose File” to add more pictures or “OK” once you’re done

You will also be given options on the size of the picture and where to position it. Cool!

Embedding a video

Don’t we just love YouTube? Now, you can share the videos you like without needing to ask your readers to go to a particular youtube page. You can straight embed the video in your post! When you view a youtube video, you might have noticed the “Embed” column.

The “embed” part is all you need. Let’s copy that code down with Ctrl+C.

Remember that when we are writing our post, we are in the “Compose” mode. But when we need to embed a video in our post, we will have to go to the “Edit HTML” mode. From the “Compose” mode, put your cursor at the location where you would want your video to appear, then switch to “Edit HTML” mode.

Paste the code you copied just now there with Ctrl+V. TADA! Not hard, eh?

Finishing touch: Hit the publish button!

I think that’ll be all for my first post. Customarily, I will go to the “Preview” mode to proofread my work. It’s also easier to spot any mistakes or errors in your post by having this “bird-eye” view on your post. Yeap, I think I’m quite satisfied with this post. Just before hitting the “Publish” button, I’ll label my post. Erm, perhaps I’ll categorize this as “myblog”. Next, when I blog about travels to other countries, I might have labels like “Europe”, “Asia”, “Middle-East”, and so on.

Have a look at my work here Equan Travels!

It’s simply remarkable how Blogger has made blogging so easy and hassle-free. Just some minor tweaking and you’ll have a clean and organized blog. In the next tutorial, we’ll be exploring some must-have tools for a blogger like storage space for your photos/videos, chat-box, and many more. So stay tuned!

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (Confirm Cekap), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the third of article of E-quan’s Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first two articles here and here. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

So you’ve decided to pursue further, GREAT! In the last article, we touched a little on Blogger introduction and also its history. Some pros and cons on using Blogger were also deliberately discussed. Today, we’re gonna register for a Blogger account! I hope you’re as excited as I am.

Just click this button to start registering for an account

The whole registration process is really simple and can be divided into three sections namely:

1. Create Account
2. Name Blog
3. Choose Template

Step 1: Create A Google Account

In [Create Account], instead of creating an account solely for Blogger, you will be registering for a Google Account. This grand account enables you to access many Google services like Google Calender, Googler Reader, and many more. Please understand that this is not an option. You can’t just use your own e-mail account (hotmail, yahoo, etc) as the main user identification for your blog. So, if you already have a Google Account, e.g. Gmail, then great! You could log in to your account first before returning again to the Blogger registration page.

Step 2: Naming Your Blog

[Name Blog] is a very important step of the registration process so pay a little more attention here:

Blog Title

“Blog title”, like the name implies, is the title of your blog. This title will appear at the top of your reader’s web browser whenever he/she visits your blog. You may put anything relevant here and it is not constrained to limited characters so it is okay to put “My Little Diary”, “Daily Rants”, etc here.

Blog Address

“Blog address (URL)” is your actual address in cyberspace so you better get this right, haha! My suggestion is to be creative on this one. Something simple and easy for your readers to remember so that they could frequent your blog again. Besides having the constraint that your blog will be hosted at subdomains of blogspot.com, your URL must also only contain alphanumerical characters and the only allowable special character is hyphen (also known as dash, -). The “Check Availability” is a function for you to check whether your desired URL has already been taken up or not.

Step 3: Choose Your Blog Template

In [Choose Template], you will be given a few choices of dull standard blog templates to choose from. These are actually very basic layouts but should be adequate to cover your needs. Please choose one that you feel best represents how you want your blog to be presented. Blogger reminds us that, “you can easily change the template later, or even create your own custom template design once your blog is set up.” For me, I’ll choose “Minima” because the design looks nice and clean.

Congratulations! Once you click the “Start Blogging” arrow, you will be brought to a new page where you could write your first post.

But instead of starting to write straight away, let’s explore some of the Settings and Layout that are available to us to be customized.

Blog Configuration: Settings, Archive, & Page Elements

We’ll go to the Settings first. “Settings” is a place where you could customize how your blog shall “behave”. Let me show you some of the more important settings in “Settings”, haha.

Settings – Publising

Here, you could totally change your blog’s URL if you think the current one is not suitable anymore. Again, it’s subject to availability of course.

Settings – Formatting

This is a setting to determine how many blog posts will be displayed on the main page of your blog. If your blog posts are usually long and full of pictures, it may be a wise choice to put a smaller number for this one so that your reader wouldn’t take forever to load your blog.

Settings – Comments

Comments are the feedbacks your readers leave you at the end of your blog post. Here, you could choose who are able to leave comments at your blog, where the comment form should be placed, and so on. I want to touch a little on “Comment moderation”:

Sometimes, you don’t really want comments to be shown on your blog without you first authorizing it. This is called “comment moderation”.

If you set this to “Always” and you include an e-mail address, every time a reader leaves a comment, it will not be automatically shown on your blog but will arrive at your e-mail first. You then decide to approve or reject the comment.

Blog Archive

Archiving is a systematically procedure for storing your blog posts. You can archive daily, weekly, or monthly.

Figure on the right is the example of an archive.

We will now proceed to “Layout”. Layout, as the name implies, is a place where you could adjust the look and feel of your blog.

