I’ll note right away that I don’t like to write about what I don’t know or what I haven’t tried on my own skin. In this article, I will try to help all novice (and not only) bloggers decide what is best for them in this or that case: a standalone blog or LiveJournal!?
To begin with, I will share with you the reason why I did not start another blog on LiveJournal. Why next? Because I already had a couple of blogs in LiveJournal, but they were created for cross-posting, i.e. promotion of the main blog or website. One I stopped using because the promoted site stopped working (it was my first site dedicated to e-sports and, in particular, computer game Counter-Strike 1.6). The second one I stopped using because I didn't see any benefit from it. Both of these blogs in LiveJournal work to this day (here first And second).
Let's get back to the reason: I weighed the pros and cons of the blog on LiveJournal and realized that I didn't need it. Here is my train of thought:
Pros of a blog in LiveJournal:
- It is quite easy to promote a blog in LiveJournal (thanks to the friend feed). Just add as friends everyone who writes on the same topic as you.
- Your blog pages are quickly indexed. Sometimes even faster than on a standalone blog. This happens thanks to high level trust in the main LJ domain (and all blogs are created on a third-level domain, for example, ritmlife.livejournal.com).
- You can earn almost as much on LiveJournal as on a standalone blog. True, for this you will need to buy a paid account so that links from the blog begin to be indexed. In addition, on a paid account, you can hang an Adsense block. But a paid account, which costs about 60 rubles a month, has other advantages over a free one: the absence of advertising throughout the site (that is, not only users of your blog will not see ads on it, but you will not see ads in other blogs); opportunity to create your own unique design.
- A blog is easy to create and customize.
- You can copy-paste and the blog will be nothing.
Cons of a blog in LiveJournal:
- No more options in terms of blog design.
- The blog can be closed without your consent for one reason or another (for example, they wrote something wrong about the president).
Pros of a standalone blog:
- No unnecessary ads.
- More respect for the blog (because it is on paid hosting, not on a free blogging platform).
- The design of the blog is entirely up to you. There are no boundaries here.
- More earning opportunities.
Cons of a standalone blog:
- Hosting usually costs more than a paid LiveJournal account.
- You are not part of the LiveJournal community.
- You need to be able to install the CMS (content management system) on the server yourself, “pull” the template, etc. (although it is not as difficult as it seems at first glance). Or hire a programmer.
- You need to write only unique articles, otherwise you can get under Google and Yandex filters.
And so, after weighing all the pros and cons of a standalone blog and a blog in LiveJournal, I decided that it would be better to start a standalone blog. I can install and configure CMS in a couple of hours. Then it remains only to write and write.
But if you are a beginner blogger, then you should answer the following questions for yourself:
- Will you just blog your thoughts or do you want something more?
- Do you want to make money from your blog?
- Or does your main blog need support?
If you plan to blog just about what you think (read more about what you can blog about), then for these purposes it is better to start blog on LJ platform. And even a paid account is useless here. If you are confused by advertising on the site, then just install the plugin Adblock Plus, which will block all ads on the Web. If you write interesting posts, then users will read your block, despite the ads in it.
If you plan to make money on your blog, and earn decently, then I recommend you create a blog on paid hosting, i.e. offline blog. Here you set the boundaries in terms of earnings for yourself.
If you already have a blog, but it is not popular, then, as an option for promoting it, you can start a blog on LiveJournal, connect cross-posting for it through Piston Poster or a plugin for your CMS. But that's not all. Next, you will have to add as friends on the LiveJournal site those users who are close to you in spirit. This way you can drive targeted traffic to your main blog. To be honest, I didn't use it. I created a blog in LiveJournal to speed up the indexing of the main blog. And that's it!
I hope this article will help you decide where it is better to start a blog: on paid hosting (standalone) or on LiveJournal.
Finally, I want to add that in the near future I will start a blog on SEO topics in LJ. Just for the sake of experiment. To check if offline blogging promotion methods for free blogging platforms work or not. And for one thing, I’ll check what can be added with such a blog. Perhaps it will be possible to monetize in the future.
Be that as it may, I will definitely write about the results in my blog, which you are now reading.
