Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. They are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

Why Blog?

As its definition it helps to publish news updates, to promote new products & services as well as different opinion from various experts who participates in blogs. Many companies today open a blog section to sell products, for customer care and after sales support. Business blogs are the fast track to increasing a website's link popularity and Google PageRank.The regularly updated keyword rich content offered by blogs score high rankings in the search engines as a direct result of their link drawing power.

Link exchanges between themes related blogs are frequent and not at all difficult. Note that bloggers mainly exchange links for visitor traffic purposes, and not for search engine optimization. Link exchanges should generally be approached from the shared traffic perspective.

Blogs also provide an exclusive list of high PageRank blog directories. While maintaining their exclusivity in the blog only Internet directories, blogs are welcomed in the mainstream Internet directories. In that sense, blogs receive the best of both worlds.

Website owners, who are serious about improving not only their quantity of incoming links, but their theme relevant quality as well, should seriously consider adding a business blog component to their website.

Blog Setup on blogger.com

Blogs can be created from bloggers' site as well as from own FTP (websites). People who don't have any website, they can create a blog directly from the bloggers' site. But who have own site, they can also create blogs from own FTP with the help of blogger.com.

Blogger.com is the most popular blogger creater in the world of blogs. Although hundreds of site provide free blogs, but blogger.com is most popular due to its features and functions. Create a blog from own FTP using Blogger.com is somewhat technical and for the first time, it takes some time & try and error to upload blogs from own FTP.

From this article, I would like to define step by step procedures with examples that help you to create blogs in few easy steps at less time.

• URL to create blog
• Steps to setup blogs on own FTP
• Few steps to create a new blog
• Blog setup on own FTP server
• Customized template design
• FTP setup
o FTP setup details within folder
o FTP setup details without folder
o FTP setup details within existing folder
• Shift Blog from one FTP to another FTP
o FTP setup details within folder
o FTP setup details without folder

URL to create blog: http://www.blogger.com/

Steps to setup blogs on own FTP:

1. Create a new account
2. Choose a template
3. Redesign existing template
4. FTP setup
5. Post message
6. Published blogs

(1) Few steps to create a new blog as followed:

Click on the button “Create a New Blog Now”

• Create an account
• Give blog title like “PPC Articles”
• Give blog address like ppcarticles.blogspot.com (Must be unique)
• Choose the template & continue from the bottom click button
• Get message “Your blog is created” & Start posting
• Get Blogger editor to write the message
o Give the title
o Write the message
o From the bottom click on the “Publish Post” button

(2) Customized Template Design:

After creating a blog as mentioned above steps,

• First create own template. To do that, click on the “Dashboard” which will bring to the main page of our account.

Here, you find the “blogname” under “Blogs” category.

• Click on any created blog that you want to edit with your own template.

• Click on “PPC articles”

Here, you will find four main categories from the top navigation. They are, Posing, Setting, Template, View Blog

• Click on the “Template” which will bring you to the present template code.

Here, you can edit your template as per your site design.

You may create customized template using this html code-editing wizard.

Note: While designing the customized template, it is mandatory to place all “blog tags” in between & tags.

For example, this code should be under & tags -

• After, designing a new template click on the “Save Template Changes”.

• After clicking, you get a message - “Settings Were Saved Successfully”

Below the message “Settings Were Saved Successfully” message, you will find two buttons “Republish” (to publish entire blog) and “Republish Index” (to republish only index page)

• Click on the “Republish” button.

After clicking, you will get the “Publishing is in progress”.

After few seconds you will get the new message on the same page, “Your blog published successfully”.

Note: If you get an error, check the “details” after the message “blog could not published”.

(3) FTP Setup

• Click on the “Settings” button from the top navigation of a page.

Here, you will find sub navigation under the “Settings” like, Basic, Publishing, Formatting, Comments, Archiving, Site Feed, Email, Members

• Click on the “Publishing”.

Here, you will find two options like SFTP or blogspot.com

Again click on the SFTP, which will bring you on the page, where you can give your FTP server details.

Please, fill the complete wizard as mentioned below. This wizard appears on selecting the “SFTP” option.

Setup details to publish the content in a new folder named “blogger” under the root folder on the FTP of the website.

FTP Server: yourdomain.com
Note: Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.
Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/blogger/
Note: The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://.
FTP Path: blogger/ Note: This path must already exist on your server.
Blog Filename: semarticles.html Note: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.
FTP Username abcd
FTP Password *********
Working URL Like: http://www.yourdomain.com/blogger/ppcarticles.html (From the blogger folder of the FTP server)

Setup details to place the content directly in the root folder & publish it

FTP Server: yourdomain.com Note: Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.
Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/ogger/ (Remove folder name “blogger” from this URL) Note: The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://
FTP Path: blogger/ (Keep this field empty) Note: This path must already exist on your server.
Blog Filename: ppcarticles.html Note: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.
FTP Username abcd
FTP Password *********
Working URL Like: http://www.yourdomain.com/ppcarticles.html (From the root of the FTP server)

Setup details to place the content in an existing folder & publish it

FTP Server: yourdomain.com Note: Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.
Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/general/ (Place the name of an existing folder here)
Note: The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://.
FTP Path: general/ (Place the name of an existing folder here) Note: This path must already exist on your server.
Blog Filename: ppcarticles.html Note: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.
FTP Username abcd
FTP Password *********
Working URL Like: http://www.yourdomain.com/general/ppcarticles.html (From any existing folder of the FTP server)

• After giving a username and password of the FTP server, click on the “Save Settings” from the bottom of the page.

• After clicking, it will give you a message - “Settings Were Saved Successfully”

Below the message “Settings Were Saved Successfully” message, you will find two buttons “Republish” (to publish entire blog) and “Republish Index” (to republish only index page)

• Click on the “Republish” button.

• After clicking, you will get the “Publishing is in progress”.

• After few seconds you will get the new message on the same page, “Your blog published successfully”.

Note: If you get an error, check the “details” after the message “blog could not published”.

(4) Shift Blog from one FTP to another FTP

To shift existing blogs from one FTP to another FTP, one requires changing only the FTP details in the admin panel of “blogger”.

For that,

• Login into the same blogger' account from where you have already published the blogs.

• Click on the “Settings” button from the top navigation of a page.

Here, you will find sub navigation under the “Settings” like, Basic, Publishing, Formatting, Comments, Archiving, Site Feed, Email, Members

• Now click on the “Publishing”.

Here, you will find two options like SFTP or blogspot.com

Again click on the SFTP, which will bring you on the page, where you can give your FTP server details.

Follow the steps mentioned in point no. 3 above for changing the FTP details of the blog.

• Replace existing FTP server details with new FTP details. This new FTP server details will create new URL to view the blogs.

For example,
http://www.yourdomain1.com/blogger/ppcarticles.html (URL after shifting to a new FTP)
http://www.yourdomain1.com/ppcarticles.html (URL after shifting to a new FTP)

Above exampled URLs replace the following URLs:
www.yourdomain.com/blogger/ppcarticles.html (URL before shifting a new FTP)
www.yourdomain.com/ppcarticles.html (URL before shifting a new FTP)

• After giving a username and password of the new FTP server, click on the “Save Settings” from the bottom of the page.

• After clicking, it will give you a message - “Settings Were Saved Successfully”

Below the message “Settings Were Saved Successfully” message, you will find two buttons “Republish” (to publish entire blog) and “Republish Index” (to republish only index page)

• Click on the “Republish” button.

• After clicking, you will get the “Publishing is in progress” message.

• After few seconds you will get the new message on the same page, “Your blog published successfully”.

• Any changes or post updates will directly reflect on URLs.