Furthermore, with Blogger’s superb features, you could even customize it by just clicking and dragging. (Now that’s user-friendly!)

Page Elements and Gadgets

The most important thing I want to show you here is adding a Gadget. A gadget is a small tool that is programmed to do a specific task. With the default layout chosen, Blogger has already thrown in “Followers”, “Blog Archive”, and “About Me”.

How to add/remove gadgets

Try clicking and dragging them to re-arrange the positions of these gadgets. Now, click “Add a Gadget” to see what goodies we could pack into your nice little blog.

A Blog List is a list of your favourite blogs together with the links to them. Let’s add this one. Let’s see, my favourite blogs include: Xiaxue, Kennysia, and many more. Add add add!

And as you can see on the right, that’s my completed blog list.

Example: Facebook Badge

There are so many possibilities here and so many cool things to play with. You can now even add, what is referred to as “Facebook Badge” here so that your Facebook status update could also be shown on your blog!

Anytime if you would like to change your blog’s template, just go to Layout – Pick New Template to do so, simple as that.

Please feel free to play around and click “Preview” to see how the changes will really look like to you and your readers. “Clear Edits” is your Undo button and “Save” to save your changes. Good luck!

P/S: In the next session, we’ll be writing our first ever Blogger post! Please stay tuned as tips on writing a clean post, attaching a photo, embedding a video, tagging/categorizing posts and more will be shared.

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (confirmcekap.blogspot.com), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: This is the second of article of the Blogger Tutorial series. You can read the first article here: Blogger Tutorial (1/6): Introduction & Getting Started. Also, if you are interested to write for us, read how to guest post at W.H.S.R..

I hope the list helps you find what you need.

1. ShareThis

ShareThis provides a simple solution for users who wish to add your post to many social bookmarking profile sites (Digg, Facebook, Stumble upon, etc). What I like the most bout ShareThis is that the plugin comes in a clean-and-tidy outlook thus it will not damage my blog template designs. Moreover, adding the ShareThis button can be done automatically thus it’s highly recommended for non-techies.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/share-this

2. Google Sitemaps Generator

As the name suggests, Google Sitemaps Generator generates sitemap for WP blog that is supported by Google, MSN/Yahoo (Bing), and Ask. The XML file generated will lists URLs for a blog along with additional metadata (info like how often the page is updated) about each URL; which in turns, improve the blog’s search visibility. For those who wish to have more search traffics, Google Sitemaps Generator is a must.

Download: http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/

3. Sociable

Sociable works very similar with ShareThis but their outlooks are totally different. ShareThis hides all the icon links (display only when clicked); while Sociable displays all the social media bookmark icons at the bottom of your blog pages. Both plugins are extremely user-friendly and helpful in term of social media marketing.

Download: http://yoast.com/wordpress/sociable/

4. Light Box

Lightbox is the kind of ‘cool plugin’ that you can’t afford to miss. It’s a simple script used to overlay images on the current page. The plugin is easy to setup, convenient to use, and most importantly, works on all modern browsers.

Download: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/

5. GD Star Rating

GD Star Rating Plugin enables you to setup rating and review system for blogpost and pages. Different from most other rating plugin, GD Star Rating comes with an advance built-in control panel (in WP dashboard) and it provides great flexibility in term of site display and rating aspects. I have been using GD Star Rating for one of my shopping websites – the flexibility and complexity of the plugin is eye-opening.

Download: http://www.gdstarrating.com/

6. Twitter Tools

The Twitter Tools plugin integrates with Twitter and support various Twitter related features on your blog. I don’t really enjoy using Twitter but what this plugin can do is amazing. In brief, Twitter Tools allow you to archive (or publish) your tweets on your blog, create blogposts based on your tweets, create a summary-alike blogpost of your tweets, and also create a tweet whenever you have a new blogpost.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/

7. Advertising Manager

Formerly known as the Adsense Manager, Advertising Manager plugin helps to manage and rotate your Google Adsense and other ads on your blog. The plugin will automatically recognizes and supports various ad networks including Google Adsense, AdBrite, Adroll, Chitika, Commission Junction, and so on. If you are looking for an organized way to monetize your blog, Advertising Manager is the one plugin you needed.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advertising-manager/

8. PollDaddy

The PollDaddy plugin allows you to create and manage your polls from your WordPress dashboard. If you think PollDaddy works just like the other 398 poll plugins found on WordPress site then you’re dead wrong. PollDaddy is a comprehensive poll plugin that’s used by tons of gigantic websites (Wired, TechCrunch, PC World!) and it works across various blogging/CMS platform. Survey features with PollDaddy include unlimited free polls with unlimited votes per poll, 14 PollDaddy skins to choose from or create your own in CSS, view poll results online, as XML or CSV or RSS, full foreign language support, polls control via IP address or cookies, and much much more.

Download: http://polldaddy.com/

9. SEO Title Tags

This WP plugin makes it dead-easy to customize (or optimize) your title tags across your WordPress blog or website. Not just your posts, not just your home page, but ANY and EVERY single title tag you can find on your blog! Personally, I am a big fan of the SEO Title Tags plugin as it helps me complete my SEO work a lot faster. If I can only pick one plugin besides Askimet, SEO Title Tags Plugin would be it.

