How do you build a weblog?

December 03, 2003 | Comments Closed

From Egor Kloos

This is a complicated question, one which I think Egor has his own answer to, but for the benefit of others (as well as to entertain y’all with my feeble attempt at answering such an open ended question) I’ll try and answer it as best, and as simply as I can.

First I have to disclaim that I feel Asterisk* is a personal Web site, built with “weblog” technology and with a “blog” component.

There is much more to this site than the weblog.

I think the most important thing you need before you start building your weblog (blog) is a clear set of goals and a direction. Try and think about what you want to say and who, if anyone, you want to say it to.

Formulate an idea of what you want to achieve before you actually get to the building of your blog. There are many ways to do this, as well as many ways to proceed once you know what you want.

Weblogs, their authors and the work that goes on behind the scenes are as varied as you could ever imagine. There is no one way to “build a weblog” in my opinion.

They way I went about it was to jump right in. I downloaded Movable Type — which I would highly recommend if you want to have lots of control over your blog and it’s look and feel and you have a good understanding of Web design and development — and got to working with it right away.

The basics were pretty simple, but as you want to do more with your blog it can get a bit complex, although in my experience never overwhelmingly so. My advice is to try different things out, see what works and go from there.

For a more “out of the box” approach I would recommend Typepad, which is a hosted service, very similar to Movable Type, that allows for a bit more of a quick start for users of any level. It also has many features not currently in Movable Type (without some customization anyway) that you might find useful. Things like photo albums and lists. There are others you could go with as well, but I don’t know much about them.

A good way to learn how to customize your blog is by watching what others do and asking questions. Make contact with a few people who’s sites you enjoy and pick their brains about how they did specific things.

What’s more important, in my mind, than the technology you choose, is to start writing. You can do what I did and begin logging entries before you have your design all buttoned up.

It can be hard at first, but if you keep at it it’ll become almost second nature. Your writing will improve, as I feel mine did, but don’t expect that to develop overnight. I’ve been at it for well over a year now and I feel I’ve got a long way to go.

As you get better at it you can try and expand on your ideas and add functionality. There are all sorts of ways you can extend your blog and more and more seem to pop up every day.

All a weblog really is — is a forum for you to post your thoughts and express yourself — how you choose to go about doing this is up to you. It can be as simple, or as complex, as you wish it to be.

Filed under: FAQs