Blogger for Beginners - Free eBook Guide (PDF)

New to Blogger? Need to know the basics of Google's blogging platform to start your first blog?

Blogger for Beginners is a free guide for those new to the Blogger publishing platform. From creating your very first blog through to customising the appearance of your site and publishing feeds, this ebook covers all the basic knowledge you need with detailed instructions and full colour screenshots.

Download Blogger for Beginners (PDF)

This free guide is divided into 10 main chapters and covers all the basics to get you up and running with Blogger:

• Getting started
• Writing your first blog posts
• Permissions and privacy
• Customise your blog
• Gadgets and the Blogger layout
• Comments and backlinks
• Publish and archive
• Share your blog
• How do I...?
• Where to find out more about using Blogger

Preview the ebook below or download to read later in PDF format:

Download the ebook

Direct Download (PDF)

View/Download on Google Docs

To open this ebook on your computer, you will need a PDF viewing application, such as Adobe Reader (download the latest version of Adobe Reader for your computer here)

Why publish a book for "beginners"?

After looking back through the 500+ posts here on Blogger Buster, I realised there was very little information for those completely new to the platform. Blogger's help site is very extensive, yet there is no single page or downloadable file available to help those who have just started (or would like to begin using) this service.

So I decided to put a little time into explaining the very basics of using Blogger in much the same way as I explain more complicated tutorials on this site - using step-by-step instructions and helpful screenshots. I hope this ebook will be useful for those starting their first blog with Blogger, and those who may not have used the platform in a while and are unfamiliar with the new Blogger interface.

Terms of use

Blogger for Beginners is completely free to download for your own personal use. However, the following uses are absolutely not permitted:

You may not offer this ebook for download on your own site

This ebook must no be used for commercial purposes - it cannot be resold, published in print or provided under any type of commercial license

Feel free to share offline with family or friends, or link to this page if you think your readers would like to download a copy for themselves.

The PDF version of this ebook will always remain free to download here on Blogger Buster, though (hopefully) it will soon be available in other formats for which there may be a small fee.

I'm also in the process of writing two more books about Blogger (details to be released soon) and feel it's in my best interests to retain copyright of this book in case sections are referenced in these future works.

Comments? Suggestions?

I hope you enjoy this ebook and find it a useful beginner's guide to the Google Blogger platform. Please feel free to share your comments and suggestions for future articles/ebooks in the comments section below.

Author: Amanda Kennedy

Amanda is a professional blogger and web designer living in Sheffield, United Kingdom.

In addition to curating Blogger Buster, you can find Amanda on Twitter, Facebook or add her to your circle on Google+.

Create Custom Permalinks for Blogger Posts

I discovered a lovely surprise when logging into Blogger to create a post this morning: the ability to create custom permalinks for posts!

Usually when we create a post, the URL generated for the item page is based on the post title. By creating a custom URL we can use a different structure which can help posts rank higher in search engines, as well as being more user-friendly.

How Post Permalinks Work

When we create a post in Blogger, the URL where the post page will be located automatically follows this formula:

http://[Blog-Homepage-URL]/YYYY/MM/[Short-version-of-title].html

When writing long post titles, we often find the title of the post is truncated in the URL, cutting off the ends of words. Often we may want to use a shorter, snappier URL structure using related words which could help our posts rank higher in search results.

Now we are able to select a custom string for the URLs of our posts, replacing [Short-version-of-title] with any text we prefer.

To try this out for yourself, log into your Blogger dashboard and choose to create a new post.

In the pane on the right of the post editing page, you will see a new section called "Permalink" which features a "hyperlink" icon to the left. Click on this title to reveal the menu.

By default, the Permalink choice will be set to "Automatic URL" - this is the URL structure based on the post title of your post. If you check "Custom URL" you can type an alternative URL: 

The Custom URL string can only include letters, numbers and certain special characters [-_.]. Slashes are not acceptable.

As we type, the new URL where the post will be located once published updates in the space above so you can easily see the changes.

To give you an example, take a look at the differences between the title of this post and the URL of the permalink page. It's only a slight difference admittedly, but enables me to create a more descriptive title and shorter URL with ease. 

Unfortunately, we can only change the final section of the custom URL, so permalinks will still include the date format (making them around eight characters longer than is optimal). But if you really want to create short URLs it's always possible to create custom redirects to individual posts in your blog settings.

Note: This feature may not yet be available for all blogs, though I imagine the update will be rolled out for everyone in the coming days. 

