By

Tamal Kr. Chandra

What is a Blog and How Does It Work? [Complete Guide]

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If you’re the one who has heard a lot about blogging but still doesn’t know everything about it in detail, you have landed at the right place. In this complete guide to blogging, you’ll learn everything you need to know about blogging and how to get started the right way.

In this article, I’m going to teach you everything about a blog and how it really works to make your dream come true.

Yes, you heard it right.

You can turn your dreams of making money online into reality through blogging. In fact, blogging is one of the most popular ways to make money online, after affiliate marketing and selling digital products.

You can literally make a living through blogging, grow your existing business, and be your own boss.

Sounds exciting, right?

Let’s dig into it more…

What is a Blog?

Basically, a blog is an online journal or a website where you can write anything that comes into your mind. Whether it’s about your life experiences, opinions on current events or just some random thoughts, there’s no limit to what you can write or publish on your blog.

Blogging is a popular way for people to share information and thoughts with the world. It’s also becoming more and more common as a way for businesses or individuals to make money from their blog content.

So, a blog is basically an online journal.

You can also term it as the digital version of your personal diary.

The only difference is the audience.

In your personal diary, you share your thoughts with yourself but with the blog, you share it with the public. Anyone can access it through the internet.

In computer terms, “blog” is the combination of two words:

web
log

So, that means web+log=blog.

Simply put, it’s a version of a website where the content is organized in the form of categories and posts in a reverse-chronological order which means your current post will come first on the list.

Through your blog posts, you are free to write your ideas, thoughts, opinions, observations, and life experiences in your own writing style.

Nobody can stop you from that.

But, people can comment on your blogs and share their ideas too.

More engagement simply means that your blog reaching your audience exactly the way you want it. You can quickly become popular among the readers.

So, what is blogging?

Clearly, the regular writing on your blog is called Blogging.

How Blogging Started?

As a way to communicate information, blogging first emerged in 1994. By the name of Links.net, Justin Hall developed the very first blog. The term “weblog” was first used in 1997, but it evolved into “blog” a few years later.

By that time, blogs were quickly embraced by everyone looking to interact with others and establish themselves as authorities in their field.

Till date, there are over 600 million blogs on the Internet.

People use this tool as a hobby, brand building, marketing, talking to their audience, or making money on the internet.

And, blogging has the potential to make this all true.

But what do people write blogs for?

Well, there are many reasons..

The most important is to be known as a famous blogger or a writer. And, of course, the most motivating factor is money.

You can make a whole lot of money from blogging. There are bloggers who make millings from their blogs. I’ve discussed some of the highest earnings bloggers in this blog post: 35 Highest Earning Blogs Online.

Why Do People Blog?

Good question!

Well, starting a blog is something you can do for business or just for fun. Your decision is completely up to you. I have discovered that the following are a few blogging goals are rather typical.

1. Brand Building

When you want to establish your brand, blogging is a great strategy. It works well for businesses with a product or service that they want to share with the world. You can add a blog as part of your marketing mix and use it to educate, intrigue and connect with potential customers.

As you start with your first blog post and continue to publish regularly, you’ll see that more and more people are becoming aware of your brand.

People are taking interest and asking to enroll in your services. And that’s how using blogging can expand your audience and enhance your own brand. It significantly increases the online reach of brands.

Condition?

You need to consistently write a lot of relevant content.

And, that’s how you can build an audience for your blog and make your blog more sustainable in the long term. Well, you need to be detail-oriented and have great writing/blogging skills. If you don’t have the writing skills, you also hire a ghostwriter who can help you out.

Read – 17 Most Powerful Ways to Get Traffic to Your Blog

2. Marketing

A blog is the best platform for promoting your internet business, products, or services when you run a business online.

While blogging does not directly result in the sale of your product, it can educate your audience and influence their buying decisions. Honestly, blogging is a substantial part of online marketing that you can’t neglect.

When you blog, you are mainly creating content that is valuable to your blog audience. When people see this content and find it helpful, it can encourage them to buy your product or service.

However, not all blog posts result in sales.

Some posts may educate readers and encourage them to take action such as learning more about a certain topic or buying a product from you.

Regardless of the outcome of a blog post, it’s important to keep writing valuable content that your audience can enjoy. This will help get traffic to your site and encourage people to buy products or services from you.

3. Making Money Online

There are many success stories of bloggers who make their fortune from blogging. They start small, dedicate their time to build their blog and after a couple of years, they are making money out of it.

Also, they can continue to travel and explore the world while working remotely as a digital nomad and earning a living through their blog.

There are many ways you can make money blogging. The most important thing is to start a blog and then, find ways to monetize.

