All you need to know about Blogging, Blogs and Bloggers

The blog is a shortened form of web log or weblog. The Web, as you know, refers to the internet, and the log is a record of an activity or an event maintained by a person or a service program. A blog is a personal website which contains posts and articles on any subject chosen by the blog author.

Keeping a blog or writing blog posts is called blogging. The word blogging refers to writing blog posts or articles on a blog. Blogging is a way of communication or it is a window for communicating with the worldwide internet users.

The person who keeps a blog or doing blogging is called blogger. A blogger is a content writer who reads a lot online and creates his own creativities and contents, and he publishes these creativities and contents in a blog. He is a person who has the interest in a subject or a topic on which he is blogging. And he should know a little about the interested subject or topic.

Usually, blogs are focusing on a particular topic and publish posts or articles related to that topic. Even though most of the blogs are focusing on a particular topic, there are some other blogs which are focusing multiple topics.

Most of the blogs are operated or maintained by individuals, but there are some other blogs which are maintained by multiple authors or bloggers. The blogs which are maintained or blogged by individuals is called individual blogs. And the multiple author blogs are called multi-author blogs.

Some of the blogs on the internet allow its readers to publish posts on their blog. Such blogs are called guest blogs. And the readers or users who publish guest posts or articles for a blog is called guest bloggers or guest authors.

Guest blogs like TECHAntena.com allow the guest bloggers to publish articles and posts with some terms and conditions. Some of them will pay money for the posts and some others will often give the guest bloggers backlinks to their websites or blogs.

More about blogs and blogging:

As you know already, blogging is a way to share what you know or what you have as creativity. Or it is a way to teach others something you already know or to share your feelings or travel story through the blogs.

People keeps blogging to keep a record of one’s day to day life. However from 2005 blogs are not only to keep one’s personal records but also it is a way to make money from online.

People often asks can I really make money by blogging. Yes, you can, you can make money by sharing your knowledge with others for free. There are two ways to make money by blogging; make money from your own blogs is the first one, another one is guest blogging, you will be get paid by submitting your articles to those blogs who are buying articles.

If you have a blog as your own, then you can sell advertising spaces and make money. Or you can make money by promoting your own products or affiliate products.

If you would like to make money by promoting, you can write posts that promoting a product or a service.
Do you ever have doubted what a blog is? My answer is, the blogs are the best way to make money from the internet. We will later discuss more make money from blogging.

The most attractive feature of blogs is the subject matter, it is virtually unlimited for blogs. This also means that blogs are generally not under censorship or control. Bloggers have the right to express their views and opinions freely through the blogs even while under repressive governments.

Another feature of blogs is they are interactive in nature. Blogs have profoundly influenced the relationship between writers and their audience or readers in the age of the internet. While other media like printed books and magazines are less passive, blogs can be an active forum for discussions with interactions going on between the blogger and the readers.

The most important reason why blogs are so popular is, that is so easy and free to start blogging and blogs. Bloggers do not need any specialized qualification to start or writing a blog. All they need is a working internet connection and some free time with their laptop or a desktop PC.
You may also need a little knowledge and interest in the topic which you are blogging.

How to start a blog and blogging?

• In order start your own blog, you should start by looking at some of the free online blogging platforms. The most popular blogging platforms are Blogger and WordPress.com. They will allow you to publish posts and articles with your own domain name and without purchasing a hosting service. You may have to pay something for domain names.

If you need to start a self-hosted blog you should first purchase a hosting server. There are many hosting providers available, which will give you hosting server for a yearly or monthly based payment. Some of these services are:

1. Bluehost
2. Hostgator
3. Dreamhost

• Once you choose a hosting provider, now you have to choose a hosting plan which offers your requirements. After purchasing a hosting plan, then you can install WordPress on your server. WordPress is an application which allows you to create beautiful websites and blogs.

• Once you have chosen a blogging platform, whatever it is like blogger or WordPress, now you have to spend some time on setting up the layout of your blog. All of the blogging platforms will provide some basic templates for your blogs that can be personalized according to your taste. Or you will get unlimited of free templates to download from the internet, you can also purchase premium themes which look great for professional blogging.
• In order to be a successful blogger, your blog should be in neat and user-friendly design. A neatly laid out blog will appeal to readers and will help your blog be more accessible.
  Make sure that color scheme of your blog suits the content that you are putting up on it. Do not use the colors like red or yellow as your main color. Use light color background with the dark color for texts.

