Part 1 of 5: Beginning an Animal Jam Blog

Hello jammers! Panda here, with a new blogging series: How to Build An Epic Animal Jam Blog From Scratch. 

Today (in Part 1 of 5) we will be discussing how to pick a blogging platform and how to create a blog. This part may not be the most helpful for those of you who already have a blog, but the upcoming parts in this series (see below) will hopefully help you more.

Here's a brief overview of the series and what each of the parts will contain:

Part 1: Choosing a Platform & Creating a Blog

Part 2: Creating a Post & Choosing a Commenting System

Part 3: Choosing a Theme & Customizing It

Part 4: The Foundation of a Successful Blog & How to Get Viewers + Followers

Part 5: Final Tips to Building + Maintaining a Successful Animal Jam Blog

Hope this sounds exciting to all of you bloggers out there! ^.^

Without further ado... let's get right to the post!

So you want to start a blog, eh? It will be a lot of work, but will most likely be among best experiences you've ever had, and one that you will fondly look back on when you're older.

The first step to beginning a blog is to choose a blogging platform. A blogging platform (a.k.a. Content Management System, or CMS) is an interface in which you will create content (pages, blog posts etc.) and manage your site.

My personal favorite free blogging platforms are Wordpress.com and Blogger. (Emphasis on the .com, because there is also a self-hosted option of Wordpress called Wordpress.org which costs money.)

I find Blogger to be a little easier to learn, use and customize than Wordpress.com, and most Animal Jam bloggers use and love this interface. If you aren't sure which way to go, I would suggest Blogger, as that is the platform that we will be focusing on in this series.

Once you go to Blogger.com, click on the New Blog button. A pop-up window, like the one shown below, will appear.

In the Title box, type in what you would like your blog's title to be. Think about this for awhile, and do some research to make sure that nobody else has a blog title too similar to your ideal title. 

Then, in the Address box, type in your blog URL. I suggest first typing in your blog name and then .blogspot.com after it. If that is already taken, I then advise you to put the word "the" in front of it. If both of those are taken, I would suggest changing your blog title or thinking of some variations you could create, like abbreviating "Animal Jam" to just "AJ." Only as a last resort would I add hyphens or numbers.

You can then pick a blog theme. This theme can be easily changed later, so don't think too hard about it. 

Then, click the orange Create blog! button, and voila, you now have your very own blog!

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Stay tuned to this series to 1) learn how to create a blog post; 2) decide on a commenting system. To be notified immediately when the Part 2 of this series is published, follow AJGC using the Followers widget in the right sidebar.

I hope this was helpful for all of you who are starting a blog! I look forward to seeing your new, beautified blogs at the end of this series!

-Panda