What’s the big deal about blogging?

Not too long ago “blog” wasn’t even a word. Then it seemed over night blogging became an obsession. Lots of people jumped on the blog band wagon. Some people thought this was just a fad which would disappear, but it didn’t. Some people resisted blogging and couldn’t figure out what the big deal was…then they eventually understood and started blogging themself.

The reason why blogs are great is because the content is fresh and often updated, it’s easy so anyone can do it, and search engines love blogs. It’s easier to get search engine traffic from blogs than it is websites. This is because of the constant content updates.

A blog can be for personal or business reasons. Some blogs are monetized, while others just want to blog and don’t care about bothering with trying to make money from it. Some people blog simply because they want to. They want to share their opinions or write about what’s going on in their life, kind of like an online journal. A Mom may start a blog just to write about the trials and rewards, the good and the bad of motherhood. She may give advice on parenting and just write about what’s going on with her kids.

A politically active person may blog on politics, trying to persuade people to vote a certain way. A blogger from a certain city may blog about events happening in their area and an investment blog will inform people on investment opportunities and give investment advice. Some blogs are set up to review certain types of products trying to persuade the reader to buy certain products and of course will contain affiliate links so the reader may purchase them.

Basically a blog can be just about anything and anyone can start one for any reason.

There are a few different ways to monetize a blog. 1-Pay Per Click ads such as google adsense or Yahoo. 2- Text Link ads. 3- Selling links for other blogs and websites. 4- Affiliate ads. 5- Paid blog posts.

If your blog gets a certain amount of traffic, there are companies that pay bloggers to write a post. So if you have a blog in a certain niche, a website in that niche will pay you to blog about their website/product/service. Some bloggers are getting paid hundreds a month just writing blog entries.

There are many free blog sites out there you can sign up for. Blogger.com, owned by Google and is one of the most popular. There is also blogspot.com. You can also do a search for blogs and see all the listings that appear. If your blog is going to be professional however, it’s recommended you get your own domain and hosting and install wordpress blogging software.

To improve traffic to your blog, try to exchange links with other blogs. Also to get readers to keep returning to your blog, plus for better search engine rankings, you need to update your blog regularly. Don’t add a new post every month or every 2 weeks.