What Exactly Is A Blog?

If you are new to the Internet and have spent some time here, you must have heard about "Blogging" and "Blogs". But what exactly is a blog? How does it work? And how you can start one? Let me tell you one by one :

So what is a Blog?

In simplest language, a blog is a daily journal of your thoughts maintained you (a Blogger) on the web. When posting to a blog you will notice that it is arranged in chronological order - with the most recent additions on top. As you keep postings more and more posts, the older posts will enter into an Archive folder so that visitors can view your past posts easily.

You can permit your readers to add their own comments/feedback on any of your Blog post. You can add audio to your blog known as Podcast, which readers can listen to. In fact it's a great way remain in touch with your clients.

How one can start a Blog?

It's extremely easy. There are numerous options available. If you want to have an experience of Blogging without spending some cash, you can opt for the blogging service from Blogger.com or from Wordpress.com. These two websites are world's most popular free blogs providers and have some great tools for starting a blog. On Blogger.com you also have the option to earn money from your free blog through Google Adsense program. Basically you only need to register at these blogging service for a free account, fill some information and lo your blog is live ! Starting a Blog is just like signing for a new email account!

However, I strongly advise you that after getting sufficient experience of running a blog on these free blogging platform, you should switch to a professional blog by purchasing own domain name and host. This can be easily done by using the Wordpress Blogging tool (wordpress.org) which is one of the most powerful and free blogging software on earth. Working on wordpress is as simple as a breeze. There are zillions of wordpress tutorials for newbie on internet. Further, there are many web hosting companies which offered wordpress enabled site hosting where installing wordpress is just a matter of point and click.

What a blog can do for me?

Well, a blog can changed your life in reality. If your blog become successful, you will be freed from all your financial worries and problems. For many people, their blog has become a virtual moneymaking machine. If you have any doubts over power of a blog ask Steve Pavlina, the guy who is earning $1000 a day (probably more) from his personal Blog.

What are other benefits of having a blog?

There are many and some of them are:

1. A blog allows you to get to know your customers and their needs, as well as, allowing your customers to know the blogger - that is you

2. A blog is a strong communication tool to keep in touch with your customers.

3. A blog (if updated regularly) can provide daily, quality content - which the Search engines love and thus, increase your traffic.

4. A blog can be used to advertise your links. You can write review of an affiliate product in your blog post thus increasing the chance of a sale.

5. A blog can be used to bring social change as is doing by some bloggers from China, Myanmar and Iran despite stiff resistance from their Governments.

6. A blog can be used to answer inquiries that people may have about your product.

Well , the list is not exhaustive and I have not mentioned all the benefits of a blog as it's an introductory article on blogging. In my opinion, there is only one weak point of starting a blog - you'll have to maintain/update it regularly :)

In fact a Blog is just like the fish shark. It'll die if it stops. A blog needs constant feeding of your thought matter to exist. The blog should be maintained on a regular basis or it'll lose it's effectiveness.

Now enough of my ranting on blogging. Get up and go blogging. My best wishes for your blog.

About The Author-- Eklavya Shekhar is a blogger from India who runs his blog at 'The Indian Blogger'. At his blog, he writes on various topics of his interest which includes blogging tips, trends in blogging, social web marketing, topics about India and current affairs etc.

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