Download: http://www.netconcepts.com/seo-title-tag-plugin/

10. Redirection

The function of Redirection does is simple yet critical. Basically, what this plugin does is to tidy up any loose ends your blog may have. It provides a convenient way to manage 301 redirections as well as keep track on 404 errors. This is particularly helpful if you’re running an old WordPress blog/website (especially if you migrated some pages before).

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/

11. Flickr RSS

Flickr RSS allows you to display Flickr photos on your WP blogs. It supports a wide variety of Flickr features and is relatively easy to setup and configure via the settings panel.

Download: http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/

12. Exec PHP

Ever wish to write and execute PHP codes directly from a particular WordPress post or page? Chances are you gave up the idea because it’s just too troublesome/difficult to work that out. Well, not anymore with Exec PHP. The Exec-PHP plugin executes code in your posts, pages and text widgets.

(There are, in fact, quite a lot of well known WP plugins with the similar features but I find Exec PHP the easiest to use.)

Download: http://bluesome.net/post/2005/08/18/50/

13. SI CAPTCHA for WP

I’m sure you are familiar with CAPTCHA anti-spam system. This SI CAPTCHA plugin works perfectly well on WordPress comment form and registration form. In order to post comments, users will have to type in the phrase shown on the image – which in turns, help prevent spam from automated bots.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-captcha-for-wordpress/

14. Dynamic Headers

Dynamic Headers plugin is especially useful when I was working on a travel related website. This small, easy to use plugin allows you to manage what header media is shown on each page/post – as the name suggests: dynamic image OR Flash files.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/dynamic-headers/

15. Google Analytics for WP

The Google Analytics for WP plugin easily adds your Google Analytics tracking code to all your web pages; which in turn allows you to track various parameters about your websites conveniently.A strong selling point for this plugin is that it automatically tracks and segments all outbound links from within posts, comment author links, links within comments, blogroll links and downloads. It also allows you to track AdSense clicks, add extra search engines, track image search queries and it will even work together with Urchin.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-for-wordpress/

16. Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is an user-friendly plugin that helps manage multiple contact forms published in August 2007. At current time of writing, the plugin supports Ajax-powered submitting and Akismet spam filtering (but not CAPTCHA spam filter).

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7/

17. SidePosts

The SidePosts plugin allows you to publish entire post entries in selected category on the sidebar instead the main blog. You will have then a small blog on the sidebar for those special entries. This feature is extremely useful for those who wish to build ‘mini-blog’ or ‘one-liner shout-out box’ sort of things on their blog sidebar.

Download: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sideposts/

Blogger: Introduction & Getting Started

So you’ve decided to start a blog, great! I bet you have plenty of thoughts, ideas, or even wonderful photos to share with close ones and the world. What better way of doing that than writing them down, publishing them easily, and at the end, archiving them systematically using Blogger (www.blogger.com)?

A little history about Blogger

Blogger is one of the earliest blog publishing systems and was created by the nice people over at a small company called Pyra Labs in San Francisco back in August 1999. To make the great story short, Google eventually saw the potential that was hidden in this blog publishing tool together with its many great features that it formally acquired Pyra Labs in February 2003. Blogger has now emerged as one of the most successful blog hosting providers offering many wonderful features with a user-friendly interface — for FREE!

Blogger when it was first launched

Blogger now

The basics of Blogger (and some example)

Basically, your blog will be hosted by Google at subdomains of blogspot.com.

What this means is that you could choose a unique name that is meaningful to you and your readers and publish your posts at that address (provided that the name is not taken up already!). Like this author, he also uses Blogger service and his blog is available at confirmcekap.blogspot.com. Many people use their own name/nickname as the URL and one famous blogger whose blog is being hosted on blogspot that I can think of right away is XiaXue (xiaxue.blogspot.com).

Asia’s favourite blogger

Pros and cons of Blogger

Besides Blogger, there are actually many blog hosting providers out there in the wild: Wordpress, Livejournal, Windows Live Spaces, to name a few. Before registering at Blogger.com, you might want to know the pros and cons from my own personal experience:

Pros:

• FREE!
• Fast and simple registration/setup. Even more so if you already have a Google account (Gmail for example).
• User-friendly interface (referred to as the Dashboard) — easy to navigate between Editing, Settings, and Layout. Even a drag-and-drop feature to arrange your blog’s layout!
• Labels option for your posts — meaning that you could categorize each post for example: travel, food, rants, etc.
• Easy to add photos/videos to your posts.
• Comments system is also available for you to gather feedback from your readers.

Cons:

• You don’t own nor can you control the site because it is free and being hosted by Google. Your blog can be blocked/deleted by Blogger if they judge your content being in violation of its Terms of Service.
• Multiple pages are not supported by Blogger currently. Your Blogger blog is not like a website where every page created has a new link/URL. You create posts instead. In short, it is not possible to create yourblog.blogspot.com/location where this page will contain your address with a nice hand-drawn map.
• The basic layout templates offered when you first register are pretty dull and if you’d like a more sophisticated layout, some research is definitely required.

Should you go with Blogger?

All in all, I still recommend that you try and start your blog at Blogger because as you can see above, the advantages are still quite significant. Click the Blogger’s logo below to start your blogging journey right away!

p/s: In the next session, we’ll be discussing about setting up your first Blogger blog and configuring it to fit your requirements.