Leave a comment, click " I like» (« Like") And " Save", and I'll write something else interesting for you :)
LiveJournal (LJ, or Livejournal) is located at: http://www.livejournal.com/. Before start a blog on LiveJournal, You need to get the address Email(e-mail). Open Mailbox You can use any free mail service (for example, Google, Yandex, Rambler, or Mail.ru). Once you have received an email address, you can start creating a blog. Having opened home page LiveJournal, click on the button (link) "Create an account" (or "Create a journal"). On the page that opens after that, you must fill in all the information fields.
After filling in these fields, you will confirm by clicking the button below that you are ready to continue working with LiveJournal, and you will be taken to a page that allows you to select a tariff plan. This page is called Set Up Your Account. Proposed tariff plans differ from each other in the opportunities provided to the user, and in what is required of him in return. Personally, I use a free account in LiveJournal.
After the tariff is selected, you get to the page "Edit profile - find friends and communities", which prompts you to fill in information about yourself. You should carefully consider this page, because it will play a big role in the further promotion of your blog. LiveJournal itself interprets this page as follows: "Your profile will let others know who you are and what your magazine is about." Subsequently, this page will be called your blog profile and will receive a unique address on the Internet. In fact, it is another blog post that is available to readers and search engines.
Pay Special attention to the last section on this page - "Interests". Each interest here can be represented either by one word or by a phrase (but no more than four words). Interests are separated from each other by commas. After you've completed this section and saved your changes, you'll see in your profile view that interests shared by anyone else have become hyperlinks. And, by clicking on such a hyperlink, you will find yourself on a page where other users who have the same interest are represented.
After saving the results, you will be redirected to the next page, where you will be prompted to make changes to your profile, as well as find "compatriots by region", or people who have similar interests to you. It also describes how to include these people in your friends list.
All your friends in LiveJournal are people with whom your blog will have reciprocal hyperlinks, and you can read all new messages from their blogs in one feed (it is called a friend feed).
Now you can start setting up appearance Your blog and access to posts. To do this, follow the link "Journal - Settings".
On the page that opens, write "Journal Title". This is a very important step, because it is the title of your blog that search engines will determine what topic it is about. Therefore, the header must contain keywords (search terms), on which you plan to carry out the promotion and promotion of your creation.
The next line - "Journal subtitle" - is no less important. The subtitle of the journal should also contain the main keywords.
Below the subtitle, there is a third field - the title for the friends page. It is filled in the same way as the subheading.
After filling in the specified fields, click the "Save Changes" button.
Next, let's start customizing the appearance of the blog. To do this, go to the "Look and Feel" tab, select a style and color scheme, set the language. Since style names on their own probably won't tell you much, follow the "Examples" link. When choosing styles, you will see that some of them are not available to users of free accounts. If you do not want to change the style and agree that it will be assigned to you automatically, you can limit yourself to filling in the "Title" and "Subtitle" fields and start using the blog immediately after that.
This completes the blog setup, your blog has been created, and now you can start writing in it. To do this, follow the link "Journal - Write". In the window that opens, enter the subject of the entry (if possible, it should contain keywords).
There are two modes for entering text: visual editor and HTML. The first allows you to format text in the same way as it is done in text editor Word, and the second allows you to enter text with tags.
Enter (or copy from a text editor) the body of your message. In the visual editor mode, you can change the font size and color, insert or delete hyperlinks, tables, a numbered or bulleted list, highlight text fragments in italics or bold, underline or strikethrough, etc.
If you need to insert HTML tags into the text, switch from visual editor mode to HTML mode.
After preparing the text, you, at your discretion, can fill in the fields located below the main text field (“Labels”, “Mood”, “Where are you now”, “Comments”, “Hiding”, “Access to this entry”) and Click the "Submit to Journal" button. Your blog will have new entry, which will have a unique Internet address.
A lot of letters come with questions: “How to make your own blog?” In principle, there is nothing complicated about this, but in order to satisfy all readers, I publish a guide to creating a blog on LiveJournal.
Registration in LiveJournal
I draw your attention to the fact that instructions and guides for managing and setting up blogs are in the Help and Faq sections of the LiveJournal. They contain a huge amount of information, but often not necessary in order to just start using the service. So I will tell about the main actions to be completed creating a blog.
