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.