Basics of Blogging

With the advent of internet marketing, Web publishing is continually gaining ground and popularity.

Nowadays, technologically savvy corporate businessmen, or even business employees, use blogs to build and manage relationships with their consumers. They share their company’s expertise, culture and other information, which can help develop the customer’s interest in their products and services.

On the other hand, not only do businessmen venture in the world of blogging but regular computer users too.

Not only can they voice out their opinions and thoughts to others but also earn money in more ways than one; from selling ad space to offering expert services, which in turn builds their reputation as a professional.

If you are thinking of entering the blog-sphere, you must be ready of the problems you might encounter in several areas of blogging, such as: choosing, installing and configuring your blog software tools.

You can check out the Tools and Resources I use in my Internet Business Here…!

Although the collection and assortment of configurations vary widely, a novice blogger can still get confused. The tools are not the only obstacles you must overcome but also the terminologies used for blogging.

Tools for Blogging

Basically, the software tools for your blog greatly depend on your provider. For instance, the RSS functionality can be absent from one provider but present in another. Additionally, some blog software tool providers (hosting company) can cost as low as $4 each month depending on the extent of service you choose, while others can be used for free(blogger.com, WordPress) but with limited services.

Choosing the right software tool depends on you. If you have enough cash to spare for a blog or if you want to really get serious with a blog and hope to earn cash in the future, which is always a possibility, you have the option of choosing priced blog software tools my recommendation go with Siteground (Great 24/7 Live Support never see before, etc).

However, if you are a newbie blogger, it might be advisable to start with free blog software tool providers.

Fortunately, some providers that charge for their services also offer free trial periods, which range from 10 to 30 days. This is an excellent opportunity to try and test out the services they offer without paying any fee. Luckily, if you find a provider that you are comfortable with and offer the services you need, you can always use their free trial periods to the full extent before subscribing.

Blogging Terminologies

Blogging is like a secret society and like most secret societies; it has its own language that you must learn. Although, technologically savvy individuals an easily familiarize themselves with these terms, it might be hard for those who have limited or no background with Web publishing whatsoever.

Firstly, the most important term in blogging is Post.

A post happens every time you place or publish an update to your blog; you also create a post this way.

Secondly, since blogs are a means of communication, comments are also possible. If your audience leaves a message regarding your published content, this message is referred to as a comment. Normally, the comments are labeled and time-stamped to allow you and other readers to see who posted the comment and when it was posted.

Comment spams, is also a term that happen when a single reader continuously repeats the same comment over and over again. This can be a headache for the blogger as the blog can be used by the reader to promote other blogs or Web site. And this cannot be prevented on free blog otherwise you need a paid one to overcome spamming comment where you can use a free plugin called Akismet Plugin.

These are just some of the few terms that you can encounter in blogging. Only exploration and experience can help you understand the other terminologies involved in blogging.

Why You Should Blog

Many people are getting into blogging for several reasons. You might have heard it somewhere recently but it actually started more than a decade ago from its mother, the online diary. Back then, these kinds of diaries are used by people to record and share accounts of their personal lives. Although blogging still uses that same concept, it has now evolved into several categories and usage.

Nowadays, blogging is synonymous to online marketing. Bloggers not only publish contents reflecting their moods for the day or sharing what they have done for the past few weeks but also advertise and create a sturdy communication with their audience. More so, through the use of blogging, people are now able to find an alternative in making money. Blogging is an excellent opportunity for generating income.

The Blog

Before you even start to create your own blog. It is necessary to know what blog really is. The term blog is actually derived from the word Weblog or Web log.

Back in the days, around the late 1990’s, these Weblogs are utilized by users to track updates and references to other resources online. They served as journals, which made them useful as a publishing tool for the user’s stream of consciousness. Of course, the readers can still comment and share their thoughts on just about anything under the sun.

