Blog: Blogging and Bloggers

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A Three-part Article on: 
  1. Blog: Blogging and Bloggers 
  2. An Article on Articles 
  3. And Other Things... 

Part 1. Blog: Blogging and Bloggers 

Blog. (noun) 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. 

Where, how and by who can a blog be used? 

  • An hourly blog could be about an ongoing scientific/social experiment in which viewers would like to constantly be updated about the present situation. Another example could be a minute to minute break up of a live sports event. 
  • A daily blog would be the most common type of blog seen on the internet, which could be used to inform viewers or subscribers about something specific on a daily basis. For example, Some blogs could be as simple as; ‘My daughter learnt a new word today’, ‘What did my pet do today’ etc or others could be more generic like ‘word of the day’ for a dictionary/vocabulary enhancing blog or trending movies or fashion suggestions for today, amongst several other things 
  • A weekly blog could be for things you’d like to keep track of, health and fitness coaching; or for achieving short term goals, how much of a certain skill/ language etc did you learn this week. 
  • A monthly blog could be for curated lists of books to read, industry trends, who was awarded what, short summations of important global news that month, or most famously for monthly astrology aka monthly horoscope etc 
  • A seasonal blog could be again medical or scientific in nature. Things/ allergies/ issues to watch out for in this season. Or, how to combat seasonal maladies. Or, a seasonal compilation of scientific papers published in this quarter etc 
  • A bi-annual blog could be about investment prospects and predictions for the later part of the year or a cumulative digest about the changes in stocks or other major things like the global economy or global politics 
  • A yearly blog could be a planner for the rest of the year. A reader’s digest about the year so far and what to watch out for in the coming year. A simple list of present and relevant resolutions that can have a meaningful impact on your life. Or, follow up or schedule for your much larger goals: finishing up that sticky debt or saving up for your next bike/car or house. 


Now that you know what a blog is and what it could be used for, let’s focus on blogs; by nature of their authorship status. A simple casual blog may be run by an individual to showcase their talents etc. A small formal blog could be run by a startup to display publicly their achievements and progress thus far. An in-depth informal blog could be run by group enthusiasts to make a Wikia page about their favourite fandom. Or by corporations and enterprises to showcase their products and services. You could even have a certain someone guest appear to write an article or perform on your blog for you. 


What can a blog do for you? 

  1. Showcase what you have (Talent and Product/Art) 
  2. Display what you can offer (Goods/Solutions and Services) 
  3. Earn money by monetizing your articles or viewership of your blog itself or by selling your Products and Services. 

How to create a Blog? 

You can own a blog in one of many ways. Create one by using a hosting website like Blogger or Wordpress, i.e. borrowing a platform in someone else’s place to showcase your stuff (your clients would be able to see the much larger shop behind the platform which you don’t own or use, thereby losing traffic to your own blog). Or, by paying for a domain and owning your own website and using a unique URL, by paying a yearly rental fee. This works like how you would rent a warehouse to run your business, you don’t own the space per se but the business would be all yours. And lastly, you could have your own servers to host your website, this would be like a one-time investment to own the warehouse instead of having to pay the yearly rental to run your business there. 

How to run a Blog? 

You would first need to follow the initial instructions and open an ID using any of the above three methods and own a blog. The best would be to have a separate Email ID and account and then you could simply log-in through that and complete the steps to set up your blog. Congratulations now you’re in. You are now the owner of one of the million webpages on the internet! Hardly done yet, but well begun is half done. At this point, I’d suggest you use the same email to open an account across all social media platforms especially the ones like; Reddit, Quora, Medium, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr etc. 

Hopefully, by now you’ve chosen a niche on which you’d like to base your Blog upon! Now follow the various communities and spaces on said social media and interact with them. Use WhatsApp and Discord too, if necessary. Find out what really matters to these communities and actively engage with them. The best way to go about it would be to pick a niche which you love, not necessarily the one you’re good at. Spend at least an hour every day doing research about your niche and the different spaces it can impact. Research the heck out of it! And then spend 30 minutes writing drafts about what you’ve researched. After a week or so of said research, You’ll have an idea of what really matters and by now you’d have at least seven drafts on which you can start writing or posting. 


Now, you are effectively ready to start blogging your way to the heart of upvotes, hearts, claps and likes. Answer questions and post answers of as many posts you can on social media websites, remember no one appreciates spamming! If there is a question you’d like to answer but don’t know the facts, research is your best option. Go ahead help others out and create value for your username and account on social media. Do your best to contribute to value creation/addition. And you can provide redirect links to your blog for readers who’d like to read more from you about your products and services. Do your best to make sure you don’t spam. 


Lastly and most importantly, how can you make money from your Blog? 
  1. The easiest way to make money from your blog would be to sell products, i.e. Ecommerce is your best friend. Imagine a mini Amazon of your own. 
  2. Or else, you can start by partnering with others to help sell their products. Imagine Amazon Affiliate Marketing, (click here to learn how). 
  3. Advertise your way to success! Use Adsense and start charging money for the ads that you show to your viewers that come on your website. [Note: In some cases, Adsense is not available to blogs that haven’t been active for at least six months] 
  4. Sell your services. A bit different from Ecommerce as in the products that you sell need not be physical they could be SAS (software as solutions) products, Online art or other things online. 
  5. Finally, among other things, you can even run a blog without charging money but add links to your donatekart, gofundme, patreon, buymeacoffee accounts. Where viewers pay per their discretion using trusted third party online payment portals directly into your Internet Banking account. 


Start blogging now. Your social media presence can actually net you a lot of things in life. There are entire professions based on Social Media these days. So it is better the earlier you start blogging. These days anything practical and useful can be counted towards your experience. Because your Social Network is your Social Net worth! 


PS: Check out my previous posts to see how my content has taken shape over the past few years! 


End Part 1/3

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