You can start clones in soil but no matter the medium you'll need a root stimulator of some kind; I got a container of Wilson's root stimulator gel for $5 at Canadian Tire.
What I do for cloning is put some rooting gel in a shot glass so the stems don't go in the main container, then I take a fresh razor blade that hasn't been used for anything and cut the small branches that I'm going to clone at 45* angle, some people recommend cutting little slits in the side of the stems near the bottom so that there are more sites for roots to grow, personally I don't bother with that. I always take small branches from higher up on the plant because they have more of the mobile elements of fertilizers in them so they will grow easier. You can try taking a couple from lower branches that you prune just before the start of flowering to see the difference if you want.
Then I stick em in 1.5 inch rockwool cubes that I've pre-soaked with Hygrozyme and water; since you're using soil you might want to try pre watering it with an enzyme formula of some kind. After about 2 weeks under the humidity dome I'll transplant them into pots and start them on 1/4 strength veg nutes.
Make sure you take more clones than you want because you're going to lose some; and if you're growing from seed and could have some males, make sure you label each clone to the corrseponding plant that it came from, no point in having male clones.
And definitely look around at how different people clone and take the parts that seem best to you.
Good luck.