I'd like to start a blog, but I'm not sure how to go about it. I created an account at Blogger, that part is simple enough. However, I'd like the content to also appear on my web page. Is there a way to do that easily, without copying and pasting every time I make an entry?

Thanks,
Mike

Hi Mike!

The best way to do this is to host the blog on your own site. Check out this thread for info on the difference between free blogs and self-hosted blogs. It's about Wordpress, but Blogger is very simliar to Wordpress' free blogging platform, wordpress.com.

I hope that points you in the right direction! If you need help setting up a self-hosted blog, there are members of the forum that offer that service, and some offer discounts for virtual assistants.

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Brianna Young, VA and Graphic Artist
www.virtualsolutionsadmin.com
"It's not the piano that makes beautiful music. It's the person sitting AT the piano!"

Mike, if you're familiar with code at all you can set the blog up to publish to your website automatically using your RSS feed (if not, a good programmer can set this up quickly *for* you), or you could create a custom widget of your blog with widgetbox and add the widget to your page...

You could also simply host the blog on your domain and include the blog link in your main navigation menu, effectively making the blog and it's content a part of your website.

All in all, I'd strongly suggest hosting the blog - when you copy/paste the same content from the blogger blog to your website page you're effectively creating duplicate content which defeats any search engine optimization you might gain from blogging in the first place. (NOT that that's all your blog should be created for, but still - you want to get 'credit' for all those great keywods in the search engines )

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Thanks for the suggestions. Hosting on my own domain does seem like the best option.

Since I haven't really started yet, is there any advantage of one service over another? I think I've read good things about Wordpress.

Mike

I've worked mainly with Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, and PHP Blog Manager
I think Blogger and WP are good options for people who want a kind of plug-and-play blog program - their plugins and features are ready to go and don't require a lot of specialized knowledge. Of the two, WP is the best, Blogger has zero support and is finicky.
TypePad I don't have a preference for one way or the other...
PHP Blog Manager is great if you're an experienced coder and want complete control and customization over your blog's template at every level.

Hope that helps!

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Thanks, Tess. I spent half the day yesterday trying to figure out how to install Wordpress. Then I realized that my hosting service already had a built-in setup program that took me all of five minutes :-) Still much to learn, though, but it seems very easy so far.

Mike