This is the third part of the series on creating a gratis or free blog out of scratch. This is basically for beginners but for those who want to learn more, even if they/you are not a beginner anymore,maybe you would try to see and advice what we can improve here. That is highly appreciated. This video focuses on creating the blog using Gmail account that has been created in previous series and customizing the template,layout, backgrounds,size,etc.of this new blog. I suggest you read everything first then watch the video in full screen.


From the previous article, you just created your Google account through Gmail. For those who have existing Google accounts already, this would be your starting point: accessing Blogger and creating a blog using your existing Gmail or Google account. There is also a video with this article (just above this paragraph) on how to do this step but before playing the video, take note of the following:

• 1. You need your Google account/Gmail username and password;
• 2. Upon logging in to Blogger (www.blogger.com), another language might be there, simply change the language to your preferred one as shown in the video;
• 3. When you are inside, logged in your account, and at the creation of the Blog, you may opt to “Check Availability” of the “Blog Address url” before clicking the “Continue” button. It’s up to you if you want to check the availability or not. Blogger will also tell you if the url is not anymore available and will "force" you to change that url before you can go on;
• 4. You can also see which stage of blog creation you are in: in the Blogger page, inside your account, 3 steps are indicated to guide you: (1) Create account; (2) Name Blog; and (3) Choose Template. All these 3 are performed and shown in the following video. The templates available in this video are the basic and simple ones. Later on this tutorial, we will be customizing and beautifying your templates and layout, just a little bit of patience and we will get there
• 5. Take note that the first article in the dummy blog at http://learning-blog-101.blogspot.com, I created it and simply copied it and pasted in the post area of the blog. I also advice the same thing for you, to write offline and save it in your hard drive so that in case Blogger crashes or your connection and/or computer crashes, you don’t lose your article. (I apologize for some Italian texts and instructions popping out from time to time; this laptop is Italian and I speak the language too so I don’t bother changing everything to English)
• 6. The video already shows how to add an image in the post and how to create a “tag” or “label” (in the video the tag is “Blogging”) for the posts. You can create more tags if you like. Blogger will let you know when you exceeded maximum tags.
• 7. You may opt to ”Preview” your post before publishing but personally, I rarely do that as I can always return and edit anything anyway.

Now you may watch the video. This tutorial has a few more series to post and your blog is ready and beautiful. Goodluck and enjoy blogging!

Previous Series:

• How to Create a Free or Gratis Blog: Opening a Blog Through Gmail/Google Account (Part II of Blogging 101 Series)
• How to Create Free or Gratis Blog? Introduction (Part I) to Starting Blogging 101 Series