To start your own blog on Open2it, you must first register as a member.

Login to your member account and click on "Community Blog" in the FEATURES section of the Main Menu. When the control panel appears, click on "My Account" and then on the "Write New Entry" button. An editor will appear in an overlay window.

Enter a title for your post in the gray area and write or copy and paste your text in the white area. You can add photos and other media in the editor by first uploading your image/file, then using the image insertion button or add link function (on selected text).

The editor has several standard functions, all of which have explanatory tooltips associated with them (hover over the buttons to see it). You can toggle the editor between layout and code view (see link in lower right corner).

Pay special attention to your metadata ("Publishing Options">"Meta Info"), because search engines use the information you provide to index your blog so people can find it. The description should be used to briefly summarize your post (1-2 short sentences). Use keywords and keyword phrases in the description, and distinguish it from your title (it should complement your title, not repeat it, as it will often appear with the title in search results). Keywords and keyword phrases should be taken directly from your text (change all upper-case letters to lower-case) and separated by a comma and a space. Keywords or phrases that don't appear in your text will be ignored by search engines. Place the most important keywords and keyword phrases first, as search engines rank them by order. Metadata entry is one of the most important parts of blog writing, but it is too often ignored. The consequence is that nobody reads your blog.

The publish date in "Publishing Options">"General" is automatically set, but you can fudge it if you like (recommended only if your material is old and backdating is desirable). Presently there is only one publishing category "MyBlog."

Tags are another important addition to your blog. They help to categorize your post and they allow visitors to search for and click on tags to find posts of interest to them. You can choose from the tags already available, or write your own. Select multiple tags by repeatedly browsing for or assigning a tag and then clicking the "Add" link. Please do not over-use tags, as it will create a jumble of tags in your header and make your blog look messy.

The "Images and documents" tab is used to manage your media. You can upload images (under 200 kb) and other files with the following file extensions:

gif, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, doc, xls, swf, pdf

Please make sure that the files are not too big, or they will be removed without notice. Uploading any item approaching 1 Mb is discouraged.

You can search for older posts and specify trackbacks.

When you are finished editing your post, click "Save" or "Save and Close." You can also close without saving by clicking the red X in the upper right of the window.

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