About the author

E-quan graduated from Technological University of Malaysia as an Electrical and Electronics Engineer.

He is now attached with an MNC specializing in power and automation technologies. In his blog (confirmcekap.blogspot.com), he describes himself as a full-time procrastinator although in reality, he is “not”. He likes 80’s music especially Cantonese pop songs. He plays the Electone and wishes to own a grand piano (amongst the many things he would like to own) soon.

*Side Note: Got an idea for us? Learn how you can write a guest post at W.H.S.R..

A confession: I am a big fan of WordPress. I strongly believe WordPress is the best (and most popular) CMS/blogging platform for any beginners who wish to start a new website. And, except for the old websites I started since year 2002; I run all my websites in WordPress nowadays.

“How do I start a website?” – This is the most common question I get from my friends and relatives. Back in old times, in order to answer the question, I need to explain about HTML, FTP, database,  WYSISYG software like Dreamweaver, and so on.

Not now anymore.

Want to start a website? “Go with WordPress.” – That’s my standard short-and-sweet answer for all. 

This long article is meant for newbies who wish to start a new WordPress site or blog. In case you hate to read long articles from your computer screen, I prepared a printer-ready pdf version for this guide and you can download it here: Guide to your first WordPress website.

WordPress Explained

First thing first, what is WordPress? As described in developer’s own words:

“WordPress is publishing software with a focus on ease of use, speed and a great user experience. WordPress is blessed with an active community, which is the heart of open source software.”

“WordPress is a powerful personal publishing platform, and it comes with a great set of features designed to make your experience as a publisher on the Internet as easy, pleasant and appealing as possible. We are proud to offer you a freely distributed, standards-compliant, fast, light and free personal publishing platform, with sensible default settings and features, and an extremely customizable core. ”

In layman term, WordPress is an open-source web application that provides a convenient way to create, publish, and manage contents online. WordPress was mainly used as a blogging platform at first but as the software revolt; it is widely used in building and maintaining websites.

If you are into history, read About Wordpress.

Benefits of WordPress

WordPress is free, easy-to-use, features rich, SEO friendly, and most importantly, WordPress is widely supported. The system itself is supported by a huge group of talented volunteers; and there are hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of developers and web designers working 24/7 on WordPress plugins and templates.

I wrote a brief article about why WordPress is recommended but I don’t think it’s necessary for you to dig out the old stuffs.

What’s about WordPress template and plugin?

A WordPress template is the design codes (in css and php files) that decide the outlook of your website/blog; while WordPress plugins are functional codes that provide extra functions to your website/blog.

I’ll go into details for each of these at below.

WordPress.org vs WordPress.com

People always confused with WordPress.org and WordPress.com. WordPress.org is all about the software (where you can find supports, documentations and download links on the software); WordPress.com on the other hand, is where you can host a free blog online using the WordPress software. Blogs hosted on WordPress.com will have long URLs like http://www.myblog.wordpress.com – just like what you get from Blogspot.com.

WordPress Templates Explained

The beauty of WordPress is that the design of your blog/website is ‘seperated’ from the backend system.

The appearance of your WordPress blog/website is controlled by a series of files named template or theme. You can modify your blog/website designs easily by editing your files in the template folders (without touching the backend system). Once you get the stylesheets and template files configured, the design will be reflected thru out your blog/website and there’s no need to edit the designs on page-by-page basis.

Do I need to create WordPress templates myself?

Yes if you want to; but it’s not a must. As a matter of fact, most WordPress bloggers do not create their own blog/website templates. There are plenty of templates available (for free or for an affordable price) online. If this is your first WordPress blog, I would suggest you start by using templates built by others.

Where can I get those beautiful WordPress templates?

A simple search on Google should get you infinite WordPress templates. Alternatively, you can find beautiful templates from WordPress themes gallery sites as well as related blogs.
Some links to get you started:

Official WordPress Website

• Themes Directory 

Related Blogpost

• 25 beautiful WP themes in blogs, gallery, and magazine styles
• 100 excellent free high quality WordPress themes

WordPress Themes Galleries

• WP Themes 360
• Top WP Themes
• WP Theme Designer

Paid Themes Sites

• Elegant Themes

WordPress Plugins Explained

A WordPress plugin is like an extension on the basic system. Plugins can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine –polls, dynamic listing on related articles, on-site rating systems, images gallery, SEO features, auto-generate XML sitemap… etc.

Similar to WordPress template, you don’t have to create your own plugins. Benefit of WordPress – there are plenty of volunteers developing plugins and sharing the codes for free. There are almost infinite number of plugins available online that you can get just about any tasks done with these existing plugins.

More info? Visit plugin directory at WordPress official website.

Setting up your first WordPress site

You should be able to install WordPress in most hosting providers and personal computers on Unix/Linux system. The latest WordPress version requires PHP Version 4.3 or greater and MySQL Version 4.0 or greater.

Details of server requirements and recommended setup can be found here but I think 99.99% users should be fine without reading the specifications.

Installing WordPress on local computer

Before installing WordPress, you need a mini-server installed in your computer – something like WAMP should be good enough. When you are done with WAMP (or whatever system you are using on your computer), go download WordPress installation file and follow the ‘Famous 5-Minute Install’ guides.

