What is a Blog? – The Definition of Blog, Blogging, and Blogger
What is a Blog?
Definition of blog
A blog (shortening of “weblog”) is an online journal or informational website displaying information in the reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first. It is a platform where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject.What is the purpose of a blog?
As a business, you rely on consumers to keep buying your products and services. As a new business, you rely on blogging to help you get to these consumers and grab their attention. Without blogging, your website would remain invisible, whereas running a blog makes you searchable and competitive.
So, the main purpose of a blog is to connect you to the relevant audience. Another one is to boost your traffic and send quality leads to your website.
The more frequent and better your blog posts are, the higher the chances for your website to get discovered and visited by your target audience. Which means, a blog is an effective lead generation tool. Add a great call to action (CTA), and it will convert your website traffic into high-quality leads. But a blog also allows you to showcase your authority and build a brand.
When you use your niche knowledge for creating informative and engaging posts, it builds trust with your audience. Great blogging makes your business looks more credible, which is especially important if your brand is still young and fairly unknown. It ensures presence and authority at the same time.
How to start a blog in 6 easy steps
Blog Structure
The appearance of blogs changed over time, and nowadays blogs include different items. But, most blogs include some standard features and structure. Here are common features that a typical blog will include:
- Header with the menu or navigation bar
- Main content area with highlighted or latest blog posts
- Sidebar with social profiles, favorite content, or call-to-action
- Footer with relevant links like a disclaimer, privacy policy, contact page, etc.
How to start a blog in 6 easy steps
- Find a good blog name, something which is very descriptive, easy to understand and catchy, something which a user would think of when searching.
- Set up your blog online, chose from one of the most popular blogging platforms such as blogger, also known as blogspot, Wix, SquareSpace, Site123, WordPress, HostGator, Jimdo or the most loved on BlueHost. Create and account and start blogging.
- Find a good template, simple to understand, simple to read, colors easy to the eye, best way is to select a free template and then customize it.
- Now that you have created your blog account, you are ready to write your first post and publish it, let the world know that you are ready to share your thoughts with them and let The fun part begin!
- After writing and publishing your blog, comes the next most important step is promoting it, Get more people to read your blog.
- Once people start getting to know the creative in you and more and more visits happen daily, it's time to make some money from blogging.
Steps to get effective results:
- Register a Name and Purchase Hosting.
- Give your blog a design that is easy to read and helps convert your time and knowledge sharing into revenue generation.
- Write engaging content, a good content keeps users engaged, write only on topics which you have something valuable to share, do not copy and paste from any website, doing so, you will get penalized by google. Google is always looking for original and informative content, if your content is valuable, google starts promoting your blogs on top 10 positions and brings high amount of visitors.
- After content writing, it's equally important to have a good SEO in place supported by google analytics,
- Next follows a well planned promotion plan for your blog website, make people aware of the topics you write about, this can be done by participating on forums such as Quora, Answer the public, Google trends, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, email campaigns, whatsApp etc
- Some practical things to do after starting a blog (details coming soon, register email to be notified when details are added)
- Some mistakes to avoid after starting a blog (details coming soon, register email to be notified when details are added)
- Once you start seeing visitors on your blog, it's time to start making money from it. (details coming soon, register email to be notified when details are added)