Before creating a blog on LiveJournal, you need to get an email address. The easiest way is to open a mailbox on any free mail service - on Yandex, Rambler, Google or Mail.ru. In order not to remember passwords on various mail services, I recommend that they be immediately redirected to your main e-mail. So you can have an unlimited number of mailboxes, working directly with one.
If there is a mailbox you can start blogging. Go to www.livejournal.com. There is a lot of different information about LiveJournal, but we are now interested in an inscription or a button "Create an account". Click and go to the registration page. It needs to fill in some fields.
Username.
Choose your name from Latin letters, numbers and underscores.
E-mail address.
There must be a real address here, because. it automatically receives confirmation of registration, as well as all messages related to LiveJournal. These include messages that a comment has been made on your blog or that someone has added you to their friends list.
Password.
Enter your password and remember it. It is better to use both letters and numbers in the password.
Confirm the password.
Confirm the password by typing it again.
Birthday.
Here, in principle, you can enter any date. LiveJournal does not require you to enter your real age. Yes, and when registering a blog, you can completely or partially hide your birthday from prying eyes.
Checking that you are human.
This item is a standard protection against spammers who carry out automatic registrations using special programs. To check, enter the 2 specified English words. If the first time it didn’t work out, it’s okay, the next time another one will be issued, as a rule, more readable.
Site news.
By default, this field is checked with the text " Yes, send me LiveJournal announcements.» If you do not want to receive emails with LiveJournal news, uncheck the box.
After filling in the fields, press the button: "Create an account"
On this page, we are offered to quickly create our profile. I recommend that you carefully consider this, because in the future it will significantly affect the promotion of the blog. LiveJournal itself puts it this way: “Let others know who you are. Filling in all of these fields is completely optional, but the more you fill out, the better. I explain why - this page will subsequently be called your blog profile and will receive a unique address on the Internet, i.e. will be another blog post that is available to readers and search engines. Filling out sections...
With fields "Name", "Gender", "Where are you located" I think there will be no problems, especially since you have already filled them in and they are substituted automatically. But if you want, you can change the name, because. your nickname appears there by default.
Then comes the “What are you interested in?” section. Here you are invited to fill in the fields with your favorite musical artists, books, films, and also name your hobby. You can also list your other interests. Each interest can be represented both by a word and a phrase. Interests are separated by commas. After you complete the registration, in the profile view, you will see that those interests that are shared by anyone else have become hyperlinks. By clicking on such a link, you will find yourself on a page where other users who have the same interest are represented. Those interests that are unique will remain just text. Check their spelling carefully. Perhaps they just made a mistake. For example: “players” and “players” will lead to different pages.
Next comes the big field "Tell us a little (or a lot if you like) about yourself:". It allows you to post any information. More information - more content - better promotion in search engines.
In the next box on this page, you are prompted to select your account type − "Paid" or "Free". I think the free type is 99% of the time to start with, but it's up to you. All the benefits of a paid plan can be explored by clicking on the hyperlink located next to the account type.
After that, in the frame on the right, select the style of your account. Well, it's all up to your taste and color! then press the button: "Save and Continue" Now you need to check your mail for e-mail box, there will be a letter with a link. Follow the link to complete registration. If everything is correct, you will see the page:
All in principle, the creation of the blog is completed. You now have a blog named www.name.livejournal.com, where name is the name of your blog.
First blog post.
If you are on the page above, please follow the link. "Write in a journal". If you just entered the blog from its main page www.name.livejournal.com, then click on the link Post.
In the window that opens, enter the subject of the entry. The subject of the entry is very important, it should not only reflect the content of the entry, but also include keywords.
There are two modes for entering text: visual editor and HTML. The first allows you to format the text in the same way as it is done in a text box. Word editor, and the second allows you to enter text with tags. For novice users, in my opinion, it is better to use a visual editor.
Enter the body text of your message. In the visual editor mode, you can change the font size and color, insert and delete hyperlinks, tables, a numbered or bulleted list, highlight text fragments in italics or bold, underline, etc. The toolbar icons are very similar to those in Word.