Quoting from WordPress official website (http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress)

1. Download and unzip the WordPress package, if you haven’t already.
2. Create a database for WordPress on your web server, as well as a MySQL user who has all privileges for accessing and modifying it.
3. Rename the wp-config-sample.php file to wp-config.php.
4. Open wp-config.php in your favorite text editor and fill in your database details as explained in Editing wp-config.php to generate and use your secret key password.
5. Place the WordPress files in the desired location on your web server:
   – If you want to integrate WordPress into the root of your domain (e.g. http://example.com/), move or upload all contents of the unzipped WordPress directory (but excluding the directory itself) into the root directory of your web server.
   – If you want to have your WordPress installation in its own subdirectory on your web site (e.g. http://example.com/blog/), rename the directory wordpress to the name you’d like the subdirectory to have and move or upload it to your web server. For example if you want the WordPress installation in a subdirectory called "blog", you should rename the directory called "wordpress" to "blog" and upload it to the root directory of your web server.
6. Run the WordPress installation script by accessing wp-admin/install.php in your favorite web browser.
   – If you installed WordPress in the root directory, you should visit: http://example.com/wp-admin/install.php
   – If you installed WordPress in its own subdirectory called blog, for example, you should visit: http://example.com/blog/wp-admin/install.php

Installing WordPress on web host

If you are planning to run a WordPress website from the beginning, look for a web host that can auto-install WordPress for you. There are plenty (and I really mean P-L-E-N-T-Y) of good web host that supports such easy installation features – why sweat for all the hassles to install WordPress manually?

Listed below are some well-known web host that provides auto-installation features via Fantastico, SimpleScripts, or in house program.

Web Hosting Services	SimpleScripts	Fantastico	In House Program
Fat Cow
Hostgator
InMotion
BlueHost
LunarPages
Web Hosting Pad
HostMonster
Pow Web

: Recommended web host.

Example: Installing WordPress using SimpleScripts

Installing WordPress (or any other web applications) using auto-install features like Fantastico and SimpleScripts is easy. I’ll show a screen-to-screen example here.

Login to your Hostmonster account and go to SimpleScripts main page. Click ‘Wordpress’ to proceed on the installation.

The Wordpress installation page covers a brief intro on the web applications and reveals the latest version supported by the web host. In this case, the supported version is WordPress v2.8.b.2, which is released in late May 2009. Click ‘Install Now’ to begin setup.

On next screen, you’ll be required to input all the necessary information. What’s your desired WordPress version? What’s your desired site name and preferred tag lines? Do you need additional admin login? Click ‘Complete’ once everything is set and the auto-installation process will begins.

(Yes, after this everything will just goes auto pilot!)

And there you go, a fresh copy of WordPress installed in my Hostmonster account. Note that installation screen might be a little different for different web host (some use Fantastico, some use in house program) but the process is basically the same.
Upon completion, you will be given an URL to login to your WordPress administrator page. In most of the time, it looks something like this: http://www.exampleblog.com/wp-admin.

Go to this URL and login with your preset details – there, you are now in the backend of your WordPress site.

Getting started with WordPress

Here’s how WordPress dashboard looks like. Pretty cool isn’t?

Publishing a post or page is simple. Click on post, add new, and you’ll come to the post page. Write what you want to write for the content and title, select or create the category for the article, click publish to (well) publish, and click save draft if you wish to pause and continue your writing in future. Everything is common sense in WordPress – if you can use a Microsoft Words, I don’t see how you can have problem with WordPress. The basic features of WordPress are all included in the control panel sidebar.

See figure below, here are all the features you can work on your WordPress.

Wrapping things up: More WordPress related Resources

This is a pretty long post and gosh~ I can’t believe that I have already spent more than 6 hours in crafting this post. I hope this article helps and of course, there are a lot more to be learned. To wrap up this guide, here’s the list of further reading materials.

• WordPress official lessons
• WordPress template tags
• WordPress designs and layouts
• Getting-started guides for WordPress.com
• How to perform a manual WordPress installation
• WordPress beginner Guides and list of useful plugins
• Getting started with WordPress
• Using WordPress to manage your web content
• WordPress tutorials
• How to start/setup your own blog using WordPress
• Use WordPress as a CMS (with loads of handy plugins recommendation)
• How to use WordPress as a truly customized CMS
• 23 must see free blogging platform
• 43 ways to make your blog stands out from the rest
• 48 creative ways to use WordPress

Have fun and good luck!

So here you go, my collection of top 25, in no particular order, free beautiful WordPress themes. All listed themes work alright with WordPress 2.7 (John Coltrane Release) and are closely maintained by the developers when I found them. Check them out!

