Get started blogging
If you've spent time surfing through the millions of spaces already published on MSN Spaces, you'll see a huge range of styles, approaches, topics, and uses. Some people post photos as the main part of their space and add blog entries only occasionally. Others blog every day (or close to it), sharing news about what's happening in their lives, their views on current events, recent musings, or odd or happy occurrences. Whatever interests you, you're sure to find a blog about it: You'll find blogs about families, dating, divorce recovery, single parenting, high-school and college experiences, traveling, farming, day dreaming, and much more.
But no matter what you want to write about, one important two-part question will help define your space: (1) what caught your attention today, (2) and what do you want to say about it?
If you don't have your own MSN Space, sign up today! It's free, it's easy, and with your own MSN Space, you'll have plenty of space to share your favorite photos, stories, and more.
Creating a blog entry
To add your first blog entry, follow these steps:
1. | Sign in to your space. Your space appears in Edit mode. |
2. | Find the Blog list, and click Add Entry. The Edit Blog Entry window appears (see Figure 1). |
Figure 1: Click Add Entry to open the Edit Blog Entry window.
Add a title
Creating a fun, lively, or attention-getting title is half the trick to getting your blog noticed. And if you update regularly and create interesting titles that hook the reader's curiosity, you increase your chances of developing a devoted and consistent readership for your space. To add the title, click in the Title box, and type the text that you want to appear as the title. It's that simple.
Choose a category
When you first set up your space, MSN Spaces gives you a list of standard categories that you can use to identify the basic content of your blog entry. To choose the category that you want to assign to your blog entry, click the Category down arrow, and select the category from the list.
If you don't see a category that fits what you want to write about, click Add A Category, and type a name for the category that you want. Click OK to save and apply the new category to your current entry.
Enter text
Now for the fun part! The blog entry area is wide open, ready for you to post your story. Just click in the box, and start typing. Press Enter at the end of your paragraph, and press Enter again to add a blank line between paragraphs if that's your style.
Add formatting touches
The editing tools at the top of the blog entry area provide what you need to apply special formats to your blog text. You can change the size, color, and style of the text; cut and paste text; change the alignment; create numbered and bulleted lists; add smileys; and more.
Add links
Adding links to your blog entries increases your connectivity with other sites and increases the number of people who may stumble upon your blog. Think of adding links as building sidewalks from one place to another: When you link to another site, you provide a path to your blog that didn't exist before. Add a link by highlighting the text that you want to link and clicking the Insert Link tool. Type the URL for the link in the Insert Hyperlink box and click Insert (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Add links to help get your space noticed.
Preview and publish the entry
You're almost finished! Once you have all the text in place and formatted the way that you want, and you've added any photos that you want to include, you can see the way your blog entry will look by clicking the Preview Blog Entry tab at the top of the blog entry area. You'll see how the entry will appear to others when they visit your site (see Figure 3).
Figure 3: Preview your blog entry before you publish it.
