Publish a Google map in no-time flat.

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Part I: Make the map

1. Visit maps.google.com.
2. Log in with a Gmail or other Google account. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to sign up. At the L.A. Times we have a joint account that is used by different people across the newsroom.
3. Click the “My Maps” link in the upper-left-hand part of the page. It’s just below the Google logo and to the right of “Get Directions.”
4. Click “Create new map” — a link also found there in the upper left.
5. Now you should have a palette of tools for drawing your own map. Points. Lines. Bubbles. The whole deal. I won’t go through it all here, but if you need more help you should consult Google’s documentation, which includes a helpful screencast.
6. Go ahead and draw your map. If you look above, you can see what map I made. It shows the new stop sign in my hometown, Swisher, Iowa.
7. Once you’re done, click the “Save” link in the left-hand toolbar.

Part II: Jack the map

1. Click the “Link” button in the upper-right-hand corner of the page.
2. A window should drop down with two boxes in it. The top box contains a direct link to this page, here on Google’s site. The lower box contains a snippet of HTML code you can use to “embed” your map someplace else — like your blog, for instance.
3. Copy the contents of that lower box to your clipboard. It’s all the code you need to need to plant this map on your site.

Part III: Blog the map

1. Login to WordPress or whatever CMS you’re using.
2. Paste the HTML code clipped from Google into a new post or story. If you’re using WordPress there’s a nice guide here. Some blogs or CMS systems might restrict what kind of HTML you can just dump in, so there’s a chance you’ll bump your shin here if your system is locked down. Unfortunately, if that’s the case, you’ll have to sort out the issue with whoever manages your CMS. If you’re using a blog application besides WordPress, you’d probably do well just to search Google for help. Since these maps are commonly embedded, there’s likely to be something out there.
3. Publish the post.

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