How to set up your own blog

[Santa]

I thought I'd go through a process of setting up your own blogging site. This may sound like a big, scary and costly concept but in reality its very easy and potentially free.

Wordpress is one of the if not the most popular blogging platforms and Wordpress can be provided on a "hosted for you" or "find hosting yourself" basis. (There are other platforms available, feel free to research).

Hosted for you is very quick and easy though you may find limits to the plugins and themes you can use. Great if you want a free, easy to setup blog.

Visit https://wordpress.com/

Set up an account.

Done. Just add some content.

Finding hosting yourself method requires finding, buying, building or begging some suitable web space. Wordpress requires PHP 5.2+ Server Side Scripting, MySQL 5+ Database and it is recommended to use Apache or Nginx web server. (Basically LAMP or WAMP environment, most cheap web hosting packages that support databases is probably LAMP).
The web host may have an "easy to install" packager which will allow the installation of wordpress with one click.
If not, instructions can be found at https://wordpress.org. (It takes about 5 minutes to install).
Then just cram your blog with plugins, themes and content.

FAQ

Is it really this easy? Yes, try not to over think it.

Can I publish links to my website here? As long as there is no commercial interest, adverts, etc. If there is you would need trade status. If in doubt, the answer is no.

Why would I want a blog? A blog allows you to publish to the world without question. (Providing it meets laws, T&C's of the provider etc obviously).

Would anyone visit my blog? If you're asking this question, probably not.

It's very kind for you to offer this information, why would you? I aim to please and some people may be happy maintaining a blog. I'm in a good mood at the moment and some people just need help.

Do I need to worry about liabilities? Worry is a strong word. Use common sense, if you don't have any use someone elses.

Is this a wind up? The above will give you a working blog utilising a powerful and popular framework. I'm not sure why anyone would want to post anything "on the net" without the opportunity of having a knowledgeable community being able to appraise and potentially correct the content free of charge though.