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What was the most helpful blogging resource....?
Posted by Jaybetee • 9/18/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: blog newbies, blogging, getting started blogging, how to start blogging
What was the most helpful blogging resource you found on the web when you first started blogging? Was there a certain person who showed you the ropes or a great site that helped simplify the process for you? Was there a book that explained it all?
I was lucky enough to be at a company full of designers and programmers who were able to explain the setup process, SEO, design options and things like that, but I'm wondering where I would have turned had those resources not been at my fingertips.
User Comments
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The help I received from Blogging with Success was invaluable. There are a few contributors editors and they'd answer my questions by email and walk me through certain problems. I am so grateful for their help.
You can find them here: bloggingwithsuccess.net/-
Thanks, CJ. I will give their site a look and see what they have going on over there. Can I assume from your good review that this is a site you would suggest to other new bloggers?
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I would highly recommend them, for both the newbie blogger and the experienced blogger.
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Me too. I sent creativejunkie to them.
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I had technical help from a BC user, Umesh, who figured out the reason Google wasn't indexing my site was my template was corrupted-- even though it was a Blogger-made template.
I appreciate he took the time to help me. It was really something I never would have guessed myself.
Cheers to him!
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Cheers indeed! It is good to hear about members helping each other.
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I got my first computer ever in December 2007. In January 2008 the Today Show was talking about blogs. I had no clue what a blog was so I Googled "What is a blog?" and landed here www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/
I use www.problogger.net/ and this onecoolsite.wordpress.com/-
thank you for sharing. I remember when blogging was getting big and everyone around the office was talking about blogs. For a while I was like "what the heck are they talking about?"
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My first introduction was the same as Shiley's: problogger.net -
Stumbling around in the dark has been my tried and tested technique for learning blog like stuff.
The great googly moogly has also helped a lot, I just typed specific questions into search and hey presto I usually found the answer I was looking for.
The next useful thing was if I saw something that I liked on someone else's blog, I would email them or comment on the fact and then ask how they did that.-
I am kind of the same way I guess. I just find stuff that interests me and search around until i find the easiest instructions for doing it. Most of the time I have no idea what I'm actually doing but I have yet to seriously break anything to the point of no repair. *knocks firmly on wood*
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This place is full of very helpful and interesting information on web building tools. It's what I use if I want to do something on my blog and don't know how. This site has very detailed instruction, and is set up so that you can try out the instructions or to experiment and try something new. I really really recommend this place for anyone who needs to have a better understanding of html, javascripts, CSS etc etc~
www.w3schools.com/-
I'm adding it to my list of places to check out. I have never been to that site before.
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w3schools is the best thing to happen to the internet since dial-up modems for residential use. You can figure out how to do just about anything on there, and try it on-screen before you slaughter your template.
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Sad to admit, but I am old school.
I went to the bookshop and bought a CSS/HTML book. Yes... a book.
When I got started, I chose blogger because of the user support, but I haven't needed it. When I've had specific questions, I've asked another blogger on BC or checked in my -gasp!- book.
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Shame on you! I actually have a stack of books at home that Tony gave me when I first started doing web design. I never read them though because I was lucky enough to have very smart and creative people around who answered any questions for me.
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I copied everything one really sharp girl from my office did when she started her blog, so I had her 8 months of knowledge as a resource. Plus she really already knew about all of this stuff and is super willing to share her knowledge. That, and Google is pretty knowledgeable about Blogger. Go figure!
BTW, by "copied everything" I didn't copy any of her content. -
Other bloggers.
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There were no blogging resources on the web when I started blogging. To tell you the truth I think that was the best thing. -
I found "Men With Pens" menwithpens.ca/ in directory critics and their blog is very, very useful. It is one of my favorite blog resources at the moment and I always follow updates in their blog. -
I forced myself to learn, or at least understand, CSS from videos on YouTube and w3schools.com. Had to use a YouTube video to learn how to use Wordpress for the first time. Good times.
Other techniques, like pagination, font and font color, justification, san-serif vs serif fonts, and designs all came from an editing class.-
Ugh! I am still in the learning curve for css. It takes me forever to figure stuff out!
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Oh, and besides Google and my friend at work being very helpful, Al Gore, inventor of the internet, had a lot to say.
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Thomas Byers who I eventually ended up co-moderating the blogging forum at NetPond with. -
Peter Chen from "Blogger Tips and Tricks" was my first blogging teacher and he has helped me ever since.
www.bloggertipsandtricks.com/ -
soooo many people at BC have been extremely helpful to me - especially timethief! (thank you thank you!) -
My CSS learning and understanding mostly came from the Mandarin Design site .. run by Michelle Goodrich, who passed away in 2006 .. you can see some of her stuff in the wayback archive machine web.archive.org/web/*/http://mandarindesign.com/blogger.html but the site is longtime gone now ...
Besides the blogging tips, it was the participation of Darren's blog that I was envious (but thoroughly enjoyed learning something unique everyday) wondering how the heck he broke the 350 subscriber feedcount back in June 2005 when I was trying to get from 12 subscribers over the 15 hump at the time on my PetLvr blog. He's a perfect example of how to leverage oneself and show how the 'rich get richer' translates to practically every new venture .. (subscribers, new site traffic, opportunities, etc)
Of course, I was around during the blog network wars (B5, 9rules, weblogs, etc) and that was fun and a learning process in itself. Although business of blogging was mostly realized in participation of private forums and its' members who I respect and are acquaintances even today (Fuzz, Hive, etc)
Before twitter and the whole SU/Reddit/Social media explosion, I was always relying on my Bloglines as my online RSS feeder and even appreciated sites like Wil Wheaton and his poker life is fascinating, although many were just trekkie fans that followed his stuff. It was ridiculous though .. with over 2000 updates a day or so, whenever I would go down the list of new entries to review or clear, there would be a new batch at the top of the list.
Of all of the above - the most helpful blogging resource turned out to be - ME. If you don't try, you never learn or understand. Trial and error works. If you don't succeed at first, try try again also works. Usually .. when you fail, you learn more by accidentally doing things right and not knowing why.
Off-Blogging . it was probably about 2002 in my profession/ that online and the internet started popping up valuable and compromising resources where before the 'big-boys' were cornering the market with thousands of thousands of overpriced products and tools (i.m.o.) -
Many that already have been mentioned like Problogger,
Onecoolsite, W3schools and Menwithpens have been very helpful.
Those that have especially been helpfull while starting with selhosting a Wordpress blog were the video tutorials on becomeablogger.com.
And also helpful for that and for adjusting and costumising my blog was howtomakemyblog.com -
I've had my own domain since 1998, so I've followed the development of the web since its early beginnings, and my site has changed its format numerous times since then, based on what I found on other sites I visited and learned from simply by studying their layout and content. There are simply too many to mention and difficult to point to one or two as the most helpful resource. If there is one that does deserve mentioning, it is timethief's onecoolsite blog. After settling for WordPressCOM and later WordPressORG as my blogging platform two years ago, timethief has become my most visited resource.-
@husdal
Thanks for the acknowledgment.
@jabetee
When I first began 6 years ago I had a strong background as a research and reference librarian, so as being a "retriever" was my specialty, I learned how to use many search engines and I collected many resource links. Some are found here onecoolsite.wordpress.com/resources/
I found lorelle.wordpress.com and it was a treasure trove.
Off the top of my head I recommend:
weblogtoolscollection.com/
www.seowizz.net/
www.plagiarismtoday.com/
bpwebnews.blogspot.com/
When I have more time I'll post others. -
commoncraft has excellent resources (English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish). Be sure to check out the great videos www.commoncraft.com/
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