Blogging is a great way to get started with an Internet presence, and is readily accessible to almost everyone. This is a short guide to get you started.

Step 1: Purchase a domain name. This generally costs around $8 to $10 per year, and is done at a domain name registrar, such as GoDaddy.com. However, for sake of easiness, you can also generally sign up with a domain name when you buy a web hosting account; see below.

Step 2: Purchase web hosting. This is a computer on which your blog will physically reside, and your domain name will "point" to it. This is why it may be easier for you to begin with step 2 and just sign up with a hosting account, most of which provide domain name purchasing along with signup, often times for free, to save you the trouble of having to point your domain name from another company. For the easiest possible setup, choose a host that provides CPanel, which allows for easy one click installs of popular programs (such as blogging platforms).

Step 3: Install Wordpress. If you found a hosting company that offers CPanel, you're in luck. You'll have a program called Fantastico that will install Wordpress (the most popular blogging software in the world) for you with a few clicks. If you don't have access to CPanel and thus Fantastico, your host may still offer one click installs of Wordpress. You'll have to ask. Using Fantastico (it has a blue smiley face icon), simply select Wordpress from the left, and then install it in your home directory by leaving the directory field blank. Choose a username, password, email address, and name for your site. Click Install and then Finish Installation. It's really that simple.

Step 4: Write your first post. To login to your blog, go to yourdomain.html/wp-admin, and login with your username and password. Click Write at the top and then begin to type. When you are done, click Publish on the right. To see your blog, go to yourdomain.com.

Step 5: Get material to write about. Of course, this mostly up to you. But a few ideas may help spark your imagination. Go to bloglines.com and sign up for a free account. After you confirm your registration, log in and click Add on the left hand column. This is where you're going to plug in some RSS feeds from other blogs. Open up a new browser and begin searching for blogs that interest you and/or are relevant to your blog. When you find one, you'll see a little orange icon in the upper right in the address bar, were the web URL is. Click it. This takes you to the RSS feed; copy and past the URL of this page into your bloglines account. Do this for as many blogs as you feel like. Now, when you visit your bloglines account you'll see all the new posts on these blogs, and they can either spark some ideas for what to blog about, or you can just take a short clipping of one of them and make a comment about it as well as a link to the full article.

Step 6: Promotion. Go to Technorati, and sign up for a free account. In here you can claim your blog so you begin getting search engine traffic and you are part of a community. Join blogcarnival and join carnivals that are relevant to your blog; these are essentially periodic lists of all the best and most interesting posts in a particular subject or field. Good way to begin gaining some traffic.

Over time, your blog may begin to gain in readership and popularity. It takes time and patience, so just stick with it.