Selling ad space is one of the most common ways to make money from a blog. You can use Google AdSense or other ad networks like Ezoic Ads, and earn money based on the traffic you bring in through your site.

You can also sell digital products or services you’ve created, or you can offer consulting services. You can also promote affiliate links to promote services or products created by others for a commission. When someone clicks on these link, you’ll earn a commission if a purchase is made.

Honestly, there are many ways to make money from a blog, so it’s important to find what works best. Be sure to research different blog monetization options, and experiment until you find something that pays off.

Read – How to Make Money Blogging? [for Beginners]

4. Hobby Blogging

Some people love to write. They don’t want to make money from it but only want to share their thoughts online.

It’s because they like doing it and feel the “PEACE” in writing.

Over 50% of the blogosphere is filled with hobby bloggers who write in their leisure hours and also have an active audience on their blogs.

Isn’t that a fun and creative activity?

Overall, hobby bloggers make very little money from their blogs but they enjoy writing and interacting with their readers.

Read – Why Do People Blog? 17 Reasons Why You Should Too!

Blogging is the most useful tool to build your network, improve your writing skills, and most importantly, expand your horizons. When you create a blog and you are truly committed to growing it, you become open to opportunities and gradually establish yourself as an authority in your field.

Here are some more benefits of blogging:

5. Create a Better World

Do you want to change the world through blogging? Do you have a mission to influence people with the power of your words?

Then, start blogging right now!

Start with whatever you’ve in your mind and the change you want to bring through it. Keep writing without expecting the results.

And, after a few years, you’ll see the influence of your words.

In all honesty, you can succeed in months if you are serious about blogging. The only requirement is that you keep engaging with your audience and post frequently. Be patient and wait for the results.

6. Build Your Network

“The richest people in the world build networks.
Everyone else looks for work.”
Robert Kiyosaki

A blog is a guaranteed way to build your network.

You start your blog and work hard to promote it. Talking about your blog or your knowledge of the niche with everyone you encounter helps to gradually grow your readership and make your blog successful.

Also, if your content is strong, other bloggers will link to it from their websites, boosting your link popularity and overall authority.

In short, blogging is a surefire way to grow your network.

7. Become a Better Writer

You must have heard the phrase, “practice makes a man perfect.”

That’s true in the case of blogging.

When you write daily, pages after pages, every day, you hone your writing skills. And when you have an active audience who regularly give feedback on your blog, your growth becomes more visible.

That’s also what the active bloggers do.

The more you write blog posts, the greater are the chances of growing and making your writing skills better.

Do you want to become a better writer?

Then, take your first step towards blogging.

Read – Is Starting a Blog Really Worth It?

The most important thing you need if you want to be recognised as a writer is your portfolio. It increases your visibility and promotes you as an authority. Moreover, your portfolio will help you grow if you want to establish yourself as a credible blogger, writer, or content marketer.

Given all these advantages of blogging, I’m sure you’re interested in learning more about what makes up a blog.

Blogging Platform

A blogging platform is a piece of software or a service that enables you to write, edit, and publish blog posts on the internet.

The most popular platform for blogging is WordPress.

I did some research on popular websites that use WordPress and found that numerouos Fortune 500 businesses, like TechCrunch, CNN, People Magazine, Skype, and TED blog, all use WordPress as their CMS or content management system. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.

You should pick WordPress as the go-to platform for blogging.

Not only is it simple to write, edit, and update, but there are also many plugins and themes available to personalize how your blog looks.

Read – 9 Best Blogging Platforms [Free and Paid Options]

Blogging Niche

A blogging niche is what interests you about the topic and it’s what your blog will be all about. A content plan is a roadmap that shows how you’ll bring your chosen niche to life through thoughtful, expert writing.

When you’ve started with blogging you only need to choose the one niche for which you and your business want to be known about.

Your blogging niche can be:

• Topic you have expertise in
• Business Blog
• Lifestyle
• Personal Brand

Choose a niche that interests you

Niche picking is one of the most important aspects of blogging. If you are interested in writing about a certain topic, it will be much easier to maintain your interest and generate quality content.

This may seem like an unusual suggestion, but if you stick to topics that are close to your heart, success as a blogger is almost guaranteed!

Select a subject that has market demand

If you have selected a niche that interests you, make sure your blog focuses on topics other people might also find interesting too.

For example, if you are a fashion blogger, make sure you include posts about fashion trends and popular brands. This will help to attract more readers and boost your website’s search engine rank.

Be opinionated

In order to differentiate yourself from the competition, it is important that your blog express strong opinions.

If you are passionate about a topic, show it by writing engaging content that challenges conventional thinking.

This will encourage readers to visit your site again and again!

