Use Joomla! as a blog ... it's that easy!

Create your own blog with the Joomla! core functions

You can create a simple blog using the Joomla! core functions. Only a few steps are necessary, which I would like to briefly explain here.

Create content categories

Most blogs divide their content into different categories. This is exactly how it works in Joomla! Content categories are used for this purpose. Of course, your blog can also only focus on a single topic and therefore only need one category. But it needs at least one category for the implementation in Joomla!

To do this, go to Content -> Categories and create a category for the blog.

Menu item - Create category blog

So that all posts in this category can then be accessed via a menu item (e.g. menu item "Blog") on the website, a corresponding menu item must be created. The category blog menu type is best suited for this.

After selection, the category to be used for the blog can be selected on the left.

The next step is to define the presentation of the blog. To do this, switch to the "Blog layout" tab. There you can define how many leading posts and how many introductory posts should be displayed. Leading posts are always displayed in full (not just the introductory text). Under Introduction, enter the number of posts that should be displayed on a page - only the introductory text and the "Read more" button will be displayed.

In the Columns field, define the number of columns in which the posts are to be divided. For the sake of simplicity, set this to 1 at the beginning. You can then experiment here later.

Links defines the number of links to other posts that should be displayed.

A simple configuration could look like this:

Create posts for this category

Now you can get started right away and create posts for the blog. This works in the same way as creating content for the website.
The important thing here is the Read more function of Joomla! We know this from other blogs. There, only a short introduction to the post is displayed and a button to read more. If I click on the button, I get to the entry itself and see the complete content.

In Joomla! this fulfils the Read more function. This can be found as a button in the editor.

So you place the cursor in the content of the post at the point where you want to separate the introduction from the rest of the text and click on the Read more button.

It is also important to assign the post to the correct category. In other words, the category that was assigned in the Category blog menu item.

Joomla! blog is now ready

Now your own simple blog is ready. If you now call up the menu item for the blog in the frontend, you will now see the post you have just created.

Further setting options

Of course, Joomla! offers a few other options to refine your own blog. For example, you could display the creation date, the author and the category.
This can be set in the menu item of the blog.

Another function would be the tags that you can create in the post. These can also be displayed via these settings.

Of course, the blog can be expanded in many other ways. The best way to do this is to simply "play" with the setting options in Joomla!

Comments for blog entries

A classic blog naturally allows interaction with the reader. A comment function is ideal for this. This cannot be solved in Joomla! using the core functions. However, there are plenty of extensions (including free ones) that can be used for this purpose.
For example, Komento (for a fee) https://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/extension/contacts-and-feedback/articles-comments/komento/
or JComments (free of charge) https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/contacts-and-feedback/articles-comments/jcomments/

Professional blog software for Joomla! - Easyblog

But if you want to have a blog with all possible functions and simplifications, I can warmly recommend the Easyblog extension. This blog system has a lot of great functions.
You can find more information about the system here: https://stackideas.com/easyblog
All the functions of the blog system are well explained on the website and there is also a demo that you can test. If you want to run a professional blog in Joomla!, the extension is definitely worthwhile!