Blogging confusion

[chris Johnston]

I have been considering a blog, there are groups of photos I would like to publish but they need text to put them in context. My web page does not work for text postings. I have looked at various options wordpress, a mini-blog from bludomain my url host, not really sure WTF a miniblog is as opposed to a maxi. It occurred to me this morning that perhaps facebook or its ilk is a consideration.

I need clean design, the ability to integrate text with images, add links.

Can any of you folks offer me some guidance on what will be the best way to go about this?  I live so far out in the middle of nowhere and really have little expereince in this aspect of self promotion.

Kind regards,
Chris Johnston
Omaruru Namibia
http://www.chrisjohnstonphoto.com

[Josh-H]

Wordpress is relatively easy and straight forward to set-up. If you have zero coding skills you can just choose a template and go with that - and its free. If you know a little CSS its very easy to customise. My blog is customised CSS Wordpress and was not a lot of work to put together and gives me the ability to add text around my images, links etc. Its here: http://blog.jholko.com if you want to take a look.

[chris Johnston]

Thanks Josh,

zero and I do mean zero coding skills.....my brain is full

[Steve Weldon]

"I need clean design, the ability to integrate text with images, add links."

The real skill isn't coding or even web development.

It's knowing when to stop..

[tom b]

Google's own blog site is called Blogger and can be found here:

http://www.blogger.com

My friend Stephen mentioned that he wanted to have a blog. I did a blog video search and found this video "How to create a blog with Blogger" here:

http://www.youtube.com/BloggerHelp

The best thing is that all you have to do is get a google account and the blog is free. I set up my own blog just to practice on the blog so that I could help him with his as he is not a willing computer user. The irony is that I use my blog quite often whilst Stephen's blog has only been updated after I have pushed him.

The other big advantage is that you can double click on a posted image and use that address to link the image to this site. I find that doing it that way people respond better when they don't have to click on a thumbnail.

It's interesting where you get your blog hits from. The stats for one of my blogs are below.



I've even created a storage blog for when I create an image that I don't want people to look at one my blogs. The above stats where posted on my storage blog which only has 3 page hits all from the US.

Anyway you can create a blog quickly and for free. You'll find that unless you have links from other sites you will get no traffic.

Cheers,

[RFPhotography]

Chris, like you, I'm not a programmer.  I want and need something that's simple to understand and update.  I recently reworked my entire site.  I had a regular website with a WordPress blog integrated via my hosting provider.  In the last couple weeks I ported everything to the WP format.  I had been using a generic theme but reworked that to give me what I wanted.  It was a trial and error process (I'd hate to have been someone viewing the site while I was screwing around in the background  ) but I got the look I was trying to achieve.  Adding galleries into the WP format is simple.  By adding a lightbox it made viewing images much simpler.  I've added a table generating plugin which makes outlining print pricing very simple.  Adding pages to aggregate different types of posts is easy.  The only thing I haven't been able to figure out how to do yet is add dropdown menus that aren't already included as part of the theme I started with.  Specifically I'd like to have a dropdown menu for the Pages list on the right sidebar; but I'll get that sorted over time.  In my limited experience, the WordPress format is more 'serious' than the Blogger or Tumblr formats.  I think a blog format with a few add-ons will give  you what you're looking for.

[Gordon Buck]

I have a blog on Google's Blogger, http://lightdescription.blogspot.com/, and found it easy to set up and work with  -- at first.  All the same, I have to say that the editor is not very good.  I recommend writing offline and copying to the Blogger editor.  Even more frustrating, for the past several months, uploading photos has been almost painful.  Sometimes the uploader works and sometimes not.  If the image uploader is not working -- the normal case recently -- then one must switch to the "old" editor to upload images.  Images can be uploaded in the old editor but locating those images on the proper portion of the page/screen is awkward and erratic.   Apparently not everyone has this problem although many do -- read the help forums.  Google has promised to fix this problem but it has been ongoing for several months.   Anyway, the Google Blogger editor and uploading process is bad enough that I'd like to find another editor/uploader and am considering switching services myself.

[chris Johnston]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer my questions, living at the edge of the map makes it difficult for me to sit down to a conversation and a cupajoe with someone and figure it out, Idon't know what I would do without the various forums I follow.  I've got lots to think about, did a qucik blogger set up, my logic was its good enough for the strobist ought to be good enough for the likes of me, I am also going to take a whack at wordpress, and then decide.  I have rejected Bludomains miniblog as ineffective for SEO.

Have a great one.

Chris Johnston
Sunny, hot and peaceful
Omaruru Namibia

http://www.chrisjohnstonphoto.com