Read – How to Choose a Profitable Niche for Your Blog?

Blog Posts

The post you write regularly will form the archive of your blog. The last post will always appear on top of the pile.

Blog Categories

All the posts will be listed under categories. For an example, if your blog is about Digital Marketing, the categories can be:

• PPC
• SEO
• Social Media
• Advertising
• Content

Blog categories are basically ways to organize your blog posts. They make it easy for readers to find what they are looking for.

Blog Static Pages

When you visit any website, which pages do you visit to know about the company, the blog and its business?

Homepage
About Us
Contact Page
Privacy Policies

All of these pages are static, so you don’t need to update them on a regular basis. These pages are created once, when you start your blog or website, and they educate your audience about your blog or website, such as what the blog is about and what your website’s vision and mission are.

When I visit any website and don’t find their ‘About Us’ page, I doubt their authenticity. And that’s also what other people do.

So, it’s important to always keep your website ‘About Us’ updated.

Let your readers know who you are, what motivated you to start blogging, what the site is about, and why it matters on the About Us page.

If you focus on creating an excellent About Us page that answers all of these questions satisfactorily, then people will be more likely to visit your site again and recommend it to their network.

Can I Build an Income with My Blog?

Great question!

I’ll explain this in detail.

The short answer is, “Yes, you can!”

But how?

There are a variety of ways to make money through blogging.

I’ll break down the methods for you.

1. Google Adsense/Ad Networks

If you want to chase the “Easiest” method to earn money online through a blog, go for Google Adsense. It’s a cost-per-click ad platform that lets bloggers insert a bit of HTML code into their site to display the ads.

Depending on the numbers of clicks and impressions on your ads, Google will keep generating ad revenue for your blog.

Apart from AdSense, you also join other popular ad networks. One of the best Google AdSense alternatives that I strongly recommend is Ezoic. Ezoic is a smart web platform that uses AI to almost double your ad revenue. You can set up an account easily and it doesn’t cost a penny.

Read – Ezoic Review – Increase Ad Revenue with AI

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is the process of earning commissions by selling products and services created by other brands or individuals.

The process is simple!

You just need to find out any product that’s relevant to your niche and start promoting it on your blog. With every sale you make through your blog, you’d be able to earn a commission, usually a percentage.

You probably want to make money online or build a solid business online, but you don’t have a product or services to sell and you don’t exactly know how you can get started with creating something to sell.

Luckily, there is affiliate marketing.

In affiliate marketing, don’t have to develop a product and risk anything, you just need to get customers to great product and get your commision. This kind of business is ideal for beginners online.

Wondering how a blog can help in this business?

Let me give you an example.

You start an affiliate blog and write about yoga, or another topic or niche you are passionate about, for me it’s marketing and online business.

You are writing blog posts and from time to time you mention some cool product, for example, yoga pants and send people to Amazon through your affiliate link. After the person purchases yoga pants (or any other product on Amazon) from you, you get a commission.

Pretty cool, right?

When you start working with an affiliate partner, you have a dashboard, where you can track how many people have came through your affiliate links, how many sales you made and how much money you’ve earned.

The advantages of affiliate marketing are numerous:

You don’t waste time and money to create a product.
You don’t store or ship products.
You don’t have to worry about customer service or returns

Affiliate marketing is really attractive and one of the most popular ways to make money online. But we are talking about business and that requires the work and upfront investments.

You can start by yourself from creating a blog.

Drive some traffic through paid ads or free traffic sources to your blog posts or direct offers, build your email list, send automatic email campaigns and try to make some money. This will be a long journey, believe me, and you are going to make a lot of mistakes, before making some serios money.

3. Selling Your Products or Services

If you’ve something interesting to sell, you can start it from your blog. It can be writing, marketing, SEO services or even an EBook.

You must spread the word about it, and soon your audience will only be able to know about your services through your blog.

4. Writing Product Reviews

Nowadays before investing in any product or even before watching a movie, people Google the reviews about it. If your site is a review site like The Verge, CNET, and Wirecutter, you can make millions out of it.

In the initial phase, you need to spend your time in forming the authority of your blog by doing honest reviews.

Which Blog Niche Should You Pick?

Now, after knowing everything about blogging, you must be waiting to know about the topic you should choose for blogging.

I won’t give you any advice about this.

In fact, nobody can.

It depends on you.

It should be your decision completely.

Sit alone in a room and list down the topics which attract you the most. Know the information you have on the topic and how much you’re willing to learn about it. If any topic attracts you despite knowing less about it, go with it and start writing. The keyword here is to “START.”

And that’s important to begin your blogging journey.

