Have you ever wanted to start your own blog, but didn’t know where to start?

There are really a lot of services available these days that allow you to start your own blog whether you’re looking at a paid (or free) corner for yourself in cyberspace. These options vary from having to have little or no HTML or CSS knowledge, to building your own blog from scratch and so much more! 

So, let’s say you want to start your own blog. What would you need to know? 

First of all, decide what you’re going to blog about. Maybe you’re into cars, or cooking. Perhaps you want to diarise your days, and share your thoughts with the world out there or even just your family overseas. Once you have that covered, you’ll need a little space for you to create your blog. Here’s where it gets tricky as you'll decide to decide on a number of things, such as:

• Where your blog will be residing at?
• Whether you’ll mainly use a computer to blog?
• Will you add a mobile device to that?
• What kind of media do you want to post on your blog?
• Will you only be writing, or are there also going to be pictures and video content?

Here’s a low-down on a few of the more popular blogging sites:

Blogger

Blogger is Google’s own blogging platform. If you have a Google (for example, Gmail) account, you can easily just sign in with those details and create your blog. You can even earn a bit of an income with ads. 

Tumblr

Tumblr combines blogging with social media, and it’s one of the most popular sites out there. Gives you the options of a fully customisable blog, and integration with social networks you use. Also comes with a handy mobile app.

WordPress

You can get your own domain name (like myblog.com, at a fee) or let WordPress host it for you (free), create a blog from scratch, or import a blog from other blogging platforms. WordPress offers a very handy mobile application to blog from as well. Read more about the mobile app here.

24.com

Our very own 24.com hosts a Letterdash platform for blogs. You can choose to create one on any of their niche sites – like Women24, or News24, and personalise it with themes or images.  Join thousands of other bloggers who will share their thoughts on whatever you contribute!

These are not the only options available to you, but can give you a good general idea of what’s out there. Most of the blogging platforms provide you with themes to choose from, and some offer free and paid services that can be added on to your account to customise it or expand it.

Once you know what you want to blog about, and have a place to create yours, you can start setting it up.

1. Choose a name - not only should this describe your blog, it should be easy to remember and if it is good, the name alone may drive people to your blog!
2. Most blogs have space for a header image. If you’re a creative person, or if you know someone that can create you something nice, give it a bash. (The size will be predetermined by the host that you chose.)
3. Write your first post! (And check the spelling...)
4. Tell your friends, or share it on a social network with whoever you want to read your blog post.