Starting a Blog with Blogger Part 1: Getting to know Google

Theres no better place to get to know blogging that Blogger. Its easy, quick, dead simple and free. For those who have never touched code or written, Blogger is a great place to play around with features without spending money, investing too much time, or dealing with URLS, Servers, or Installations.

Blogger gets you started in 3 simple stages: Creating an Account, Naming your Blog and Choosing Your Template.

Every blog software has a slightly different process for getting you set up, but all of them need some similar information: contact info, an email and, of course, a name for your blog.

Blogger was bought out by Google back in 2002, and Google offers many other services, such as mail (Gmail), a Search Engine, and even built in photo sharing (Picasa). When you sign up for one of these services you get a Google Account. These tools are all free and easy. My friend and tech writer Jawn Taboika explained a lot of the benefits of changing over to Google +, and you can read that here. (Full disclosure, this article also appears on Byte and Chew, which both Jawn and I write for frequently)

Get to know your Google, and what it has to offer.

Before signing up with Blogger, you'll need to get your account ready, and this can be done in 3 different ways:

Through a Google Account: if you already HAVE Gmail, or a YouTube account, you can log into Blogger by using that information.

Through Blogger: If you don't have a Google anything, you will get an account when you sign up with Blogger.

Pre-Google: If you had an account before Google acquired Blogger, you'll need to switch. Click the 'Claim your Old Blogger Account' link at the top of Blogger's home page.