• You can use widgets to provide additional functions to your blog. You can create a logo for your blog and put it in the header of your blog layout. This will make your blog more attractive as well as more easily identifiable.
  After organizing the layout of your blog you can tweak additional settings like enabling the commenting system which will help your readers to provide you opinions about the posts and can ask some quires related to the post topic. You can also set a tagline which will describe your blog.

• After configuring the settings, now you may start blogging. Write your first article and publish it to the worldwide internet users. You can add pages like about (which provides information like your personal or company details) and contact (This may contain contact form, or how to get touch with you or your company).
  After publishing some articles or posts on your blog, you have to wait for two or three weeks, your blog will start getting readers automatically, or you can share posts to the social networks like Facebook and twitter to engage your blog with readers.

• If you are getting some readers from the internet, now you may monetize your blog by putting advertisements. Some of the popular advertising networks are:
  1. Google AdSense
  2. Chitika
  3. Infolinks

4. PopAds

Things to remember when you start a Blog:

• Remember that when you are blogging, you are publishing posts to the public. Your posts are available to the worldwide internet users. So be careful on what you writes on your posts.

• Do not provide information that you do not want to share with others. I personally recommend you to hide the information like your telephone numbers, home addresses, and Email addresses as they can be misused.

• Provide information that is relevant to the blog. For example, you can put up information about your educational background or your hobbies. If you are blogging about your profession, you can also briefly explain what kind of things you do at work.
  Your posts must be complete, which provide at least a little knowledge or information for your readers. Do not write posts which are meaningless.

How to become a successful blogger?

To be a successful blogger, you should follow certain points of etiquette.

• You should offer or provide your own contents or observations. You must not be a copier who copies articles of other bloggers and you should not be a repeater who repeats that already on the internet a lot of time. You can create contents on the topics which are already on the internet, by adding your observations, your own ideas, and alternative methods. But you should always be careful about copyright, you have to make sure that you do respect the copyright of other bloggers.

• Write your blog posts and articles in simple languages and easy to understand. Because blogs are often read by ordinary people and not by literary critics.
  You do not have to try and impress your audience with flowery language. Instead, try to maintain an honest and straightforward tone. This will help you gain a regular readership.

• Write posts in the way of communication style, your readers are not just reading your posts. Write posts like you are communicating with them. So that you can make friendship with them. Your readers are your customers, it is a good thing that makes friendship with your customers.

• Choose topics which will be of interest not only to you but also to your readers. Your blog’s topics must be something that you know a little about them. Try to write about contemporary and general topics as well as personal one.
  Write about what you know and care about. Your own genuine interest in something is the best guarantee that you will be able to say something interesting about it.

• Personal experience is highly valued when talking about things you specialize in. Often, your experiences can be useful for others who are trying to similar things. By putting down your experience you are not only preserving a record of it, you will also be helping your audience.

• The sense of humor is one of the most attractive qualities of a successful blog or blogger.

• If you enable comments on your blog, you should reply to the comments of your readers. Not make comments that will hurt your readers. Don’t think that you have the right to say anything you want just because you are online, and you are globally committed through your blog posts.

• What you say can still affect others. Be sure that it is not in a negative way.
  Remember that readers are the king of your blog. Do not hurt them through your posts or comments. Note that blogs are not the place to chat like social networks. Your audience will make your blog a successful one, if and only if you are friendly with them.

• Be a regular blogger, which is not meaning that you have to publish posts every day. If you are a blogger who publishes articles daily basis, you must publish at least one post every day. Or you can be a weekly blogger or monthly blogger who publishes posts once in a week or once in a month respectively.

• The best way to keep your readers engaged in your blog is, to post regularly. Do not put up a lot of posts at once as this will overwhelm your regular readers. Also, do not be unnecessarily silent for a long while between posts as your readers may lose interest.

• Do not repeat your posts, you can write new posts that related to older posts and interlink between them, or you can publish an update post for an old one.

I think this article may have helped you. I will discuss more about blogging and blogs in later discussions.
You may feel free to comment your queries below, or you can personally contact me through the contact page.
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