Basic blog features

The most important features and functions of a blog include the following:

• Create post option - allows you to begin and publish a new post. Be sure to pick a descriptive title. (Note: You can publish immediately or schedule a time in the future for the post to be published.)

• Insert link function: If you use your mouse to highlight text, you can then click on the link button and paste a link URL to which you want that text to be able to point. (Sometimes you have the option to have the link open in a new window. Keep an eye open for that.)

• Insert photo and/or video option: Wherever you put your cursor, the video or photo will be inserted. You can upload a photo from your computer or put a link to an image. If you have an original video, you can upload from your computer. If you only want to link to a video (such as on YouTube), simply insert a link as described above.

However, if you want to have a video from YouTube or another site embedded into your blog post, you'll need to get what is called the embed code. Look for the embed code on the video source page. You can also look for the symbol <>. Copy and paste the code into your blog post. Note: You need to be in the editing mode where you can see the HTML code. Usually, you can choose between editing in "visual" or "compose" mode, or in code or HTML mode.

• Comment options: There are various ways to handle comments. They can be completely turned off. They can be moderated (you can get email notifications when someone makes a comment). You can require that commenters do some sort of identity validation to avoid spam. Look at your comment options in your tool to see what you can do. If you don't moderate or have some sort of validation process, be sure to watch comments closely.

A few other features include the following:

• The "more" function: a marker in the post that tells the blog to only display the content before the marker on your blog. Think of it as a "teaser" for your post. This comes in handy if you want people to quickly see several posts on your blog's home page. If you don't use this feature, the entire post will be displayed on your blog.