In this article your will learn what blogging really is and why you should start blogging. Unless you've been comletely internet free for the past several months to a year, you have probably heard about these "blog" sites but you may not know what a blog is. Or perhaps you know what a blog is but you want to learn more about how blogs are being used and if blogging is something you could benefit from. In this article you will learn exactly what blogging is and what blogging is not and why you should or should not start blogging.
I will attempt to dymistify the definition of blogging if you absolutely aren't quite sure what a blog really is. A blog is generally defined as an online journal that is updated frequently and where your articles are listed in reverse chronological order when they are published. That means your articles are published with the most recent article listed first in date and time order.
What Is A Blog?
The term "blog" is derived from the term "Weblog" or web log. In the early days of blogging circa mid to late 1990's, web logs were used to track updates and references to other resources on the internet. Weblogs, as journals were also used as a stream of consciousness publishing tool where you could share and comment on anything and everything under the sun. As a results and to this day, there are lots of blogs that publish opinionated commentary as diverse in tone as there are a diversity of topics to talk about.
A blog is technically a content management system (CMS) albeit a more simplified version of one. A CMS allows you to easily publish to a website and manage content without having to deal with having to know how to program code. Blog publishing software provides you with a graphical user interface (GUI) for point and click publishing of your content. Your blog software will require you to perform intial easy-to-do setup and configuration so that it will know how to automically organize your published content in the future. After that, you can publish quickly and instantly using your blog software editor that is built into your blog publishing software.
Publishing A Blog Is Easy To Do!
You can also publish content to your blog by using blog publishing tools call bookmarklets or with blog editing and publishing software like WB Editor 2. Again, publishing with a blog can be done easily and instantly. You simply type something into a web-based texted editor and push a button and you published!
Some of these setup and configuration tasks include providing the name of your blog, providing archival intervals, providing the names for categories of content and provide names of other publishers. There are other settings also such as deciding to allow trackbacks, how to handle commenting in your blog, security settings, RSS syndication settings, site layout and more. Once these simple tasks are completed blogging becomes fun, fast and flexible and even profitable.
There Are Many Types of Blogs
Bloggers of all types whether for business or personal publishing, normally publish content around niche topics and subjects that they are passionate about. Examples of niche information topics would be politics, how to build pc's or pet care. Business oriented blogs will always be more niche oriented in their information content because they need to be tightly focused on their product or services and getting connected with the audiences they serve. Business blog content will cover a topics that promotes their subject matter expertise, educates consumers on their products or services, communicate announcements or provides customer support for example.
Personal blogs may cover a wider range of related or unrelated topics within the same blog because personal blogs lend themselves to more stream of consciousness publishing on a whim and according to mood. This style works well for personal blogs. There is an ever increase number of the "types" of blogs out there or rather the "way" in which blogs are being used to communicate. A few examples would be public relations blogs, affiliate marketing blogs, health care blogs, law blogs, car blogs and of course yet another blog about blogging...mine, the one reading right now! :)
Blogging is HOT! I strongly believe it is more than a trend as well. With that said lets talk about what a blog is not. A blog is not just a website. It is a type of website but your typical website content takes much longer to update, publish, share and distribute. A blog is no longer just a online journal. While "online journal" provides an easy to understand point of reference for how a blog is used and how it works, bloggerss have extended the use of blogs far beyond the personal pundit type of posting. As outlined above blogs lend themselves to many audiences for communication and publishing.
Why Should You Blog?
So why should you blog? Well, you shouldn't blog before you understand how a blog can best support your online communications. You will have the most success with your blog if you understand before you start what outcome you desire. At the end of the day your blog should be fun or profitable to you or both!
If you aren't blogging that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be blogging. If you are in business and especially if you do business on the internet then you absolutely must determine if blogging works for your business model. Without going into a very long article on this topic I will say that if you are doing business online there is a good chance your competitors are blogging or preparing to blog. Blogs are expaning on what are called "market conversations" and your markets are talking to each other about your products and services in your industry and niche and they want to talk to authorative sources in those niches.
Those businesses bold enough to open up an honest dialogue will capture more audience which can result in prospects becoming customers. Right now blogs have taken center stage as the premier communications and publishing tool for businesses to communicate authoratively and demonstrate subject matter expertise in their market niches. If you aren't talking to your market your competition is and your markets are definitely talking back. That alone is powerful motivation to at least investigate how a business blog can enchance and drive new business for you online.
A Business Blog Is Especially Worth Considering
The last point I'll make on the the case for a business blog is the SEO advantage. Search Engine Optimization is a big benefit to blogging. If you have a website promoting any product or service and any type of content that you use to drive any level of business and commerce then you require a blog. Blogs are very light weight and text-based compared to traditional website content. This cuts down on the crawl time by search engine spiders and allows them to take back more of your pages to the search directories much quicker. Blogs are dynamic in that they are frequently updated. This makes blogs relevant and popular and causes the searches engines to crawl blogs more often. The result is that your blog will have more pages going back to the search engines much quicker and more frequently than your competitor who is using a static and standard website.
This is not good however if YOU are the competitor with the static website. :)
If your blog content is targeted and link density for your keywords is healthy you will burn your competition in the content war if he doesn't switch to a blog. Ultimately a blog alone isn't the holy grail for publishing content online for top search engine rankings. You will need to to other other things like write good and relevant high-value content for your audience. You will need to target the keywords that target your markets and you'll need to build link partnerships to help with your Google popularity.
Personal Blogs Are Fun, Interesting and Exciting
For personal publishing you could blog as a means to keep family and friends updated about your life and times. There is lots of fun to be had with personal blogs. You can share many interests online with other people. You can share and publish photos online from your your mobile phone or digital camera with a service like TextAmerica. You could share humor. You could share gossip. You could collaborate on homework and research projects.
You can setup a personal blog about anything you are passionate about. A business would create a blog around their industry and niche and a personal blog could do the same thing from a customer point of view. Blog about your favorite products and services if it lends itself to that kind of passion and fanfare. You could do a resume blog that highlights your skills and experience and you can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise as well and network by writing about what you know which would be of interest to potential employers. The sky is really the limit here. What's your passion? What do you want to say about your passion? Do you want to network your passion and teach the world something new? Do you want to finally show the kwow-it-alls how smart you really are?
Blogs are really easy to use content management systems or websites that allow you to publish instantly and in real-time. Blogs can open up new opportunities to connect and communicate with others both personally and professionally.
Video: Easy blog publishing with a web-based blog editor:
BlogHarbor Web-based Editor
Video - Easy blog publishing with a desktop blog editor:
WB Editor 2
The next installment in this How To Blog 101 series is How To Blog - 102.
I will discuss a few basic essentials to planning and publishing a blog successfully blog. Properly planning your blog is critical to supporting your long term personal success with your blog. I will help you understand the pro's and con's of starting your blog and how to make sure you will be successful as a blog publisher. You learn about variations in blogs types and how to determine your own personal blogging style for the highest level of fun and profit before you get started.
