I have a friend who is looking at starting a blog for her vacation. I told her I’d write up some quick instructions and so I thought I’d share them here too. I am a fan of WordPress so that’s the blog we’re using here:

1. Sign up on the WordPress site: http://wordpress.com/
2. They will ask you to choose an address when you sign up
3. Login to your account
4. Click on DASHBOARD on the top left hand navigation
5. To write a new post click on WRITE. I have a blog post with a video on how to write a post, set up your profile, and add graphics to post: https://byteoftheweek.wordpress.com/2007/12/10/quick-wordpress-instructions/
6. To change look of your blog, click on PRESENTATION, where you can choose a new template. As you can see there are a number of options. Some will allow you to upload your own header or choose your background color.
7. To change the options you have on the sidebar, click on WIDGETS
8. You can click and drag widgets from the bottom of the page to your page. For example, if you want to add a little description of your blog on the sidebar, add a “text widget”, double click on the widget ad type in the text you want. (Don’t forget to click on update before you navigate away from the page.)
9. You can change the widgets and templates at any time.
10. You can’t change the address of your blog, but if you want to change the title or tag line, click on OPTIONS and type in any changes.

I hope that this is helpful. WordPress provides some good help too if you get stuck. Or you can always have someone set up the blog as you’d like it and then just be responsible for adding posts.