Getting started with a blog can be exciting and nerve racking for some; just like learning to drive. You really want to get started, you really want to do it, but once you are behind the wheel, you start worry about everything. You want to do everything right, but there are so many unknowns. What if… How do I… Umm…

Like driving, you need to start somewhere and take it slow. Sure, you want to take on the world and just go, but there is no way to know everything right away; even if you did read all the books and how-to’s. Instead, take it one step at a time and focus on the basics first. Then, as you get those down, learn new things.

And lets not worry about traffic. Everyone who starts driving is concerned with big city traffic. There is so much of it and it and yet other drivers have no issues. Well that’s because they’ve been driving for a long time and know what they are doing. When you first start blogging you can’t expect to be as good, or as popular, as those that have been doing it for years. It just doesn’t happen that way. You need to take it slow and learn the ropes. Before you know it, you’ll be cruising along just like everyone else.

If MacGyver has taught us anything, it’s that you don’t need big expensive tools to get the job done. The same goes for blogging.

There are plenty of free blogging tools and resources to do everything from creating SEO friendly sites to keyword research and analytics. Why spend the money on a tool when you could use that money on internet marketing services or to grow your company?

Here are 13 free blogging tools and resources that MacGyver would be proud of.

WordPress

MacGyver would surly use the most popular, customizable, powerful, and completely free, blogging software on the internet. WordPress offers a large number of feature and hundreds of plugins that will make any blog successful. From newbies to web design professionals, WordPress is a great choice for ease of use, search engine optimization and price.

Google Analytics

MacGyver’s got to keep tabs on his site and know where his traffic is coming from.  For this, Google Analytics is a no brainer. No need to spend hundreds on an analytics package, Google Analytics as all the features you need at a price that can’t be beat.

With the release of WordPress 2.3, tags are now a standard part of all WordPress bogs. However, many new bloggers don’t know the difference between tags and categories so I thought I’d elaborate.

Categories are the different areas of your blog. They are the sections that you want to break your blog into. Categories will continue to gain more and more posts over time as you post on them often. Think of them like the main services or main product categories on a website.

If you have a site all about sports, your categories may be: Football, Baseball, Golf, Basketball and Hockey.

Tags are words or phrases that are specific to individual posts. They are items that will give the post additional exposure. Tags differ from categories as they are words or phrases that are less often used.

Example tags for the sports site, on a golf post about the Tiger Woods video game, may be: Tiger Woods, EA Sports, Playstation 3, PGA Tour, XBOX, Wii, Video Game.

Mariner Software is getting ready to release their new blogging client called WinJournal. If you’ve used a Mac, then you may be familiar with MacJournal. Well it’s the same idea, just for Windows users.

WinJournal aims to bring journaling, blogging and podcasting into one application. Its blogging capabilities tie into MovableType, TypePad, WordPress, Live Journal, Blogger and Windows Spaces. You can even publish your entries to a web server via FTP. Not sure if that includes an RSS feed or not, but it does sound like a great option. Or you can just use WinJournal write your own entries that don’t get published.

Some of the other options include wiki style links, spell check, auto save, security/encryption, WYSIWYG text editor, calendar, multiple journals, labels, full screen mode and tabs. There is also a skins manager to change the look an feel of WinJournal. This is good as the default skin under XP isn’t good. I switched it to WLM and it is much nicer.

Overall, it looks as if WinJournal has a lot of nice features. The folks over at MarinerSoftware are working hard on creating a quality desktop blog client and it’s well on its way.

I know it sounds odd, but Macromedia Adobe recently announced Contribute 4 and one of the key features is blogging. Contribute as desktop publishing software? Yep.

According to Contribute’s website, the application now supports MetaWeblog which means it should work with WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type and many others.

At first thought, Contribute doesn’t seem like your average blogging application and that’s because it isn’t. Contribute has worked its way into many workplaces as WYSIWYG website editing software. It was a great solution for those that wanted to edit their website, yet steer clear of the technical aspect of a website.

It’s that pre-built user base that makes integrating blogging capability the perfect next step. Teaching clients how to blog can be a challenge. There is a new interface, a new login/admin area and a whole new system to learn. With Contribute, that learning curve is lessened as they already know how to use the software and may already be comfortable using it.

It took me by surprise at first but adding blogging capabilities to Contribute seems to be then ext logical step. Not only are we installing more and more blogs for clients, but we also already use Contribute to let clients control their own content. This is just the next logical step in Contribute’s evolution.

Every day you hear about how companies are integrating blogs or how this tech person has started a new blog. But, it’s when you hear the success stores of those that you’d never thoguht about that you really realize, anyone can blog; professionally.

Yesterday at the 2006 Mima Summit, Michelle Collins of VH1 gave the afternoon keynote presentation and it was hilarious. Michelle now works for VH1′s Best Week Ever and blogs for a living. She covers the important stuff like how Full House really screwed up their actors and all the Hollywood hook-up/break-up news. Sounds like a rough job doesn’t it? However, it wasn’t all success for Michelle Collins.

She graduated collage with an Art History degree and moved to New York to do….. well…. anything. She didn’t quite like the professional scene yet her comedy wasn’t getting her very far either. So she started her You Can’t Make It Up blog where she wrote about whatever is on her mind. Turns out, she started getting noticed. Her posting of a cat going to the bathroom on a toilet got mentioned at the Emmys this year and her post about how New York City smelled like maple syrup got her a call from the Daily Show and in NY Newsday! Eventually when VH1 was looking for a new blogger. She fit the bill perfectly and is now blogging professionally.

Listening to the news last night, Fox9 here in the Twin Cities was talking about their new website, myfox9.com, and the offerings of a free blog to everyone. Not being one to pass up an opportunity to check out new blogging software, I signed up and made my first post. To say the least, it’s lacking so far.

Missing are quite a few key features. Title tags, customizable categories, PINGing and auto detect RSS feeds are just a few of the bigger missing features. Granted, this may be under heavy construction as quite a few parts of the new site is.

The biggest downside to the FOX blogs is that everything must be approved. Upload an image, it must get approved. Change your blog name, write a post, even signing up must be approved. Approval takes up to 24 hours but I think I was approved in minutes. This works fine for now, but what about when you get a couple hundred users? The lag time between posting and it going live, could be to much for some users.