Getting started with blogging

 What is a blog?

A blog is short for web-log. Blogs started as online diaries, so the concept wouldn't have been foreign to Victorian ladies confiding their innermost thoughts to their journals.

Each individual entry is known as a blog post. 

Anyone can start a blog. There are various software packages you can use to set one up - but you don't even have to bother with that to write a guest blog on Gransnet - just send us your idea, or your beautifully crafted (well, fairly beautifully-crafted) 300-or-so words. Ideal for something you want to get off your chest but which feels a bit long for a post on the forums.

Blogging software 

There are lots of free sites designed to allow you to get your thoughts out to the world. Wordpress and Blogger come highly recommended for beginners; you may also want to look at Posterous, Livejournal and tumblr.

Anonymous or not?

You can write your blog post under your real name (lots of journalists and public figures do this), under your Gransnet username if that seems right, or completely anonymously if you're going to express some deep dark thoughts that you don't want anyone to know came from you. 

If you want to make sure you remain undercover:

• Use a pseudonym which you don't use anywhere else on the Internet.
• Don't mention personal details that might identify you, like where you live or work, your first name, age or those of your children or grandchildren.
• Set up a new email account to register your blog, which doesn't have your name or details attached to it.
• Don't link your blog to a Twitter account which gives your name away
• Log out when you've finished.
• Don't post photos you've taken yourself.
• See more tips on how to blog anonymously on Mumsnet Bloggers Network.

Tips for top blogging 

• Keep it short
• Make your writing stand out (easier said than done, but funny is good, personal is good)
• Think about what you know that might be interesting to other people
• Use pictures
• Link out to other things on the web
• Update it often

Other things you might like:

• Latest gransnet guest blogs
• How Gransnet blogging works
• Blogging ideas