Congratulations on starting your Sports Blog Net blog, here are a few things to do to set-up the blog the way you want it.

First, let’s get your profile up and running…

After you login, either, from the red menu bar on http://sportsblognet.com , or from http://(yourblogname).sportsblognet.com/wp-login.php, you should be taken to your profile page.

The first thing you should do is change your password to something that you like and remember.

Under “ME” -> click “Settings” and you should be in “General Settings”. Type in your desired password in both boxes and press “Save Changes”.

Now, if you have not entered some details about yourself and uploaded an avatar, would be a good time to complete those things let our community know who you are.

Go to “My Profile”-> click “Edit Profile” in order to enter details about yourself.

Go to “My Profile”->click “Change Avatar” in order to upload or change your avatar (make it a picture of yourself or a logo representing your blog. This will be the image that’s used on our main site, which is what people will associate with you and your blog). There are two avatars that you are cropping your image for, a thumbnail version and a full version.

Now onto setting up your blog…

You can either type in http://(yourblogname).sportsblognet.com/wp-admin
or you can go to the top of the page and hover your mouse over “My Blogs”->then hover your mouse over your blog name ->then click “Dashboard”

This takes you to the backend, where you can edit everything from writing posts to what theme your blog is in.

Scroll down the left side and find “Settings”, click on the down arrow to expand the options, and then click “General”.

The first thing you should do is make sure that your “Blog Title” is correct (this will be the title that people associate with your blog).

Next, you should edit the “Tagline”, something that describes your blog, or a quote about the site.

Click “Save Changes”

Next, scroll down the left side under “Settings”, click on “Plugins”.

You should now be in “Manage Plugins” – Plugins are extra features that you can use on your blog, -

Click on “Activate” next to the plugin that you want to add to your blog, if you don’t know what a plugin does, you can usually google the name of the plugin and a better description should come up. If you want a plugin, but SportsBlogNet does not offer it, write to support@sportsblognet.com and we will try to get the plugin that you want.

Now onto getting the blog to look the way that you want it to…

Scroll down the left side and find “Appearance”, click on the down arrow to expand the options.

Here we should have three options, “Themes”, “Widgets”, and “Custom Header Image”.

“Themes” controls the overall look of your blog, there are wide variety of themes in a wide variety of styles. If you wish to change the look of your blog, click “Themes” and scroll through the many themes and pick out the one that you like the best.

“Widgets” are customizable boxes which allow you to put anything from “categories” and “archives” to “recent posts” and plain text. The default theme has widgets on the sidebar, in four areas “Sidebar Top”, “Sidebar Left”, “Sidebar Right”, and “Sidebar Bottom”. The default widgets are “Recent Posts” and “Recent Comments” in the Top section, “Categories” in the Left section, “Archives” in the Right section, and “Blogroll” and “Meta” in the Bottom section. If you click on “Widgets”, you will see “Available Widgets” on the left and “Current Widgets” on the right. Once you place a widget into a section by clicking “Add” next to the widget, then the default widget in that section will disappear, and only your widgets that you choose will be on your blog. Always remember to click “Save Changes” before switching between sections and before you leave “Widgets”.

The “Custom Header Image” lets you change the image on the top of your theme to something of your choosing (not all themes have this feature). If you click “Custom Header Image”, you are brought to a screen where you can upload an image of your choosing. If you want to design something, the image dimensions on the default theme are 960 x 90 pixels, otherwise you can crop larger images to fit into that area. Other themes will have different dimensions.

Now onto posting your articles…

I am not going to go into too much detail here, but I wanted to let you know about a few things.
Scroll down the left side and find “Posts”, click on the down arrow to expand the options, and then click “Add New”. Now you are ready to edit a post.

Adding media (images, videos) is pretty easy to do, you can either click “Add media” right below the title box if you have an image that you specifically want to use, or you can use “Insights”.

If you look right below the body section of the post, there is “Insights”. “Insights” is a plugin which allows you to search for images and videos right from the post page, and helps you insert the image or video into your post.

Another thing I want to show you is how to break up your post, so that you have a portion of it on the front page and a link bringing the reader to read the rest of it. This way you can free up real estate on your front page, where most people will see your articles, but won’t have to scroll forever to see your second or third article.

In the “Edit Post” page, if you are in “Visual” editing (noted by the tab on the upper right corner of the body section) there is a button that looks like a page being split in two on the body section toolbar, this is the “more” link. Place your cursor where you want the post to contain the “more” link and then click the “more” link button on the toolbar.

Now press “Publish” on the right hand side and check out the link in action on the front page.

These are just a few tips to help get you started with your new blog, if you need help or have questions, please check out http://sportsbloghelp.com or google “wordpress how to (what you want to do)” and you should find your answers there. If you still can’t find your answer, write to support@sportsblognet.com and we will try to help you out.