Technically, blogs are also known as CMS or Content Management Systems. Being a CMS, blogs allow the writers to easily publish to a specific Web site and manage the content without the need of having to deal with the program code. Publishing software also provides users with a GUI or Graphical User Interface for easy pointing and clicking of their articles.

Through the use of easy-to-do procedures, you can perform configuration and set up, which can ease your job as a blogger since the tool can automatically organize your published articles the next time you publish.

The Advantage of Blogging

The main question is; why should you start blogging?

The first thing you need to know is that blogging can enhance and support your online communications.

However, you must first understand the outcome of your blog that you desire in order to attain success. The main reason why you should start blogging, is that it can be both an excellent outlet for your frustrations or excitement and profitable at the same time.

It does not mean that if you are not into blogging, you should not blog. Being in a business, especially those with dealings on the Internet, requires you toestablish a clientele that are actually interested with your services. Blogs can do this easily due to its accessibility and being an excellent medium for marketing that it is, blogs are essential for businesses.

More so, if you are handling a business, there is good chance that your competition is blogging about their products and services. This is an easy method for you to examine the competition and what their clients’ preferences are. Additionally, blogs can create strong customer relationships since your target market can easily and directly communicate with the authority within your business.

This kind of opportunity is hard to resist since a strong customer relationship can eventually lead to lasting trust to your product and services; hence, eventual increase in your revenue.

How to Profit From a Blog

Blogs can be for profit or non-profit but most bloggers blog for the purpose of making money. There may be some contents published to simply provide an outlet for voicing out the bloggers’ opinions and share their thoughts. However, the general population of bloggers has the intention of profiting financially.

Fortunately, there are several methods of profiting from a blog and applying these methods can help you gain money.

The Advertisements

Selling space for advertisers is one of the most common ways to profit from a blog. Since blogs that have a considerable amount of traffic can make income with ad sales, make sure that you have a target audience. The reason why bloggers choose to sell advertising is that it is a passive form of income once the traffic has progressed. Although it takes work to look for advertisers and maintain the ads on the blog, those who can achieve it can gain reasonable amount of money with the ads.

Compared to other forms of profiting from a blog, selling advertisement space can be one of the most consistent revenue streams. If you are able to maintain your ad slots filled, you should have a very good idea of just how much you can make every month.

On the negative side, selling ads requires you to have some kind of established traffic. Traffic is important because it draws interest from potential advertisers.

You might find it hard to sell an ad space without traffic and it will most likely not produce much revenue. Additionally, the blog must have a target audience in order to achieve the maximum amount of cash for advertisement space. Remember that advertisers are more likely to pay if your target audience is a match to theirs.

Join Affiliate Programs:

Affiliate programs are also a major resource of profits for several bloggers,Affiliate programs include JVZoo, CJ, WarriorPlus, ClickBank and even Amazon Associate Affiliate Program. Affiliate programs are excellent in a sense that they enable you to have the opportunity to make money even if your blog has a small audience. However, one bad side to affiliate programs is that there can be instances where you cannot make any money at all.

Newly created blogs feature affiliate ads most of the time compared to selling space directly to advertisers. Since selling ads is hard to do without much traffic, affiliate programs are perfect for new blogs. More so, they can be easily maintained and only take very little time.

Promoting and Premium Content

Bloggers who are service providers at the same time have an excellent opportunity to look for clients and increase their rates. Maintaining a blog that focuses on your area of expertise can help you easily become a recognized authority in your field. Additionally, it can aid potential clients to find you. You can also benefit from the increase in demand of your services and improved reputation that you build, which enable you to charge more for your services.

Aside from promoting your services, selling premium contents are also excellent ways to profit from a blog. Blogs are a massive source of information and remember that not everything has to be free. There are bloggers and business that attained success by selling some of their work. There are blogs that sell memberships on their Web sites. Although selling premium content is possible in any field, you must have the capability to give something to the reader that is worth paying for.

Thanks for reading!

Nelly

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