WordPress Themes in Blog Styles

Malawak

More information: About / Theme Dem / Theme Download

Irresistible

More information: Theme Demo / Theme Download

Color Paper

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Box Tube WP Themes

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Compositio WordPress Theme

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Studio Wordpress Premiere

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Futurosity Themes

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Intaglio

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Woo Themes Typebased

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Freemium

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

ZinePress

More information: About / Theme Demo / Download

GrassRoots

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

WordPress Themes in Gallery Styles

The Unstandard

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Sharpfolio

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

WPESP

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Infinity

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

SnapShot

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

View Port

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

WordPress Themes in Magazine Styles

Fake blog

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

The Web News

More information: Theme Demo / Theme Download

Mimbo Magazine-Style

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Arthemia

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Corporate

More information: Theme Demo / Theme Download

Worpress Magazine

More information: About / Theme Demo / Theme Download

Magazeen

More information: Theme Demo / Theme Download

What now? Getting started with a beautifully-designed website

If you have not own a blog or are unhappy with your current blog designs, I hope this post helps you to realize that you can always leverage other’s work. My only suggestion for you is to download any of your favorite themes above and start customizing and using them. In case you need help to get started, read my brief technical guides on starting a blog, also there’s a complete A-to-Z blogging guides at Zoundry.

The blogsphere is so damn crowded that it takes more than just hard work nowadays to build a successful blog. In fact, what’s good in the past is not good enough nowadays. Modeling other blogger’s victory will not guarantee success in your blogging venture.

In my opinion, blogging differently and stand out from the crowd is now the key of success. I had compiled a huge list of methods that can help your blog stand out from the crowd. Some of these are standard guidelines that most newbies overlook; while some involved latest web marketing strategies in Web 2.0 era. Have a look on them and be sure to add up points that I’ve missed out.

How to make your blog stand out from the crowd?

So, here goes the list.

1. Come up with a catchy blog name.
2. Get a unique topic to write about.
3. If you can’t get a unique topic, write from a unique point of view.
4. Know your target audience before you start blogging and write for them.
5. Drill deep in your subject – one in-depth post is better than ten hollow ‘filler’ post.
6. Spend time to enhance your blog template designs.
7. If you can’t do web design, hire professional to do for you.
8. If you can’t do web design and do not have the budget for professional, at least go buy a premium blog template.
9. Get real readers that actually r-e-a-d your blog.
10. Magnetic headlines improve readership, so spend more time writing a good post title.
11. Use sub headlines to increase your blog readability.
12. Personally I don’t emphasize that much on grammars but at least re-read your post at least once before you press the publish button.
13. Optimize your blog for search engines (but always write for the readers first).
14. Hosting is cheap (WebHostingPad cost less than $4/mo), get your blog out of those free blogging platform.
15. Write an ‘About’ page to introduce yourself and your blog to the new readers.
16. People like to be heard, get in touch with your readers and reciprocal when someone comments on your blog.
17. Leverage the power of Web2.0 media (why do you think President Obama owns a Facebook page?).
18. Stumble Upon and Digg are good source of traffics, use them wisely to promote your blog.
19. Learn about viral marketing and use it to promote your blog.
20. Write link baiting contents.
21. Be consistent.
22. Even better, be prolific.
23. Use memorable image to add value to your blog post.
24. Make your blog the definitive resources in your niche – FAQ, how-to guides… provide all the necessary info in your topic.
25. Learn from marketing guru Seth Godin – write and give away ebooks to build readership.
26. Pick a fight whenever the time is right – controversy makes people talk more about you.
27. Blog without ads for the first 12 months.
28. Trade, buy, beg, or even steal links from related blogs and websites.
29. Offer web functions that other blogs don’t have.
30. Drive people to read further in your archives.
31. Create a memorable theme for your blog (example, JohnCow).
32. Get a unique mascot for your blog (remember the good old days?)
33. Compile a list of 50 online tools or resources in your industries (and submit it to digg.com).
34. Write tons of valuable guest posts in other related blogs.
35. If you have deep pocket, run massive contest with lucrative prizes.
36. If budget is an issue, at least run some fun contest to create some buzz.
37. Be yourself, express your honest opinion and cut off all the ‘Me-Too’ post.
38. Make fun of your Error 404 page.
39. Write list post – it’s easier to read.
40. Don’t just be about the money, think about your readers before the dollar sign.
41. Avoid extensive use of dazzling Flash files in your blog.
42. Monitor official news release systematically (Google Alert!) so you can crack latest news at your blog.
43. Make yourself trustworthy by helping out others in related forum, leave blog URL in your signature whenever is possible.

So here you go, my list of 23 must see free blog hosts.

1. Blogger.com

Google’s blogger.com is (perhaps) the most widely used free blogging platform around the blogsphere. The control interface and blogging tools are easy to use and it’s highly recommended for all beginners.

Visit Blogger.com online

2. WordPress.com

WordPress.com is where you can host and run your blog using WordPress blogging software. The blogging software WordPress is widely supported by most hosting companies, thus there won’t be much trouble if you wish to transfer your blog from WordPress.com to your own hosting in future. Also, it’s worth noting that WordPress.com prohibit most of their users to monetize their blogs. So unless you’re the very few selected big shots, WordPress.com is not recommend if you wish to place ads and sell affiliate products.

Visit WordPress.com online

3. LiveJournal.com

LiveJournal.com offers various type of blog hosting services (free and paid) and are extremely popular around the blogsphere. At the time of writing, there are 18.4 million journals (blogs) created at LiveJournal.com!

Visit LiveJournal.com online

4. Blogr.com

Blogr is a web service that provides blog space to store and share users photos, videos, audios and blog-entries. Although the service is still in Alpha, Blogr.com grew fast and is welcomed by many bloggers.

