is blogging a good career option? (Get your Answer)
Hi, Everyone…
Today I want to go through some very basic terms and ideas about what a blog is and how you can use it once you have it up and running to make money, either from promoting products or selling your own. Millions of people are doing just that these days and the market is not at all saturated, there is room for you too to make some money blogging!
You may be unaware of how to get started, and that is fair enough, we are not born knowing much, and so it is with blogging. It is not hard, but there are certain things that you have to concern yourself with so you will get people stopping by your blog and reading what you are publishing.
So this post will explain
a bit about some of the terms and concepts, and then I have added some
suggested training that will help get you started in the right foot with this
blogging business. Rest assured you can make money with blogging, there are
many that are doing this right now. Why not you too?
Let’s get started…
Blogging Basics
For those of you who may
not know, a blog is an updated journal or a diary—- but not the traditional
print or writing on a paper or a notebook. A blog is an online journal or web
diary. This is a place where many people can find and read what you are publishing
all across the globe and in many countries as you may wish to share your blog
throughout the internet.
Another definition that
you do not hear that much anymore is the term weblog. This name was used
because your content of post-entries appears normally in reverse chronological
order, as in website visitors will see your most recent entry first. Most blogs
have typically a comment section and they may have links to help increase user
interactivity. The term has also been shortened to just ‘blog’ these days.
Blogs are created using
specific publishing software. This can be any number of platforms and CMS
(content management systems) but the most commonly used one is called
WordPress. This setup has the most users as it is so easy to get started with.
Here are some other terms
you will hear bantered about when it comes to blogging:
Blogging: The act of writing a post in a
blog.
Blogger: A person who writes content or
entries, the owner and the ones who run the blogs
Blogosphere: Blogs and bloggers’ online community.
History of Blogging
The first blogs started
appearing on the internet in the late 1990s as online diaries. Individuals made
journals on a daily basis about their lives and opinions. The daily posts were
listed in reverse date order so readers can view the most recent post first.
The blog format provided
an ongoing inner monologue from the blogger. Blogs evolved and interactive
features were added to create a two-way conversation. Readers are allowed to
leave comments on blog posts or link to posts on other blogs and websites.
Today, blogs have evolved
more and more and become quite social. There are over 100 million blogs and
more entering the blogosphere each day. Blogs have become more than an e-diary.
They are an important part of our everyday lives online or offline.
Many well-known bloggers
gave a huge impact on the society, business and politics, tools and programs
for blogging. Combine these with the social platforms, and you can quickly
establish your very own presence online.
As you add more and more content, you can start having influence in whatever niche (interest) that you may be covered with your blog, and eventually, you will be able to monetize that work.
How Do I Blog?
Using Standalone Blog domain. In order for you
to write and post your blog, you need special tools first and foremost. These
tools or programs are used to run a blog. Luckily there are many tools that you
can use… for FREE! One of them is WordPress.
Blogs are run by blogging
tools or programs on the web which you input the information you provide
through the interface, on WordPress known as the Administration Panels, into a
database. The program and WordPress send commands to the database to collecting
information and publish it as web pages on your site. Depending upon those
commands, each page viewed on your blog may look different or have different
content.
A blogging tool program
like WordPress, or its free hosting blog service, WordPress.com, is simple and
easy to use to write articles and posts on your blog and does all the work for
you. All you do is just blog or write. There are plugins to make sure that the
search engines will be able to find you easier and all kinds of other functions
they will fulfill for you
Hosting your own Blog by your own blog
domain.
A lot of people just
simply set up a blog account with the weblog hosting service like blog.com,
blogging.com or WordPress, etc. and leave it at that. This means that your URL
is tied to the hosting website, and that can impact your SEO (search engine
optimization – how the search engines like Google will know what you have
published).
Also, it doesn’t look
that professional sending traffic to a WordPress domain name. If your intent is
to make blogging into more than a hobby, you need to set it up in a
professional manner so people that stop by can understand that you are there to
provide them useful information and have it there in a manner that will engage
them.
Because of this reason,
we think it’s a much better idea to buy a domain name and host your WordPress
blog on that.
Some Terms and Concepts a
Blogger Should Know
Feeds
A Feed is a special
function of the software that allows its “readers” to access a site
automatically looking for new content and then post updates about that new
content to another website. This provides a way for users to be updated with
the latest information posted on different blogging sites. Some Feeds contain
RSS ( Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication), Atom or RDF files.
