If you’re a professional blogger looking for free blogging platforms to earn money, Blogspot could be an excellent option for you. As a self-hosted platform, Blogspot eliminates the need for you to manage or host your website’s content, allowing you to focus solely on your writing abilities.
What’s even more intriguing is that Blogspot is owned by Google, so you can rest assured that issues such as server downtime will be minimal.
In this article, we will walk you through the process of creating a Blogspot website. So are you prepared to begin?
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
11 EASY STEPS TO BUILD YOUR BLOGSPOT WEBSITE
1. GET A BLOGGER ACCOUNT
Go to www.blogger.com and create your account. Click on the orange button with the label “CREATE YOUR BLOG” located on the top right corner of the page. See the image below for reference. Since Blogger is owned by Google, you will need your Gmail account for creating your account. So, if you don’t have one click here to create one for yourself.
On the other hand, if you already have one then sign in using your Gmail id and password.
2. CHOOSE BLOG TITLE
After you have signed up, you need to choose your blog name which will get displayed on the top of your blog. Then click on “NEXT”. See the picture below for reference.
3. PICK A DOMAIN NAME
After you have chosen your Blog Name, the next step s to pick a domain name for your blog. Since it is a free domain name it ends with branding i.e ”.blogspot.com”.
If the domain name is not available, try a fresh one. Else click on “NEXT” to see the next steps.
4. CHOOSE YOUR DISPLAY NAME
A display name is the one that your readers get to see while reading your blog post. Choose your display name and once done, click on “FINISH”. Refer to the picture below.
5. WELCOME TO THE DASHBOARD
After you have chosen your display name you will be successfully taken to the Blogspot dashboard. This is where you will create, edit, delete, and manage your posts.
Let us discuss some important functionalities available on the dashboard for you to get more clarity.
6. CHOOSE A THEME FOR YOUR WEBSITE
After you have created your blogging site, it is time you work on its user interaction or UX. Click on “Theme” located on your dashboard menu and pick a theme for your website. You can also customize it as per your design requirement.
To see how it will look after applying, preview the theme. And, once you are satisfied click on “Apply”.
UPLOAD NEW THEME
If you are not satisfied with the options provided by Blogspot you can download free themes from other websites too. Click here to explore. Alternatively, you can search for more themes by typing “Free Blogger Themes” on Google.
Once you download themes from other websites, remember to extract zip files and in the extracted folder you will find the “XML” file. This is what you will be needing while uploading the template to the Blogger website.
Choose your theme and then click on the dropdown of the customize button (as shown in the picture, see the orange button and the inverted triangle representing the drop-down). Choose “restore” and then click on the “upload” button to upload the XML file you have downloaded. Congratulations! you have set up a new theme successfully.
CREATING A THEME BACKUP
If you want to be secure, you can take a backup file on your desktop by choosing the “backup” option from the customize dropdown.
7. CREATE YOUR POST
On the left side of your dashboard, you will see various options. The first one is the “New Post” button to create your blog post.
Once you click this, it will open up a text editor which s easy to use for all beginners.
You can also see how your blog will look after publishing it by clicking on the “Preview” button on the right side top corner of the editor. This will open up your blog in a new tab to let you see it conveniently.
Under “preview” there are various options for you to check. Some of which are mentioned below:
PERMALINK
Permalink is the URL that gets displayed in the address bar when somebody opens up your blog. Blogspot gives you two options:
Automatic Permalink – This is decided by Blogspot based on your blog title and gets displayed by default if you do not mention any link for your blogs.
Custom Permalink- If you choose this option, you get to decide on your permalink. Keep it short and related to your title. Additionally, use lowercase words separated by hyphens (”-” ).
PUBLISHING YOUR POST
Another option is “Published On” where you get to decide when and on what date you want to post your blog. It is helpful if you are writing content to be posted in the future. If you do not schedule your post, it will automatically publish your post as soon as you are done writing.
READERS COMMENTS
You can click on “Options” and this will give you three options. You can either allow comments on your blogs, disable future comments and show existing ones, or hide all of them. We recommend you allow all the comments for better user engagement.
8. SEE ALL YOUR POSTS
After you have published your posts follow the above steps. You can view all of them by clicking on the “posts” button in your dashboard. This will show you a list of all your blog posts on one page. Just click to open any post that you want to work on.
9. KNOW YOUR STATISTICS
After you have published your posts you can analyze their statistical data by clicking on the “statistics” button.
You get a lot of information here from recent post data to your followers, comments, and various pages. This is essential for you to build your marketing and branding strategies to attract visitors.
10. START EARNING
Another important feature for you to know is the “earnings” button. Once you click on the “Earnings” button it will show you an option to “Create Adsense account”. Click on it to start earning through Google AdSense We recommend you apply for Google AdSense after you have made at least 400 posts since else wise Google may reject your request.
11. CHANGE WEBSITE LAYOUT (OPTIONAL)
This step is completely optional. If you are not satisfied with the way your website is looking, you will be glad to know that you can give it a makeover with a few simple steps. Click on the “Layout” option from the dashboard menu options on the left. You will see a screen as shown below:
The “Add a Gadget” button will add functionalities within a particular UI component. Let me give you an example to help you understand better.
If you click on the “Add a gadget ” (blue) option given in the Sidebar component then it will you a list of functionalities like blog search, followers, and various other options. You can select whatever you want to include in the sidebar component.
You can also edit the components by adding images, changing names, and various other features to fit your design needs.
If you are not a good designer, you can hire an expert who can help you design your website as per your branding needs.
CONCLUSION
Blogspot is a free-hosted blogging platform for you to create your blogging website. We have shared a few simple steps in this blog for you to get started.
If you have any queries let us know in the comments and we will be happy to resolve them for you. Did the post help you? Let us know if it did! It will keep us motivated to create content like this for you. Stay tuned for more exciting content. See You!
