Starting Your Blogger Account

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Basic Blogger accounts are free, though you can upgrade to a Pro account with more features. I cover Blogger Pro later in this chapter, but many casual bloggers find no need to upgrade. You can maintain a slick and satisfying Weblog with the basic free tools.

Follow these steps to get started with a basic account.

1. Go to the Blogger.com home page, which is shown in Figure 13-1:

   
   Figure 13-1: Blogger, the Google Weblog service that offers free Internet publishing.

   www.blogger.com

2. Scroll down to SIGN UP, enter a username and password, and then click the sign up button.

3. On the next page, fill in your real name and e-mail address.

4. Check the box agreeing to the terms of service.

   Blogger’s terms of service are benign, even friendly, asserting that you retain ownership to all blogged content and that you won’t post anything illegal. Click the terms of service link to read the exact wording of typical TOS stipulations. By the way, if you’re using Google Toolbar 2.0 (described in Chapter 9), you can use AutoFill to complete the name and e-mail address forms.

5. Click the Enter button.

That’s all there is to it. You now have a free Blogger account and can begin designing and publishing your blog.

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