Visit Blogr.com online

5. Xanga.com

Xanga.com provides free blogging and community networking services. Users get to host their blogs for free and they can connect to each other via the ‘add friends’ feature.

Visit Xanga.com online

6. Blogster.com

Blogster.com is an online community of people who share interests and activities, and are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. The website offer free image and blog hosting altogether.

Visit Blogster.com online

7. Multiply.com

Multiply.com is not only about blog hosting. In fact the website started as social networking websites and expand their reach to blog hosting when blogging turned hot among youngsters. One good thing about Multiply.com is that they offer image gallery features in their services.

Visit Multiply.com online

8. Blog.com

Blog.com was established in year 2005. The website offers both free and paid (premium) blogging platforms. Free account users get up to 10MB (and 250MB bandwidth) of disk storage capacity for their photo album features.

Visit Blog.com online

9. Freevlog.org

Freevlog.org is designed for video blogging and their service is completely free.

Visit Freevlog.org online

10. InsaneJournal.com

The website, InsaneJournal, is a simple blogging platform that’s built on open source software from Danga Interactive. Starting a diary (blog) at InsaneJournal.com is free but they recommend the highly privileged paid account.

Visit InsaneJournal.com online

11. ClearBlogs.com

ClearBlogs.com offer advance blogging features for free. Beside hosting your blog, the website allows you to limit your accessibility (friends only blogpost) as well as IP banning.

Visit ClearBlogs.com online

12. Etribes.com

Etribes.com allow you to share videos, photos, and writings via blogs and image gallery. The first 50MB with Etribes.com is free of charge but if you go further, a fees of £12 is charged.

Visit Etribes.com online

13. Terapad.com

Terapad.com is more than just a blogging platform. The website offers a bunch more value, such as shops, forums, as well web pages – it works more like a CMS than a blog platform. There’re a wide range of ready-made (very well designed!) templates available for Terapad.com users. The only bad things about Terapad.com is that the free services come with unwanted ads on your blog/website – you’ll need to pay $14.15/mo if to remove the advertisement.

Visit Terapad.com online

14. Blogsome.com

Blogsome.com is a free blog platform that’s powered by WordPress. The website is based in Ireland and offer large chunk of WordPress templates.

Visit Blogsome.com online

15. ShoutPost.com

ShoutPost.com offers free blogging platform with no ads at all. There are little blog themes to be selected but their service is totally free of charge.

Visit ShoutPost.com online

16. OpenDiary.com

Blogging with OpenDiary.com is free of charge. However there’re ads everywhere with a OpenDiary.com blog – you’ll need to pay ($12 per 6 months) to remove the unwanted advertisement as well as to get advance features in their services.

Visit OpenDiary.com online

17. Greasy.com

Greasy.com offer social network and blog hosting services. Like most social networking blog services, Greasy blogs have limited flexibility in term of blog designs.

Visit Greasy.com online

18. Blogetery.com

Blogetery.com offers multiple templates, anti-spam, free sub-domain and more.

Visit Blogetery.com online

19. Friendster.com

Yes I know Friendster is more about social networking but they do offer free blogging services to their users. In fact, many beginners start their first blog with Friendster as there are ready-made audiences (their friends in Friendster).

Visit Friendster.com online

20. Netcipia.com

Netcipia.com offer free blog and wiki for private or public display with up to 2GB of storage.

Visit Netcipia.com online

21. SquareSpace.com

SquareSpace.com allow you build your blog with numerous themes, also allows you to add other site features.

Visit SquareSpace.com online

22. Bravenet.com

I was kind of reluctant to place Bravenet.com in the list but there are indeed free blog hosting services with Bravenet. What’s pull me away from categorizing them as free blogging platform is because that they are more like a free web hosting services. Upon sign up, users get 1.5GB monthly bandwidth and 50MB disk storage for free. You can then install your blogging software and run your Bravenet.com account as a free blog account.

Visit Bravenet.com online

23. Edublogs.org

Edublogs.org is a WordPress powered blogging platform for educators.

Visit Edublogs.org online

How to install WordPress manually on your web host?

In case this is your first time, I suggest you try at least once at your local PC with WAMP before messing up with your hosting server.

I have yet to tried on the function myself but according to the officials, exported data files are in Atom XML format, which will open up new blogging channels between providers. Right now there’s still no specified platform (say exporting Blogger blogs to WordPress) being served but I suspect the function will be coming up very very soon. (Uh, that means I’ll need to re-write my blog transfer guides soon!)

As mentioned in Google’s latest buzz release, this Blogger Import/Export function comes handy when you need to migrate your blog from one to the other. The feature is also most welcomed by bloggers who wish to backup or merge their Blogger blogs. The function seems pretty easy to use but in case you need guides, Google’s help file is the answer: How do I import and export blogs on Blogger?.

For those who’re wish not to use a free blog provider, consider getting a budget hosting for your blog! Hosting nowadays is unbelievably cheap and easy to be maintained. To get started, I suggest readings on my Web Hosting Reviews.

Recently, it seems there has been an attempt to distribute a “trojaned” version of WordPress (the so-call WordPress 2.6.4) via some form of phishing scam.

Old version of WordPress are targeted where the users of these old version WordPress are pointed to an updates of 2.6.4 (which does not exist) from a phishing site ‘WordPresz.org’ (note the different?)

