What is a Blog and How does it Work…

What is a blog used for?

A blog is digital method of logging your ideas, thoughts and experiences; it is basically an online journal to share your views with the world.

What is so good about blogging?

Blogs are extremely simple and easy to use, a complete novice can create a blog and share their thoughts and opinions with just a few simple clicks of the mouse.

People use blogs as a way of expressing themselves, they ‘put their heart on their sleeve’, providing their readers with a snapshot of who they are and what they are passionate about.

A great feature of a blog is that they can easily be personalised to your own taste. A variety of different themes can be selected, colours, background images and font style can all be adjusted to suit a style you like.

The theme can be changed at any point in time, which gives your blog a complete different look and feel. This isn’t a long winded process either, you don’t need to be a graphic designer or computer programmer. The new theme can first be previewed and then changed with the click of a button, everything is adjusted for you automatically.

What is a blog ?

Elements of a blog…

What you will notice when you discover different blogs is that they all tend to be made up of the same basic sections / elements:-

1. Blog Header

The header allows you to provide the name of your blog post and if you have a logo then this is typically where you would display this also. Your visitors would also use your header to navigate their way around your blog.

2. Blog Side Bar

This area of your blog would typically contain widgets, display your recent posts or any comments that your readers have left for you. It is also this area of your blog where you can provide subscriptions to social media like Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

3. Blog Footer

This resides right at the bottom of your blog and is used to display content that will remain constant and unlikely to change. So typically you would use this for contact details or a link for a reader to learn more about you.

4. Blog Body

This is the main focus area of your blog and the most important. It is the content that you create in this section that has attracted the reader to your blog. This is where you need to provide your reader with valuable content, giving them all your thoughts, ideas and opinions. Allowing your blog to come alive, through the passion you have for a specific subject.

Post or Page…What is the difference…

A page within a blog is content that will pretty much always stay the same and will remain fixed, for example a section about you or your contact details. Whereas a post is something that is created regularly, allowing your blog to grow and keep your reader coming back for more great content.

For each blog post that you create you have the option of allowing your reader to leave comments. This is a really important part of a blogging because it creates a conversation. People can have their own input on your blog, by sharing their own experience and knowledge or simply leaving you feedback about you post.

By having this feedback and discussion area within you blog post it allows to really connect with your readers and builds a sense of community, where common interests can be shared. It is this in particular that has made blogging so popular and has given people the ability to be creative and expressive sharing their video, audio and images.

Who are blogs for?

Blogs are for absolutely everyone no matter how old or young…In fact with age comes more life experiences and stories that you can share with the world…

So what are you waiting for…start your very own blog today…and discover how to make money blogging online…