The ability to remove under the cut is very important for LiveJournal users, both in terms of the readers of his blog and in terms of the blog's ranking in search engines. It is more convenient for blog readers, because if the text of the message is long, then it will take up too much space in the friend feed, which is unlikely to please them. They will go to your page themselves if they are interested in the topic, but if this topic is imposed on them, they may be unhappy.
And from the point of view of search engines, it is important to understand the following. In order for your resources to support each other, it is good to have in each message several hyperlinks to those sites or individual web pages that you want to draw attention to or that you want to raise in the search results. However, if these links are not removed under the cut, then on the first page of the blog, on which 20 posts are usually placed, twenty links of the same type will be located. Such a large number can be perceived search engines as spam and will most likely result in de-indexing or downgrading. Therefore, fragments of pages that contain links of the same type must be removed under cat. There they will not look so reprehensible.
If it becomes necessary to insert a link into the text in the visual editor mode, then you should enter the text, then select it and, by clicking the "Insert / Edit Link" button, add a link to the desired resource in the pop-up window that appears. And if in the visual editor mode a copied fragment of text is inserted that already contains a link, then this link is saved when pasting.
If you need to insert HTML tags, it is recommended that you first switch to HTML mode and add these tags already in it. Otherwise, they will be treated as plain text.
After entering the message, you can already send it to the blog, but for a more complete use of the blog's features, I recommend taking a closer look at all the fields located below the body text field: Tags, Mood, Where are you now, Music, Comments, Hide, Mature, Recording available.
"Marks"
Be sure to fill in the "Labels" field. These are keywords. Firstly, users can use them to find your blog when they need to find materials on a specific topic. In addition, tags are usually indexed by search engines, and not just on your blog. They are collected on separate pages of LiveJournal and a considerable number of various Internet resources. All these resources are visited by spiders and have separate addresses on the Internet. As a result, you get hyperlinks to your blog from a variety of addresses, what will help in the promotion of the blog. Try to include in your blog tags the words you want to promote your blog for.
"Mood"
This section allows you to make your post more emotionally charged. Fill in at your discretion.
"Where are you now"
Also more Additional Information for your friends about your whereabouts, it is optional.
"Music"
Like the first section, for a more expressive post, indicate the listener in this moment musical composition.
"Comments"
Depending on which option you choose, it will determine who you allow to comment on your posts, if at all. By default, comments are open to everyone, unless you set other rules when setting up your blog.
"Hide"
Allows you to hide comments - all or by certain parameters.
"For adults"
Here I think everything is clear. Censorship to restrict access to "adult" materials.
"Record Available"
This field allows you to make the entry visible to everyone, either only to those who have been added to the list of friends by the account owner, or generally only to the owner of the journal. All. whose clearance level does not allow them to see the recording, they will not be able to see it and will not even know about its existence.
After filling in all the required fields, it remains to press the button "Send to log name", and your blog post will appear. This entry will have its own address on the Internet. Here, in fact, all you need to do in order to start blogging online.
How to create your blog in LiveJournal, point by point:
1. Go to the main page of the service, located at: https://www.livejournal.com/create.bml
2. Enter the parameters:
a) Username- at the same time both the username for logging in to the system and the technical Name journal in LiveJournal (accessed through it), and your pseudonym for comments.
Therefore, to given parameter can be taken seriously. If you are creating a diary, and not something abstractly soaring, then it is better to call it your real first name or a well-known pseudonym, for example masha or pupkin. In any case, you should not give the diary a complicated name like 56Ter689pop.
b) Email address - the address of your mailbox. It is advisable to set the main mailbox here, and not some random one, because if there are any questions with access to your blog on LiveJournal, access can be restored using this address.
V) Password- password to enter the LiveJournal system (you will need to enter it once).
Of course, it must be complex enough that it cannot be picked up. In addition, LiveJournal requires that the password contain both numbers and letters.
d) Verification age a - in this section you need to indicate your date of birth.
It is clear that no one will check the truth of this data, but it is recommended to indicate real data, because they are needed only for the system and no one else will see it. In the future, you can set any date (including without the year of birth), and it will be visible to everyone.
e) Choose from the list Enable LiveJournal Messenger Later
e) write the letters from the picture and press: Create an account
3. In the window that opens, fill in or not fill out the profile, and click Save and continue.
4. Account Type- here you can choose free or paid account. Novice users usually choose the first one - we will do that. Click on the lower right small letters: Not today, thanks.
