What is a Blog
Back in the day, you browsed standard “static” web pages with preformatted text on them and there was little chance of commenting to offer your opinion on anything.
If you wanted to voice your opinion via the web, you had to start your own webpage, but they were difficult to construct without programming experience and costly to run and hire professionals to create them.
Remember watching TV in the early 90’s and seeing PC’s and Laptops appear more and more? It’s rumored that the world’s first blog started with Doogie Howser M.D. the teenage doctor whom you would see regularly making entries in his computer diary.
Blogging is a trend that started around 1997 and has become one of the most popular forms of communication on the web with hundreds of thousands of bloggers posting and reading every day.
That was then, this is now!
A Weblog or Blog for short is a personal online journal or website with a series of online posts that run in reverse chronological order so visitors will see your latest Post right up at the top. Comments run latest 1st also, but there are plugins to change the order if you choose.
There are no limits on what you can do with a blog.
You can write about your personal experiences, daily events, political views, books, favorite hobbies, television, or share photos, videos, music, and well, anything you want with people all around the world. Oh Yeah! You could make a few bucks doing it too!
Blogs allow readers to comment with their opinions, add more useful content, or ask questions, which in turn draws more interest. This communication between the blogger and reader is much more personal than just reading words on a regular website.
As you add valuable content and respond to reader comments on a regular basis people will feel comfortable and want to return again and again. Some readers will visit each day and even subscribe through an RSS Reader or email and more often than not, contributions from your readers can be fuel for future Posts.
Some of the most popular blogs are ones by people who enjoy just posting about everyday things and events in their lives. It’s a lot of fun to be able to express your opinions or share information with people, and it can be a great stress reliever as well.
Blogging is simple but not easy. A blog is simple to setup and run in a short time without webmaster skills allowing you to start with nothing, building and learning as you go for free, or at little cost. Blogging is not easy because you are in it for the long haul and must keep the fresh content coming so your followers stay interested.
Blogs are constantly changing with every new post and comment added so search engines favor them over standard “static” Websites that mostly remain the same. Because search engines like Google favor updated and changing content blogs get indexed very quickly as in hours and days compared to regular sites at weeks and months.
I added a post for a competition one evening and was pleasantly surprised to find on Google page 5 the next day with a good portion of 500 students all trying to Rank for the keyword phrase “alex jefferys”.
It is no wonder that corporations, small business, and marketers have shifted to blogs because they are so flexible and can generate income in any number of ways like Adsense, Advertisers, Affiliate Programs, and your own products.
What’s next? A little setup and you can post using your email program and also have prewritten posts published automatically at timed intervals. You can also integrate social capabilities such as Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Bloglog and others on your blog.
Even cooler than that, now we have Mobile Blogging (moblogging) for when your away from your PC. You can use your cell or other mobile device to publish content on any blogging platform with Mobile Posting capability while on the go in real time.
Add a plugin or two to make your blog Mobile friendly and also optimized for viewing your blog on mobile devices.
I first heard of blogs at an Internet Marketing Bootcamp back in 2005 and I wonder why I didn’t start back then, and where I would be now if I had just taken action.
If you made it all the way to here you must be interested in starting your own blog so just take action and get it going. You will learn as you go, just remember it is simple but not easy.
Now you can help yourself through helping others while creating a strong online presence, branding yourself, and using your blog creating an income if you choose to do so.
Watch for the next installment dealing with understanding Blog Structure such as Post, Page, Archive, Category, etc.
Clayton Moore – The Marketing Canuck
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