My WordPress has been hacked!

The topic went hot when one of the victims posted this on WordPress forum:

I think that my Wordpress has been hacked. I’m not a technical guy so looking at the PHP etc is not an option.In my dashboard the second box down on the left – the one that tell me all the recent news changed it tells me to Update WordPress 2.6.4 immediately! Then points me to a site called wordpresz dot org where a suspicious download of Wordpress 2.6.4 is waiting for me. Is my site compromised? What can I do? What other damage should I expect?

A check with the officials confirmed that this is a phishing attack on the outdated WordPress where Peter Westwood, one of WordPress lead developers responded saying:

“It looks like sites which have not upgraded to 2.6.3 are being exploited in an interesting way whereby a hacker, probably using an automated script, is hacking into sites with the vulnerability and changing the settings of one of the dashboard modules to point to a different feed thereby encouraging people to go to a different site which is offering a dodgy upgrade.

“We recommend that people upgrade as soon as possible when we release a security release so as to ensure they are not vulnerable to issues which will likely have exploits in the wild.”

Moral of the story: Update your web apps!

Fortunately, the website (WordPresz.org) has now been shutdown thus it is no longer possible to get hold of this “trojaned” version. However, for those who do not upgrade their web apps regularly – mark this as an important lesson – it’s highly important to upgrade your WordPress (or any other web apps) when a security release is made.

On the other hand, WordPress seems to be working on the issue and is trying their best to prevent this in future. According to WestWood, there will be a built-in upgrade mechanism within the next verion of WordPress where upgrades are done automatically.

Previously we discussed how to move your blog from TypePad to own hosting . This article will help you moving your blog if you’re to move to own hosting from WordPress.com .

This is comparatively easy, as you’re already familiar with WordPress, and we’ll recommend having Wordpress on your own hosting as well, as it’s best blogging software from customization and ease of use perspective.

Here’s the step by step guide for moving your Wordpress.com blog to your own hosting:

Step 1: Prepare for the migration:

Load few HTML and php pages to make sure that the hosting is stable.

Step 2: Install Wordpress On Your Hosting Account:

Wordpress being one of the best platforms for newbie as well as experienced users is the main reason, but more important is that you’re familiar with it and you’ll be a Wordpress expert within a little more time.

Normally, installing Wordpress is pretty easy with the help of Fantastico or SimpleSripts. Just login to your cPanel > Fantastico > Wordpress > New Installation. Key in all the blog details you wish to have and click confirm installation. The process should be done in minutes.

For example, here’s the print screen for installing Wordpress at Hostmonster .

Select ‘Wordpress’ when you’re at the main page of SimpleScripts.

Wordpress version and related info are shown here, click “Install Now” when you’re ready.

Here’s a screen where you’ll need to input the basic info for your blog. Click “Complete” to finish the installation.

In case you need to need to install the Wordpress manually, here’s the official installation guide.

After completing the Wordpress installation, you can upload the themes and plugins you want in wp-content, and activate them from Wordpress Dashboard. The best thing is that you can customize your blog, the way you want it. And, finally a default tip, “don’t forget to take the backup of your installation”.

Step 3: Export Your Data From Wordpress.com Dashboard:

• Login to Wordpress.com account and go to your dashboard > Manage > Export
• Download the xml file and save it on your system

Step 4: Import Your Data Into WordPress On Your Host:

• Before importing your data, make sure that your wp-content directory is writable. Now login to Wordpress Dashboard and go to Manage > Import.
• Upload the .xml file you exported from your Wordpress.com account, follow the screen prompts and you’re done.

It’s too easy! Isn’t it?

More on blog hosting

Check out how moving other types of blog to your own hosting.

• How to transfer your blog from Blogspot
• How to transfer your blog from TypePad

And, if you’ve decided for your own hosting, that definitely means you’re moving towards betterment.

Wordpress as it’s the most famous blogging software on paid hosting is our recommendation, and this recommendation is based on some sound factors discussed here (why WordPress rocks).

Well, here’s the step by step guideline for moving your Blogspot blog to your own hosting using Wordpress. There may be two cases for this:

1. You’ve yourblog.blogspot.com
2. You’ve yourblog.com hosted by Wordpress

In first case you’ll be moving like:

• Prepare for the migration by uploading few php and html test pages
• Install Wordpress on your server
• Go to Wordpress Dashboard > Manage > Posts, and delete “Hello World”
• Now go to Manage > Import > Select Blogger and follow the instructions. All your entries and comments are there now.

Now go to your Blogspot blog and download all images, and upload them on your own server and enter them in the posts manually. (This is a hectic job, but you’ll have to do it.)

In second case, you’ll have to:

• First get back to yourblog.blogspot.com from your Blogspot account. For this go to Setting > Publishing > Switch to Blogspot.
• Now change the nameservers of your domain from your domain panel. You’ll have to give new nameservers, i.e. as prescribed by the new hosting company.
• And now follow all the steps as described in case 1.

Your Blogspot blog is now completely moved and set on your own hosting. Experience the new interface and better customization.

More on blog hosting

Check out how moving other types of blog to your own hosting.

• How to transfer your blog from TypePad
• How to transfer your blog from WordPress