Archives
A blog also keeps track
of articles on a site. Many blogs feature an archive based on dates. The front
page of a blog can feature a calendar of dates linked to daily archives.
Archives can also be based on categories featuring of all articles related to a
specific category. You can also archive by author or alphabetically. The
possibilities are limitless. The archive makes blogging a popular personal
publishing tool.
Managing Comments
This is a highly
interactive feature that allows users to comment on an article post, your posts
link, and comment on and recommend them. These are known as trackbacks and
pingbacks.
TRACKBACKS
– This is a feature where more people introduced to a conversation. Example
Person A posts a blog and Person B wants to comment on person A’s blog but
wants her own follower what she had to say and be able to comment on her own
blog. Person B posts on her own blog and sends a trackback to Person A’s blog.
Person A’s blog receives the trackback and displays it as a comment to the
original post. This comment contains a link to Person B’s post blog.
PINGBACKS
– Pingback is generally displayed on the 1st Person’s blog as a link to the 2nd
Person’s post. If you get a pingback, you will see an excerpt from that blog in
the Edit Comments section of your dashboard. The issue is that very few themes
show these excerpts from pingbacks. The default WordPress settings do not
display pingback excerpts.
COMMENT MODERATION-
allows the website owner and author to monitor and control the comments on the
different article posts, and can help in tackling comment spam. It allows you
to moderate comments, you can delete or approve comments as well and make other
controls about other comments.
COMMENT SPAM
– is a useless comment to posts on a blog. These are often irrelevant to the
content value of the post. They can contain links to other websites or domains.
Spammers use Comment Spam to get higher page rank for their domains in Google
so that they can sell those domains at a higher price or to obtain a high
ranking in search results for an existing website. Spammers work hard for their
“job” because there is money involved in spamming. They even build automated
tools (robots) to rapidly submit their spam to the same or multiple weblogs.
There are solutions to avoiding Comment Spam. WordPress includes many tools to
combat them.
Pretty Permalinks
A permalink is what another
blogger will use to refer to your article, or how you might send a link to your
post. Because others may link to your individual postings, the URL to that
article shouldn’t alter. Permalinks are intended to be permanent and valid for
a long time. “Pretty” Permalinks are always visible to the people who click
them, and should be made sensibly, and not be filled with incomprehensible
parameters.
Blog by email
Some blogging tools allow
you to email your posts directly to your blog, all without direct interaction
through the blogging tool interface. Using email, you can now send your post to
a predetermined email address & your post is published! This is a real
timesaver, and you can schedule posts to be published even if you are doing
something else.
Post Slugs
The Post Slug is the
title of your article post within the link if you’re using Pretty Permalinks.
The blogging software may simplify your title into an acceptable or appropriate
form for use as a link. A title such as “I like ice cream” might be truncated
to “i-like-ice cream”. In WordPress, you can change the Post Slug to something
else.
Excerpts
Excerpts are summaries of
your blog posts. This is a good way to capture the attention of the people that
stop by to read what you have published. You can add in captivating sentences
to want them to stay around and read more. These can be very helpful for you.
They also can help with your search engine results.
Plugins
Plugins add additional
functionality to your blog. Each normally does one job or a set of related jobs
on your website. The WordPress framework offers simple and easy ways of adding
Plugins. From the Administration Screen, there is a Plugins Screen that you can
search, install and activate Plugins.
In summation…
There are many more terms
that I could go into, but for a start, this will let you know some of the
basics that you will deal with as you get started with your blog. Remember,
everyone started out not knowing this stuff, so you are choosing a path that
many have taken and had success with (as in earning money by blogging)…
How Do I Make Money from Blogging as a Beginner?
It will take some time to
get your website up and running properly, then add enough content that people
start looking for based on the method that you learn called SEO (search engine
optimization). This is using the keywords that people are searching for on the
search engines in your posts and having Google and the other search engines
look at your site to see that you have those keywords people are looking for…
Once you start getting
traffic (people) you can then add in related products or services to the niche
(subject) you are focusing on with your blog and content. When people take
action and but these items, you make a commission. Over time, this can be a
considerable amount of money too. There are many people that earn a full-time
income from blogging!
But to make it work, it
is important that you understand what steps are required and then do these on a
consistent basis over time. It may take a month, it may take longer, but this
is a path to success that countless other people just like you who started
their own blog have used to make money. You can do this too.
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