Please let us know in the comments below if custom permalinks are available for your blogs, and whether you find this new feature useful!

Author: Amanda Kennedy
Amanda is a professional blogger and web designer living in Sheffield, United Kingdom.
In addition to curating Blogger Buster, you can find Amanda on Twitter, Facebook or add her to your circle on Google+.

7 Lessons from a Full Time Freelance Blogger

I am almost exclusively greeted with bemusement whenever I tell someone what I do for a living. It is something that I have gotten used to over time. “A freelance blogger? Can you even make money doing that?”

In fairness, if someone had told me that they were a freelance blogger 12 months ago, I would have probably reacted with similar bemusement. It is only recently that I have come to realize how lucrative freelance blogging can be. I am earning an equivalent of $100 per hour for some of my work.

It has been a big learning curve though – at the beginning of 2011 I barely even knew what a blog was. I’ve come a long way since then, and have gradually become aware of a few key things that have led me to where I am.

Now I want to share them with you!

1. Have a Blog

I haven’t sought out any work since last November, because people come to me asking if I can work for them. All of my recent clients have approached me my via my blog.

If you take a look at the blog, you will see that it barely screams “hire me”. On the contrary – there is a “Hire Me” link in the navigation bar, and that is it.

I blog in part about helping people to become freelance writers – i.e., I write for others like me, not prospective clients. And yet I still receive enquiries. If you build a blog specifically for your target clients, you should be able to fare far better than I do.

Stop wasting your time on job boards trying to find clients that may or not may not be interested in your services. When a client reaches out to you, you are already in a position of strength.

2. Get Bylines

Prospective clients often approach me having found my blog through a byline on a client’s blog. The logic is simple – if someone is looking for a blogger, likes your writing, and see that you are available to hire, they will probably contact you.

So whenever appropriate, you should get a byline. If a client initially balks at the idea, suggest that it can actually be of benefit to the blog, in showing that a recognized blogger is writing for them.

Bylines are of course not always appropriate – for instance, if you are ghost writing, or writing on a topic in which you have no real expertise.

3. Consider Intangible Benefits

How much you get paid should not be the only consideration when deciding whether or not to take on work. I still work with certain clients who pay me way under my “peak” hourly rate, because of the associated intangible benefits. These include:

• Authority – it is good to be seen as a writer for an authoritative blog.
• Traffic – certain blogs send my own blog a healthy amount of traffic.
• Potential – could the work lead to bigger and better things?
• Security – could the work be a long term source of secure income?

Such intangible benefits can help you to better rationalize the offer, and make a decision accordingly.

4. Never Price by the Hour

Here’s a little slice of freelance blogging 101 – never price work by the hour.
Instead, become faster at doing your work than everyone else, then charge the same per post or project. If you can write a 500 word article in 30 minutes and someone will pay you $50 for it, your equivalent hourly rate is $100.

The client is happy to pay $50 for a quality article – how long it took you to write it is irrelevant.

5. Type Fast

I’ve been using computers since the age of five, and naturally learned to type pretty fast (around 90 words per minute). I don’t touch type in a particularly beautiful manner, but it gets the job done.

But I digress. The point is, the faster you can type, the faster you can write blog posts. It may sound trivial, but it really isn’t. If you are interested in writing for a living, learning to type faster is effectively a business investment.

6. Write Fast

For the purpose of this article, there is a difference between typing fast and writing fast. Writing fast is about taking a blog post from its inception, to completion, in the quickest way possible.

Typically speaking, the better you plan a blog post, the more quickly you will write it. This may sound counter-productive, but how many times have you got to the middle a post only to forget the core issue you were trying to address, or how you were planning on addressing it?

Plotting a post out in bullet points allows you to address any potential issues before you waste too much time. Once you are done with the framework of the post, it is then just a case of fleshing out your bullet points.

7. Write What You Know About (or Charge More)

There is a common misconception that you must write about complicated topics (or that you need to be an “expert” on something) in order to earn good money as a freelance writer, but that is simply not the case.

It again comes down to speed. If you are knowledgeable on a topic, you can probably produce a related blog post in double quick time, which pushes your equivalent hourly rate up. On the other hand, if you are writing about a topic that you are not familiar with, it is likely to take you far longer.

Don’t fall into the common trap of charging the same rate across the board. Decide what hourly rate you would be comfortable with, consider each job on an individual basis, and charge accordingly.

Tom Ewer is a freelance blogger and the owner of Leaving Work Behind, a blog for anyone interested in quitting their job and building a better life for themselves. Join Tom on Facebook here!