How to Start a Blog? [for Beginners]

In order to start a blog, you will first need to have a domain name and hosting account. Once you have these items set up, it takes less than 15 minutes to set up a blog. Here’s what you need to do:

Visit HostGator ← that link gets you a special discount
Sign Up for an account
Connect your domain to hosting
Log into your hosting panel
Install WordPress CMS
Log into WordPress
Write your first blog post

Well, that’s a simplified version of what it takes to start a blog.

If you are looking for a step by step guide, don’t be worried. I’ve created a step-by-step tutorial that walks you through the entire process. So, you don’t have to search for how-to guides on starting your own blog.

Click on the below link and read…

Read: How to Start a WordPress Blog from Scratch?

What Makes a Good Blog Post?

Setting up your blog is just the first step of your journey. You have a long way to go. And, the most important part is writing blog posts. You need to know how to write a good blog post and what makes it great.

Below are some of the most important factors that matter.

1. Attention-Grabbing Title

Consider these two titles:

How to Create a WordPress Blog?
How to Create a WordPress Blog in 7 Simple Steps?

Which one would you like to read?

Without any doubt, I’d go with the second one…

Because it’s simple and it’s clarifying what would be the blog post about. Plus, the number ‘7’ is an indicator that the blog is short.

That’s the power of an attention-grabbing blog post headline which you should always incorporate when you write a blog post.

2. Blog Post Formatting

I’ll tell you why formatting plays an essential role in a blog.

Would you like to read a blog without paragraph breaks, headings, and images?

Definitely, NO.

Because that makes the blog complicated and readers don’t have time to spend on difficult reads. They look for short and easy ways to learn. That’s why you should break your blog into headings and subheadings.

Also, try adding images to your blog post to enhance its look.

3. Featured Images

The featured image is the reflection of your blog.

It gives a quick glance to your readers to decide whether they should click on the title or not. Plus, it also increases your blog’s readability.

That’s why you shouldn’t ever skip on the Featured image of your blog.

I repeat, Never!

4. Backlinks

External and Internal linking on your blog posts increase the credibility of your sites on the search engines.

Whenever you’re quoting stats and facts in your article, it’s recommended that you also add the source of these facts.

It would count as authentic research on the subject.

While internal linking will keep your readers on your site for long.

5. Optimize for SEO

Want your blog to keep reaping traffic in the long run?

Always write a search engine optimized post. Once your post is ranked on Google, it will drive organic traffic to your site. Missing on SEO is like giving your best and refusing to take advantage.

Read – 21 Best SEO Practices to Improve Your SEO

All of these components essentially come together to form an effective blog post. I’d like to emphasise that you should concentrate on the quality of your blog posts. If you take into consideration all of these factors, but your words aren’t impactfull, all other things can go in vain.

Final Words and Thoughts

Most people start blogging because they want to earn money blogging and they have seen or read about other popular bloggers doing it. Well, you need to remember that it’s not quite that easy as you may expect, and the number of professional bloggers is surely a lot less than hobby bloggers.

Most people don’t realise how much time blogging takes.

Like any real business, blogging takes time.

So, if you want to become a successful and wealthy blogger, you must take your blog seriously and put in a lot of effort.

There are plenty of powerful blogging tips and strategies to build a successful blogging business and each blogger will have their own tips and strategies that they have developed over time. You can do the same.

If you would really like build a business, you wouldn’t invest an hour or so here and there, right? The same rules apply to blogging; if you really want to build a successful blog, you must read it like a business.

Top full-time bloggers spend the majority of their time writing, planning, and marketing their blogs on social media sites. They are constantly thinking about their blogs. As you start your blog and develop a following, you might have to work late into the night and on the weekends to succeed.

If you only post occasionally, your blog won’t be successful. Even though successful bloggers may not post every day, they usually have a content schedule and they make sure to follow it.

Even though blogging is a fantastic platform for writing about your life and unique experiences, these aren’t always the ones that your readers will find interesting. Successful bloggers will interact with their audience and learn what kinds of articles they are interested in reading.

Building a profitable blog requires a lot of work and takes time. It’s likely that bloggers who manage profitable blogs have experienced ups and downs and tried things that didn’t work out, but what matters most is that they persisted. You may soon be running your own successful blog if you put in the time, treat your website serious and professionally, and persevere.

So, what do you think? Are you going to take action today?

Are you going to make a new blog?

Well, there’s a lot more to talk about blogs and blogging. I’ve tried my best to explain almost everything a new blogger needs to know.

So, what’s your opinion?

After knowing almost everything about blogging, I hope you’re now ready to take the action. Did you find this guide useful? If yes, please spend a minute and share this blog post on social sites or anywhere else. It really helps and gives a minute to the countless hours I spent on it.