What is Blog?

A Blog is a daily journal of your thoughts maintained by a blogger on the web called blogging. A Blog is just like an offline diary where a person writes his views only the difference is that the blog is an online journal.

A blog can be a website like a forum or social bookmarking website. A blog is a regularly updated website or a webpage that is run by an individual or small group.

It’s arranged in chronological order with the most recent addition on top. When you keep postings more and more content, the older posts will enter into an Archive folder so that visitors can view your past posts easily.

A blog can also be managed by software and sometimes called a CMS (Content Management System), where a lot of the features are automatically created and populated.

A blog is a source to share your views. Most people create a blog to share their opinions or views about a specific thing or topic.

It mostly creates a blog for educating people or for fame. A very strong reason to create a blog is to earn money.

How to Start Blogging?

You’ll need to make how to host a blog. Hosting is in essence that takes your blog live to the world, it’s a virtual home for your blog to storing your data, images, etc. and linking it to the live internet.

There are numerous options available. If you want to have an experience of blogging without spending some cash, you can choose the services from some free blog hosting.

These websites also have some great tools for starting a blog.

# Self-Hosted Blog – A self-hosted blog means that you’ll host your blog within an established hosting environment for a monetary fee.

The best-paid hosting such as bluehost.com (recommended hosting for WordPress) will provide many benefits such as larger storage and bandwidth, website security, customer service and technical support with monetization opportunities and customization options.

# Free-blog Hosting –  There are many free hosting options out there for bloggers with famous platforms like Blogger and WordPress.

Their free platforms offer an affordable way for people to launch their blogs with a pre-defined content management system (CMS) for easy post creation and editing.

##### Blogger – It’s Google’s blogging platform. You can use an existing Google account for your blog. It has the option to earn money from your free blog through the Google AdSense program.

You need to register for a free account and fill some information and log in. It’s like signing for a new email account.

##### WordPress – It’s WordPress free blogging platform. It’s free and users don’t receive a customized domain name or customized design.

The first is your blogging process is to build a place for all of your content to live. It’s the most popular Content Management System (CMS) and perfect for blogging.

It’s one of the most powerful and free blogging software. It’s the fastest growing blogging platform preferred by users. Because of it’s:-

• Free – It’s free for everyone and includes things like themes and plugins.
• Easy To Use – Anyone can set up a WordPress blog with convenient and accessible to everyone.
• Safe and Secure – WordPress is constantly updating its software to keep hackers out of your personal information.
• Customizable – It’s thousands of plugins and attractive themes that are easy to integrate with your blog.
• Permission – You can have multiple users with different permission levels so your team can contribute.

The Process to Start Blogging in Few Easy Steps –

# Choose the right blogging platform – You need to choose a platform for your blog. Some of the options are:

• • WordPress
  • Blogger

# Carefully choosing your hosting – You should choose your hosting carefully like bluehost.com which determines the success of your blog. When it comes to hosting, there are three things you need to consider:-

##### Page Speed – It refers to the time it takes for your blog’s speed to load. The faster page speed allows your visitors to start engaging with your content immediately. If it takes your page longer to load, your visitors will get-away.

##### Uptime – It refers to the time your website is up and available for visitors to see and browse. If you think 99.5% of uptime is excellent, it’ll still leave over 200 minutes of downtime in a month. The less than 99% uptime is unacceptable.

##### Customer Support – The best hosting companies offer customer support in a timely manner. There’s nothing worse than facing a problem you don’t know how to handle.

You can pick any web hosting you prefer, but make sure that it’s reliable, fast and gives you unlimited bandwidth and storage.

# Register your domain name – Your domain name should be unique and easily remembered by others and visitors can easily recall.

Your domain name should be appealing that captures the interest of your audience. Your domain name should be relevant to your business and give potential visitors the idea that you offer.

# Set up WordPress – Once you get the confirmation email from hosting service provider, and then follow the login instructions.

Click Install and follow the instructions to install WordPress into your new domain. You use your email address correctly where they’ll send your WordPress login details.

# Logging in and adding posts and pages – The installation process is complete and you’ll receive another confirmation email from hosting service provider with your WordPress login information.

You can log in with the details from the confirmation email. You’ll see the dashboard of WordPress. Now you can start your new post with Posts > Add New.