5. Important! After that you need check your e-mail, which you did not indicate during registration, and confirm your registration:
Congratulations, you now have new account on livejoumal.com!
Note: Russian-speaking users are accustomed to calling the LiveJournal service "LiveJournal" or LJ for short. Blogs are also called LJ (my LJ, your LJ, his LJ). The term "LiveJournal", LiveJournal, lifejournal, or simply "magazine" means a blog (diary).
Which was opened in 1999 by the American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick. The word Livejournal means "Live Journal", or simply LJ.
In the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, Livejournal is still the most demanded and popular service.
More than 100,000 new entries are posted to Livejournal blogs every day. For many Russian speaking users the very word "blog" is associated with "LiveJournal".
In Russia alone, more than one and a half million users are registered. LiveJournal has won the Runet Award twice.
Summing up, LJ can be called popularly favorite blog hosting in Runet.
So, dear friends, in order to create a blog on LiveJournal, you need to go through a simple registration, which consists of four steps. At the time of registration, you must have an e-mail address and you must be 13 years old.
So, let's begin.
1. Create a LiveJournal account
Go to the LiveJournal website and click on the "create an account" link.
Next, the most important item at this stage is the username. This is a combination of Latin letters and numbers that will be the name of your blog on the Internet. Try to choose the simplest and most understandable word or combination of words for the username.
Below are guidelines on what not to do when choosing a username.
Don't use a meaningless combination of letters and numbers. Diary Address http://hw34hqw.livejournal.com much less attractive to readers and advertisers than something laconic like http://alex.livejournal.com .
Don't overuse numbers. Diary Address http://alexl223.live-journal.com may characterize the blog as too amateur, except for blog addresses like http://nokia8800.livejournal.com, which, on the contrary, indicate its subject matter.
- Do not use your nickname if it does not relate to the subject of the future blog. A blog with the address sexy-girls.livejournal.com would be difficult to perceive as the blog of an accountant with fifteen years of experience.
- Do not use a blog address that is too long, as it is difficult to remember and it is not customary to use them in Runet.
Address type the-best-blog-in-the-world.blogspot.com it is better to replace the short bestblog.blogspot.com .
When choosing a blog password, don't use too simple or short passwords. Passwords like max88 , 123456 , qwert are insecure. At a minimum, make sure your password is more than seven characters long and includes letters and numbers.
Examples good passwords: DG) 789#w , Nm?j4H0-9 , lwf;fd_3J .
Gender and age don't really matter. If you are over 18 years old, you have all the rights and opportunities in LiveJournal. Also, no one checks your passport data, so quite often there are blogs that are written on behalf of fictional characters.
2. Set up a blog
At this stage, you are asked to fill in optional information about yourself. It is advisable to fill in all the fields, it will be a plus, albeit a small one, for your blog.
When filling in the fields, be careful and specific in your answers. For example, it is better to leave the music field empty than to enter different, any, funny. In the appropriate fields, indicate more interests, especially those related to . In the field with information about yourself, describe who you are and why the topic of your future blog is of interest to you.
At the same stage, you are invited to choose a theme from the basic templates. Choose a theme that makes your blog easy to read, such as black text on a white background. The default design theme fully complies with these requirements.
3. Improve your account
On this step you will immediately be offered to switch to a paid account, which, of course, has many advantages. And if you are stable in LiveJournal, then switching to a paid account will be a very logical decision.
But if you are a beginner, then take your time, first get comfortable, decide how comfortable it is for you to work with the blog. Switch to a paid account and use others paid features you can at any time. To continue registration without purchasing a paid account, simply skip this step.
4. We complete the registration in the "LiveJournal"
This completes the registration, your blog has already been created and is working, you are immediately invited to follow the link and see the result.
An email from LiveJournal will be sent to your e-mail asking you to confirm your mailbox. Be sure to do it. Also in the letter will be a lot of advice and useful links that are worth exploring.
Loading...