What exactly is a blog?
Contents
If you are wondering what is a blog then you have come to the right place. In this post, we are going to describe what is the definition and the meaning of a blog and how you can use it to make extra passive income online. The concept of a blog started back in 1994 and at the time it was not called a blog, it was just a personal homepage. The term “weblog” was coined in 1997, and it was shortened to “blog” by a programmer in 1999. Original blogs were linked from an archive or home page and were updated manually which was not very efficient.
After the introduction of easy to use platforms like WordPress people realized the power of the blog to communicate information in a new way and that was how the world of blogging started.
What is a blog definition?
A blog is a website that contains online personal reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks, videos, and photographs provided by the writer according to Merriam-Webster that declared the word their word of the year in 2004.
According to Google, a blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.
What is a blog and how does it work?
To make it simple a blog is an online diary or journal with mainly written content also known as a blog post in reverse chronological post order(latest post appears first). Normally an individual or a small group of people run blogs.
What is the purpose of a blog?
There are many reasons to start a blog and here is a list to can help you make your decision about starting a blog.
- Communicate your opinions and thoughts:
You can use a blog to talk about any topic that you are interested in if you have anything to share with the world a blog provides a place for you to be heard. - Promote or sell products or services:
Blogs are a great method to promote or sell a product or services online, all you have to do it to get ranked for a certain keyword and then you will be flooded by visitors and sales. - Help people:
Blogs can help people who are going through some issues or situations that the blogger has already experienced and had a solution for. It can be anything about tech, health, parenting and etc. - Connect with like-minded people:
A blog is a perfect tool to bring like-minded people together. Starting a blog can help you gather a great audience and share your thoughts and opinions with them. - Make a difference:
Many bloggers start issue-based blogs through which they make a difference in their own ways by providing information to sway people’s thinking in a certain direction. - Blogging is Easy:
Starting a blog is super easy, the hardest part can be just to set it up, if you can just write an email you can also run a blog lol. WordPress also makes it possible to make a blog without even knowing any technical coding skills. - Connect with friends and family:
Blogging can be a great way to stay connected with friends and family from different parts of the world by sharing photos, videos, stories and more. You can build a blog with password-protected pages so you can give the link to people that matter to you. So that only particular people can see the content you post. - Make extra money:
Once your blog starts to take off you can use the same blog to advertise products. You can also do sponsorship when people can see your blog is getting ranked on google for keywords that matter to them.
Structure of blog
Structure of a blog has consisted of four main features that are included in most blog:
- Header section with navigation and menu bar
- Main section where you can see the latest blog posts
- Sidebar where you normally see the search box, archives, favorite content, and call to action
- Footer where you see general information like contact us, privacy policy, disclaimer and etc
What is a blog address?
The blog address is basically the URL /domain name of the blog through which a user can access the blog. If you host your own blog then it should like something like “https://startablogeasy.com/”.
However, if you use other blogging platforms like Tumblr, medium, blogger, etc. Your blog address(URL) should like something like this: “<subdomain>.tumblr.com”.
Blog Vs Website – What is The Difference Between a Blog and a Website?
A blog is basically a website but the main difference is that a blog requires regular updates. However, websites are more static and are not regularly updated. Here is the list of differences between blogs and website:
Blog
✅ Unit of content in a post
✅ Displays information in the reverse chronological order.
✅ There is a comment section for posts(unless it is turned off).
✅ Updates regularly.
✅ Organized by categories and tag(in most cases).
✅ A blog post can go viral if the content is perfect and engaging(since updated regularly).
✅ Does not necessarily have a home page.
Website
✅ Unit of content in a page
✅ Content is not displayed in chronological order.
✅ There is no comment section for pages(unless it is added by code ).
✅ Updates infrequently.
✅ Organization doesn’t exist (at least visually)
✅ There is less chance for content to go viral(Since it is not updated often).
✅ A website should have a homepage.
Blogs can have better reader engagement. Through the comment section, readers can comment and voice their concerns and perspective on certain topics. On the other hand, a static website does not get updated regularly and has less reader engagement.
Within a byline of a blog post you can normally see, categories, tags author references and publishing date. Although not all blog posts have all of these elements, a static website generally does not have any of them.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is the most popular and easiest platform to create your website. WordPress powers over 30% of all the websites that are available on the internet. It is an open-source content management system that is licensed under GPLv2. This means anyone can modify and use it for free.
If you are wondering what is a content management system? It is a tool that simplifies the management of important parts of the website such as content without know any programming or coding.
WordPress makes it possible for anyone to build a website even people who are not developers.
Blog post vs Blog page in WordPress
Often new bloggers get confused between pages and posts.