Advantages of Blogging –

Blogs can rank well in search engines because they can concentrate on optimized keywords. Blogs are updated frequently and new pages are added to the website and all of which register with search engines.

It can improve your visibility to customers and connect with them on a more personal level.

# A blog allows you to get to know your customers and their needs. It allows your customers to know about you.

# It’s a strong communication tool to keep in touch with your customers.

# It’s updated regularly and can provide daily, quality content which the search engines love and increase your traffic.

# A blog can be used to advertise your links. You can write a review of an affiliate product in your blog post that increases the chance of a sale.

# A blog can be used to answer inquiries that people may have about your product.

A blog might be a personal or business blog. A Personal Blog is where a writer expresses his views about a specific topic. A Business Blog is of a company or organization where those posting news about their products.

Few Good Reasons to Start A Blog –

# Personal Growth – Blogging helps you clarify thoughts and communicate with intention. Good blog posts require you to take a stand on a topic.

You’ve to know enough about the subject to give advice, instructions, or to clarify an opinion. You’ll learn more as you post more.

# Improve Your Writing Skills – Maintaining a blog will help you polish up your storytelling abilities.

The public nature of blogs can help their authors become better writers since readers will often point out inconsistencies with grammar or information.

Blogging is an excellent way to learn and enhanced web skills. The writing is the only way to become a better writer.

You’ll develop a voice and style, once you start producing content on a regular basis. You’ll communicate more effectively with your writing skills improvement.

# Share Your Opinion – It’s an analysis that is required to convert your thoughts into a sentence or paragraph. It allows you to publish thoughts as they come and blogs act as digital records of your life and ideas.

Blogging is a great way to make your voice heard. You have a platform to speak your mind which is not reserved for anyone else.

You’ll get feedback, once your blog starts getting traffic. It helps to establish a community and open dialogue around a topic.

# Leave an Impact – You should never think of every blog as a competitor, think of them as members of your community.

Many bloggers use their digital platforms as places to converse with people with similar interests. You can share your expertise which impacts others and develops a community of like-minded people.

# Get Popular – A blog allows you to put your best foot forward when it comes to your online identity. Blogging is a great way to build an audience that is interested in your style when you write professionally.

You can ensure that your crafted blogs show up first when people Google your name.

# Make Extra Income – Blogging can have some financial benefits for people who gain sizeable followings. You can sell advertising space on your website.

It’ll take time and commitment and can make money through it. You can leverage your blog into a business by selling a product or service you offer.

A blogger usually writes a content which is called blog post to increase traffic on that blog and also to earn money. There are many ways to earn money through a blog. It may be through Google AdSense and Affiliate Marketing.

• Google AdSense – A blogger show ads on their blog and advertiser pay for it.
• Affiliate Marketing – Blogger suggests to his readers some products and gets a commission on that product from the company when the reader purchase that product through the blogger’s link.

Advantages of Business Blogs –

# Your Business Get a Tone of Voice – Blogging gives your business a tone of voice. It provides an opportunity to inform people about your latest news and business happenings.

It gives your business the chance to create an online personality and gives people the opportunity to learn about your company.

Blogging for business is an effective way to boost your online visibility. It can build relationships with your target audience.

By consistently publishing quality content on your publishing blog, you are able to provide more value for leads and customers.

# Guest Blogging – Guest blogging within your niche is a great way to get noticed and can prove a valuable source of traffic.

You can create more traffic by submitting a guest post. Your guest blogging helps your search engine results pages (SERPs).

The world of blogging is all about surrounding you with inspiration by reading and actively following other blogs. If you enjoy writing blogs and have time, then you can consider writing guest blogs for other websites.

Writing guest blogs is a tried and tested way of bringing business to your company. It’s a great way to drive traffic back to your website.

# Blog Content Can Control Conversions – Blogging for business can impact your company’s sales by helping you influence conversions.

Your business blog can help do a lot of in helping through the marketing funnel. The key to influencing conversions through your blog content knows your audience.

Your business should write about the topics that your target customer finds most valuable.

You need to engage customers at each step in the marketing funnel if you want your readers to move from visitor to lead and lead to customer.

