Create a family blog with a free tool

Start by signing up to Posterous. When the site loads, fill in the form on the right-hand side with your email address, a password that you’ll use to log in to Posterous, and then choose a name the site can assign as the address of your website. Ours is going to be www.haroldmetaxa.posterous.com. When done, click the Let’s get posting button to continue.

Next, check your email inbox. See the message from Posterous? Open it, then click the link to confirm that your email address is real. Posterous will validate the address and add it to the site – the blog is created. Now it’s time to start adding some content. Create a new email message. Put the blog post’s headline as the subject, then write the text. If you want to include a photo, attach it to the email message as you would normally and click Send. Instead of going to a real recipient, the message and photo will be posted on your Posterous blog.

And here’s the result. Our website is already live and anyone can visit it by using the address created in Step 1. As you can see, the text we wrote in the previous step has been used to create the first entry on the site, along with the picture we attached to the email. Being able to add material like this using email is a fantastically flexible way to update your blog, especially the kind of diary-style material that friends and family enjoy. To continue, click the Manage link at the top.

Posterous is much more than a blog. Extra pages can be added easily. When the Manage screen opens, click the Pages tab, then choose Create a new Page (you can also create links to other sites). At the next screen, give the new page a title and then add some text content. Want to add a photo? Click the Upload images button in the right-hand panel, navigate to where your photos are stored on the PC, pick one, then click Open. When it has uploaded, click Save.

Having added a new page, click the My Posterous link at the top and have a look. The site has added a new page with the title given in the previous step, along with the typed text and uploaded photo. Note that although you can email new content to the home page of your website, other pages must be updated from the Posterous site in the way just described. So let’s make some more changes.

Click the Manage link at the top, then click the Your Account button in the left-hand panel. Add email addresses for anyone else you’d like to authorise to update the site – just type in their address and click the Add email button. Once Posterous has made sure their address is valid they will be ready for action. While we are here, let’s add a profile picture. Click the Your Profile tab, fill in your details and click the Browse button. Select a photo from your PC and click Open. Then click the Save Profile button.

We’ll check the results in a minute but first make sure the Manage page is still open and click the Autopost tab. On the next screen, click Add a service and choose one from the list – we’ve picked Facebook. Click the Connect button. When the Facebook login screen appears, enter your details and click Login. At the next screen click the Allow button. Now new content will appear on Posterous and Facebook. Add other services in the same way.

Friends and family can subscribe to your Posterous site. Back at the Manage page click the Subscribers tab, then click Add subscribers. Import contacts from popular email services such as Gmail, or just type in addresses manually. Then click the Invite Readers button. When the invitation appears in someone’s inbox they just open the message, click the confirm subscription link and then, when Posterous loads in their web browser, click the Confirm Subscription button. When you update the site, subscribers will get an email message.

One other setting to change is the time zone. With the Manage page open, look under the Your sites heading in the left-hand panel and click the name of your site. Click the Settings button, then scroll down to the Commenting and Posting section and click the Edit button. Various posting and commenting settings can be changed here – most important, set the local time by picking it from the dropdown menu. When you are done, click the Save Settings button.

Finally, the site can be given a new look with just a couple of clicks. From the Settings page, click the edit Theme button. Then, when the library of themes loads, click the See More link. Click on the one you like (we’ve selected MyList), then click the Save, I’m done! button. Here’s our new theme, together with a new contact page and another post.