What are blog Posts in WordPress? Posts are contents that are listed in reverse chronological order on the blog’s (front) home page. The latest post shows up at the top of the list and the earlier posts are underneath it. Posts are normally archived based on month and year however, you have the option to organize it based on tags or category.
Posts are also displayed in the RSS feed section. You can also control the number of posts to be displayed on the blogs’ front page.
What are blog Pages in WordPress? Pages are a static type of content that does not change much. Information such as privacy policy, about us, contact us and that sort of static information needs to be inside a page instead of a post. WordPress saves the publish date of pages in the database. However, pages are not associated or listed with a date and they are timeless entities.
Definition of blogging
Blogging is the act of maintaining or adding new entries to a blog.
What is Blogging?
The concept of blogging is to write content and share your knowledge on the internet. The growth stage of blogging started in 2000 when there were only 23 blogs listed on the internet. Amongst the earlier bloggers where politicians such as Wesley Clark and Howard Dean who were sharing their knowledge on the internet. This increased to 50 million by 2006, and in the US alone, the number of bloggers is expected to reach 31.7 million in 2020.
Why is blogging so popular?
People are realizing how much having a blog can help them. That is was blogging is increasingly becoming popular. Here are some of the main reasons why starting and owning a blog can be a great option.
- Blogging enables you to show your skill to the world
Blogging is a great method to show off your skills. Since you are the person who controls your blog, you can show off your skills without displaying weaknesses. By providing quality content in a certain field you can establish yourself as an expert in that specific field. - Blogging can help you raise awareness for your service/product
If you have a product or service or even if you thinking of having one. Blogging can help your potential audience to know you and your products better. People normally purchase from places they trust and a blog is a great method for you to create that trust for your audience. - Express your actual personality
Through a blog post, you can talk a little bit about your personal life, interests, and hobbies with a bit of humor. When your audience knows more about your personal life you may seem more caring and personal to them. They can also comment and interact with you and your brand. - Anyone can literally start a blog
Blogging is easier than ever before, and with the help of tools like WordPress building and maintaining a blog is possible with no coding knowledge. Also, you don’t need to be a professional writer to write blog posts, you can just write about anything that interests you and add your favorite graphics to it.
Definition of blogger
A blogger is someone who writes regularly for an online journal or blog. According to Merriam-webster, a blogger is a person who writes for and maintains a blog.
What is a blogger?
Bloggers are individuals who own and manage a blog. These people love to share their skills, lives, and knowledge with others. They write content about any topic from fashion and art to finance and politics. The ones who do it as a fulltime job are mobile and live on the internet and sometimes on a boat :).
Do bloggers get paid?
Blogs can be a great method to make passive money online. It is not going to happen overnight but it has a compounding effect. Once you submit your blog to google if you get ranked for keywords you will be flooded by visitors and visitors means money. Here are some of the method to make money blogging:
- ADS
Ad networks pay bloggers through two main methods: Pay per impression: with this method, the blogger gets paid when an ad is seen by visitors on their blog. Pay per click: Bloggers get a small amount of money every time visitors click on the ad(a click can worth a couple of cents to a couple of dollars). - Affiliate Marketing
Through affiliate marketing, bloggers promote a company’s products and services(it can be physical or digital products). With this method, a unique URL is given to the blogger for a certain company’s products. When a blog visitor clicks that unique ULR and purchases the product, the blogger receives a commission(commissions can be from a few dollars to thousands based on the product price and commission structure). - Sponsored Posts
When a blog gets established in a certain niche, companies normally pay bloggers to create content for their specific product or brand in that similar niche. This is a great method for companies to raise awareness for their brand and products, and for bloggers to make extra money. - Sell products/services
One of the best ways to make money from a blog is to sell products or services. This is how successful bloggers make money from their blogs, by selling educational and digital products. Digital products usually have a small cost to create and potentially high earnings. You also never run out of inventory which is great. - Memberships and Subscriptions
This is when bloggers create exclusive content for their paying customers. This can be a great cash flow, as long the bloggers create a high demand and valuable content, they can charge people on a monthly basis.
How to start your own blog?
As you can tell blogging has a lot of perks and you may be wondering how you can start your blog today. The first step to create a blog is to choose a name for your blog(domain name), and then a web hosting service. The best web hosting that the official page of WordPress recommends is Bluehost and this the web hosting that we are going to use. Here are the steps to create a blog:
Step 1:
Click here to head over to the Bluehost page and then hit the green “Get Started” button.
Step 2:
Select your plan, if you just starting out go with the basic plan. You may need a bit of time to decide whether you like to have more than one website or not.
Step 3:
Choosing the right domain name for your blog. Choose a short descriptive name for your blog, so that the reader can quickly guess what your blog is about. Use the textbox below to see if your desired domain name is available or not.
If you are looking for a complete step by step guide on how to start a blog check out this link.