The different stages of blog content are:-

• Top of the funnel – These blog content should focus on your target audience’s pain points and work to explain and address their greatest challenges.
• Middle of the funnel – These blog content needs to focus on helping consumers understand potential solutions to their problems.
• Bottom of the funnel – These blogs content offers the final push to the conversion will focus on why your brand is the best option to help consumers solve their greatest challenges.

You’ll need to be consistent with your blogging for business efforts to leverage your blog to influence more conversions.

You need to update a blog on a regular basis with new content and blogging frequency can impact customer acquisition rates.

# Blogging to Drives More Traffic to Your Website – The blogging for business is proven search engine optimization strategies to boost organic traffic.

You’re adding to the number of indexable pages to your website when each time you create a new blog post. It means you are creating an opportunity for your brand to rank in the search engine results page (SERP).

# Blogging is Flexible & Complements Your Overall Strategy – Blogging is adaptable and is the perfect complement to the other aspects of your marketing strategy.

Blogs can be similarly helpful as an anchor for your social media updates. Your audience will soon learn that you are providing useful, unique content across various platforms.

Blogging, creating video content and downloadable graphics and updating your Facebook or Twitter on a regular basis are all important.

A thoughtful marketing strategy is made up of several moving parts that all help highlight each other.

##### Use Social Media – The use of social media can be a great way to get more traffic to your blog. Social media is all about authentic conversations and to choose the right social platform.

You can research the best practices of that social platform and learn how it works to best interact with your target audience.

##### Put Email Marketing Efforts for Your Blogs – Email marketing is a great way to get a new blog post out to the world immediately.

You can send your best content out to your subscribers in an email broadcast. You can segment your email list is essential to keep your communication relevant and you can promote your blog posts to the most targeted audience.

Tips to Increase Readers with Your Content –

When you use your blog to spread your messages, you may struggle to find readers. Most people aren’t interested in your messages.

Most people aren’t interested in your business. If you want to gain your business with your blog, you have to start acting like your reader’s mentor:-

# Know Your Audience – You’ve to understand their desires, their secret wishes, and their dreams. You should learn about what they’re struggling with, so you can help.

It’s the first step to understand who your audience is. Once you clearly identify your readers, you can do important things:-

• • Figure out what your audiences want to read
  • Put that content in a place that’s easily accessible to your audiences.

# Define Your Blog’s Purpose – You should decide who you want to help to achieve what.

# Make Your Content Look Nice – You shouldn’t assume that visitors will read anything on your website. Your blog is judged by how it looks.

It’s important to have a clear post style. If your blog looks organized, then readers will stay longer. The longer you keep them on the page, the more they’ll consume the content.

When developing a post, a few important things you should take into consideration:-

• • Font/Typeface Design
  • Link Design
  • Color Scheme
  • Pictures/Captions
  • Arrangements
  • Dividers
  • Icons

# Don’t Chase Clicks with Flashy Headlines – You should write for your existing and potential customers, not for faceless clicks.

When you start your blog and then a great way to get traffic to your page is to visit other blogs and engage with their content.

You can leave your comments or share their posts. You can track the activity on your blog when others will see your visit at their blogs and they’ll likely return the favor.

You should include About Me or Contact Me on your website so that readers can learn more about you. The more they know, the more they likely to get invested in your blog.

# Visually Appealing Content – Visual content generates up to 94% more views on a blog post. Charts, graphs, or screen captures can help to illustrate your ideas and make things more readable.

You should avoid filling stock images into your content.

# Speed-up the Load Time – The people are impatient on the internet. Visitors click away from a website if it doesn’t load within 3 seconds.

Every second of load time counts. Facebook announced that they’ll favor bloggers and publishers with faster load times in the Facebook News Feed.

You can take action to improve the load time of your website. You should consider your blog or website online hosting.

# Optimize Your Blog for Mobiles – You should make sure that your blog is responsive. The users are less likely to return to a mobile website in which they had navigating trouble.

It means your blog’s text is hard to read if images don’t upload properly.  

# Study the Masters – You can learn what makes content boring by analyzing other blog posts. You can find groups or online forums with similar interests. You can make a post that includes a link to your blog.

Conclusion – Blogging is a great way to connect with an audience and help others and also make some extra money. A blog can be more than a way of advancing your online presence.