Finding free blog scripts is a great way to make your blog a little more interesting without a lot of work on your part.
What Are Blog Scripts?
At its most basic, a blog script is the program that you use to write and publish your blog. When you're talking about free blog scripts, the most popular ones are Blogger, WordPress , Movable Type and B2Evolution.
You can either upload a blog script onto your server in order to host your blog on your own website, or you can simply sign up at the home page of Blogger or WordPress and have your blog hosted on that Web site. This second option is great for people just getting started blogging.
On another level, though, blog scripts can refer to little programs that attach to your blog program and allow you to do different things. You might have a blog script that allows you to share photos on your blog with Picassa or that puts a local weather report on your blog.
These are more commonly called plugins, but they can also be called scripts.
Finding Free Blog Scripts
There are tons of Web sites out there with great lists of scripts that you can either buy or get for free. Here are a few places you can look for free scripts:
Using Blog Scripts
Once you decide which basic blog script you are going to use to build your blog, you will need to sign up with that service. If you are letting the blogging software company host your blog for you (as is the case when your blog has a URL like something.blogspot.com, for example), then all you have to do is sign up. You can then blog through the company's website directly by just going to the site and typing in your post. If, on the other hand, you want to host your blog on your own website (so it has an address like yourdomain.com/blog) you'll have to download the script and then upload it to your Web server.
This sounds really complicated, but it's not. Both the company that produced the script and your Web host are likely to have simple step-by-step instructions that you can follow to get your blog onto your website in no time. Once you've uploaded the program, you can go to an administrative website that is part of your Web site to write and post new blog entries.
If you're looking at how to use free blog scripts that go beyond the basics, they are installed in much the same way. Many plugins are available directly from the companies that have the blog scripts to run your site. Blogger, for example, makes it really easy to drag and drop addins to your site without having to do any coding at all.
Most blogging software will allow you to easily add headlines from newsfeeds, slide shows, videos from YouTube, links to social networking sites and more.
You can also find blog scripts that will help you change your template, add other features or even make your blog into a forum or social networking site.
Using free blog scripts is a great way to introduce yourself to the world of blogging. There is no reason to spend a lot of money on programs and scripts that you aren't sure you'll like or use when you're just starting out.
Over time you may find that paying for some specialized scripts is worthwhile, but when you're just learning about the game it's great to get things for free. Best yet, there are tons of free scripts out there that can do just about anything you can imagine or that you could possibly want to do. Explore the world of free scripts and start blogging right away!
