What is A Blog? Blogging 101

Recently I’ve had a lot of people ask me “what is a blog?” For starters, this is a blog. You are reading one right now. 

What Is A Blog?

The dictionary definition of a blog is that it is a web log of personal information that is posted via a blogging platform. This information can be discrete, text only, photo only or a combination of different media types. The blog is also usually written in a casual form which is what makes it different from a press release blog (formal blog for companies).

How Blogs Work

A blog works when the blog owner sets up a frequent and regular blog post. People can find blogs through keyword search (using a search engine), by browsing through blogs and by links left on other sites. In many cases, blogs can be followed by readers so that the readers will be updated each time the blog owner posts a blog. Regularly posting blogs will attract more readers because the blog will come up in search a great deal more often.

Who Uses Blogs

Actually, a lot of people use blogs. Except for people asking what is a blog; a good 60% of the population owns their own blog. Not all of these are useful or even informative, but people have them.  People who use blogs well are companies who use them to advertise and inform, people who use them to post about things the y love (such as cooking, sewing, blogging, writing, online colleges, etc.).

Blogging Platforms

There are a lot of different blogging platforms and most of them are free. A few blogging platforms that work especially well for beginning bloggers include Blogger, Wordpress and Tumblr. Each of these platforms is easy to use, free and relatively simple to change and customize. If you don’t want to use any of these blog platforms, feel free to try others. There are literally hundreds of blogging platforms available.

Why Should You Blog?

Blogging is important in some cases and taboo in other cases. If you have something solid you want to blog about. A subject, a theme and a concise writing ability then it is okay to blog. You should also have a strong control of your chosen language and you should be able to correct grammar and spelling errors.