So, you got this new blog and you unsure how to get started. Well, its simple and I’ll try and walk you through the basics of getting started. The control of your blog on BarnMate.com can divided into three sections: Write, Manage and Design. Of course there is many other things you can do with your blog but I just want to get you started on posting and make sure the blog reflects you.

(the following must be performed from your blog’s Dashboard which is seen after logging in)

1. Design: Changing the design of the blog

You just signed up and noticed that the default blog is very plain. To change the design of the blog click the ‘Design‘ link on the far right menu. You will see the current theme applied to your blog in the Current Theme section. To change the blog’s theme look through the Available Themes and select a theme you like. By clicking the theme a larger preview will be displayed. Clicking the X on the left closes the preview while clicking on the Activate link on the top right of the preview applies this theme to your entire blog. That’s all there is to it.

2. Write: Creating your first blog post

Diretly under your blogs name, in the dashboard, are three links: Write, Manage and Comments. The Write section is where you create blogs posts, new pages for your blog (more on this in the future) and links for your blog (more on this in the future). Lets click the Write link and then make sure the Post link below is highighted (by default when you click Write the blog defaults to writing a post). Now give your blog post a Title (2 - 7 words works best) and create the post (using the Word like editor to give it style, add embedded media, add images).

Below the Post section is the Tag and Category sections. Tags are single word entries seperated by commas that describes a post to allow readers to easily find similar posts. Categories are a more broad way to group your posts. Usually posts will have only 1 category (maybe 2) and a few tags (up to 5-7).

Now that the post is created you have two main options on the right, Save or Publish. Save just saves it to your blog posts to manage while publish actually pushed the post to your blog so your readers can read it.

(a shortcut to writing posts is clicking the Write a New Post from your main dashboard page)

3. Manage: How to edit or delete a post

Also under your blogs name, in the dashboard is Manage. Manage is where you manage existing posts, pages, links, tags, categories and a bit more. Lets click the Manage -> Posts for now to see how to edit or delete a post. After clicking the link you will see all the posts you have created, regardless if they are published (displayed on your blog) or just saved.

To delete a blog post click the checkbox on the right of the blog post or posts that you would like to delete. After selecting the post click the Delete button just above the post list. The post(s) will now be removed from your post list and removed from your blog.

To edit a blog post (this includes publishing a blog post that has only been saved and not published as of yet) click the title of the blog post to edit.  A window will open with the blog post ready for editing.  Edit what you need to and press Save or Publish (just like creating a blog post).  If you only want to publish a blog post which has only been saved just press Publish.

more information to come in the future…