What is Blogging and Why Should I Blog?

In this article your will learn what blogging really is and why you should start blogging. Unless you've been completely internet free for the past several months to a year, you have probably heard about these "blog" sites but you may not know what a blog is. Or perhaps you know what a blog is but you want to learn more about how blogs are being used and if blogging is something you could benefit from. In this article you will learn exactly what blogging is and what blogging is not and why you should or should not start blogging.

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http://www.how2blog.com

I will attempt to demystify the definition of blogging if you absolutely aren't quite sure what a blog really is. A blog is generally defined as an online journal that is updated frequently and where your articles are listed in reverse chronological order when they are published. That means your articles are published with the most recent article listed first in date and time order.

What Is A Blog?

The term "blog" is derived from the term "Weblog" or web log. In the early days of blogging circa mid to late 1990's, web logs were used to track updates and references to other resources on the Internet. Weblogs, as journals were also used as a stream of consciousness publishing tool where you could share and comment on anything and everything under the sun. As a results and to this day, there are lots of blogs that publish opinionated commentary as diverse in tone as there are a diversity of topics to talk about.

A blog is technically a content management system (CMS) albeit a more simplified version of one. A CMS allows you to easily publish to a web site and manage content without having to deal with having to know how to program code. Blog publishing software provides you with a graphical user interface (GUI) for point and click publishing of your content. Your blog software will require you to perform initial easy-to-do setup and configuration so that it will know how to automatically organize your published content in the future. After that, you can publish quickly and instantly using your blog software editor that is built into your blog publishing software.

Publishing A Blog Is Easy To Do!

You can also publish content to your blog by using blog
publishing tools call bookmarklets or with blog editing and
publishing software like WB Editor 2. Again, publishing with
a blog can be done easily and instantly. You simply type
something into a web-based texted editor and push a button and you published!

Discover How To Blog For Fun & Profits at
http://www.how2blog.com

Some of these setup and configuration tasks include
providing the name of your blog, providing archival intervals,
providing the names for categories of content and provide
names of other publishers. There are other settings also
such as deciding to allow trackbacks, how to handle
commenting in your blog, security settings, RSS syndication
settings, site layout and more. Once these simple tasks are
completed blogging becomes fun, fast and flexible and even
profitable.

There Are Many Types of Blogs

Bloggers of all types whether for business or personal publishing, normally publish content around niche topics and subjects that they are passionate about. Examples of niche information topics would be politics, how to build pc's or pet care. Business oriented blogs will always be more niche oriented in their information content because they need to be tightly focused on their product or services and getting connected with the audiences they serve. Business blog content will cover a topics that promotes their subject matter expertise, educates consumers on their products or services, communicate announcements or provides customer support for example.

Personal blogs may cover a wider range of related or unrelated topics within the same blog because personal blogs lend themselves to more stream of consciousness publishing on a whim and according to mood. This style works well for personal blogs. There is an ever increase number of the "types" of blogs out there or rather the "way" in which blogs are being used to communicate. A few examples would be public relations blogs, affiliate marketing blogs, health
care blogs, law blogs, car blogs and of course yet another blog about blogging...mine, the one reading right now! :)

Blogging is HOT! I strongly believe it is more than a trend as well. With that said lets talk about what a blog is not. A blog is not just a web site. It is a type of web site but your typical web site content takes much longer to update, publish, share and distribute. A blog is no longer just a online journal. While "online journal" provides an easy to understand point of reference for how a blog is used and how it works, bloggers have extended the use of blogs far
beyond the personal pundit type of posting. As outlined above blogs lend themselves to many audiences for communication and publishing.

Why Should You Blog?

So why should you blog? Well, you shouldn't blog before
you understand how a blog can best support your online
communications. You will have the most success with your
blog if you understand before you start what outcome you
desire. At the end of the day your blog should be fun or
profitable to you or both!

Discover How To Blog For Fun & Profits at
http://www.how2blog.com

If you aren't blogging that doesn't mean that you shouldn't
be blogging. If you are in business and especially if you
do business on the Internet then you absolutely must
determine if blogging works for your business model. Without
going into a very long article on this topic I will say that
if you are doing business online there is a good chance your
competitors are blogging or preparing to blog. Blogs are
expanding on what are called "market conversations" and your
markets are talking to each other about your products and
services in your industry and niche and they want to talk
to authoritative sources in those niches.

Those businesses bold enough to open up an honest dialogue
will capture more audience which can result in prospects
becoming customers. Right now blogs have taken center stage
as the premier communications and publishing tool for
businesses to communicate authoritatively and demonstrate
subject matter expertise in their market niches. If you
aren't talking to your market your competition is and your
markets are definitely talking back. That alone is powerful
motivation to at least investigate how a business blog can
enhance and drive new business for you online.

A Business Blog Is Especially Worth Considering

The last point I'll make on the case for a business blog is
the SEO advantage. Search Engine Optimization is a big
benefit to blogging. If you have a web site promoting any
product or service and any type of content that you use to
drive any level of business and commerce then you require a
blog. Blogs are very light weight and text-based compared
to traditional web site content. This cuts down on the
crawl time by search engine spiders and allows them to
take back more of your pages to the search directories
much quicker. Blogs are dynamic in that they are
frequently updated. This makes blogs relevant and popular
and causes the searches engines to crawl blogs more often.
The result is that your blog will have more pages going
back to the search engines much quicker and more
frequently than your competitor who is using a static
and standard web site.

Discover How To Blog For Fun & Profits at
http://www.how2blog.com

This is not good however if YOU are the competitor with
the static web site. :)

If your blog content is targeted and link density for
your keywords is healthy you will burn your competition
in the content war if he doesn't switch to a blog.
Ultimately a blog alone isn't the holy grail for
publishing content online for top search engine
rankings. You will need to other things like write good
and relevant high-value content for your audience.
You will need to target the keywords that target your
markets and you'll need to build link partnerships to help
with your Google popularity.

Personal Blogs Are Fun, Interesting and Exciting
For personal publishing you could blog as a means to keep
family and friends updated about your life and times.
There is lots of fun to be had with personal blogs.
You can share many interests online with other people.
You can share and publish photos online from your mobile
phone or digital camera with a service like TextAmerica.
You could share humor. You could share gossip. You could
collaborate on homework and research projects.

You can setup a personal blog about anything you are
passionate about. A business would create a blog around
their industry and niche and a personal blog could do the
same thing from a customer point of view. Blog about your
favorite products and services if it lends itself to that
kind of passion and fanfare. You could do a resume blog that
highlights your skills and experience and you can
demonstrate your knowledge and expertise as well and
network by writing about what you know which would be of
interest to potential employers. The sky is really the
limit here. What's your passion? What do you want to say
about your passion? Do you want to network your passion and
teach the world something new? Do you want to finally show
the kwow-it-alls how smart you really are?

Blogs are really easy to use content management systems
or web sites that allow you to publish instantly and in
real-time. Blogs can open up new opportunities to connect
and communicate with others both personally and professionally.

Discover How To Blog For Fun & Profits at
http://www.how2blog.com

Article source : Stephen Pierce of http://the-whole-truth.com