Monday, February 9, 2015

Step 1, What is a Blog?

Blogging first step
A blogger's first step!

"Step 1, What is a Blog?

" Is the first step to helping you blog for money.

In Step 0, we learned what "Blog Simply" was focused on. Now we'll go forward.

Definition of blog -
a contraction of two words - "web log"; a website which might take the form of a personal journal or regular posts with a recurring theme - general or specific.

Easy, huh?


What is the difference between a blog and a web site?

Blogs:
  • A blog is more like an informational bulletin that is posted regularly to keep readers informed about something.
  • A blog can be a part of a web site - an informational column with regular updates to notify readers about something.
  • A blog is usually filled with opinion and a "voice" or "personality".
  • A blog can have photos, videos, mp3's, file downloads, links, and anything else that a website has.
  • Blogs are frequently read by RSS feed readers because they are updated frequently and people want to know when they've been updated.
  • Blogs are not forums, nor do they contain forums usually. But, they offer "Comments" where readers can interact with the author in a more controlled manner.

Websites:
  • Are not so specifically focused, can have a wide variety of focus and voices.
  • A website can be broken down into sections where just video is found, or just mp3's or just articles about alcohol. With a blog, those things would all be included in the written post and they would all be related to the post.
  • Can contain many blogs going on at the same time. See www.b5media.com. They host many blogs on their website.


As you might have seen, there really isn't that much difference between a blog and a website. In fact, they are very similar and it's only the way that information is presented that makes it a blog.


What types of blogs are there?


Basically there are two types of blogs that we'll be concerned with.

1. Blogs that are for personal reasons, or just for the joy of sharing information with others that you know or that will be interested in reading your topic and giving you more joy just because they are reading what you've written or provided them through your blog. These blogs are easy to set up and can be a wonderful tool for sharing whatever information you wish, without earning any money.

2. Blogs that are a vehicle to making money. For this type of blog you will need to do quite a bit more to market your blog and bring visitors (also called "traffic"). If you can bring a lot of people to your blog on a daily basis you can make money with your blog. There are many hundreds of thousands of people doing just that today. I'm one of them. I made some cash today with my blogs. In fact, during every hour that goes by - all 24, everyday, I make some money. If you start a blog today you can be making cash within a couple months. I am SURE of it.


Guess which type of blogging above that I like best?

I don't have any blogs that are just to share information. If I'm going to take the time to write something everyday then I want to be able to make some money from it. It may not be a lot of money, but I want to make SOMETHING because I love to write and if I'm writing I could be writing about a topic that makes money instead of writing just for fun.

So, usually, I'm writing with money in mind.

Sometimes I go through a question process in my mind when I wake up and sit at the computer... it looks like this:

"Do I want to spend 30 minutes writing my mom and tell her all about my day yesterday, and not make any cash?"
or
"Do I want to write an article on one of my blogs that might give me a couple thousand dollars over a few years of people reading it and clicking ads on that page of my blog?"

30 days out of 31 my mom isn't getting an email...

If I need to talk with mom, or I've been neglecting her - I call. I love my mom!

But, I can speak much faster than I can write, and she loves to hear my voice to know it's really me and not a program I created on the computer that sends her an email message once per month!

99.95% of the time I'm writing, it's with money in mind.

That doesn't mean it can't be fun. In fact, some VERY successful blogs are making BIG money by being funny. Just commenting about society or politics or funny videos, or something like this. They are having a LOT OF FUN writing, AND they are making money. Unfortunately I don't have that talent. I'm not THAT funny to other people! I find myself just short of continually hilarious, but most people don't. I know that... I accept it!

But, maybe YOU ARE hilarious. If you can make a fork laugh you might want to try writing funny blog posts for money, but it's a tough road. The search engines won't love you as much because your topics will vary so much from one day to the next. You would need to build up a readership slowly that grows by word of mouth mostly. Tough road and I don't suggest it just starting out! More about that in later blog posts.


So, knowing what a blog IS... Is blogging for you?

You'll have to answer that question for yourself. If you want to blog and make money from your writing you can follow this blog step by step and within a couple months you'll be making money. You can do it just like everyone else can do it.

The real question is not - "CAN you make money?"
The real question is - "How much money can you make?"

There is a 12-year old blogging and making money that has been featured at an advanced blogging informational site: www.problogger.net

Can you write better than a 12-year old? Well, this 12-year old is pretty special, but I am convinced that you could do it too.

Blogging is NOT brain surgery. You're writing everyday, that's it.

If you ever wanted to make money from writing - blogging gives you that chance.

Forget about writing for other people, write for yourself and make so much more than you ever COULD make writing for someone else.

So, for the first step, answer these questions:

What is a blog?


Do I want to write everyday and make money?
Or, would I rather just write to share information for free with family, friends or others?

See Step 2: How Does a Blog Make Money?


[ Note: If you have any questions so far, just click the Post a COMMENT link below and write me a question. I answer ALL REAL COMMENTS everyday on everyblog. : ] Vern

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