A month ago, my co-workers and I decided to try this new restaurant about a block away from our work place. It’s a new buffet restaurant that just opened four months ago. The restaurant offered a wide array of food and drinks. The main highlight of our food trip was the unlimited grilled beef and fresh green salad.
As the seven of us cluttered the long elegant wooden table with plateful of must-tries, I can’t help but notice one of my female co-workers taking like tons of snapshots of every plate, of every food, of every drink that packed our table. I thought she was a photo junkie. After a minute or two, another female co-worker joined her and for the next five or so minutes, I thought they were vying for the ultimate photo queen award.
I watched my co-workers in amusement. I finally interrupted and asked what’s the fuss all about with the picture taking. I learned that one of my female co-workers is a blogger. She loves blogging and tries to blog about once or twice a week as she juggles her weekly escapades.
Blog if You Can
A blog, short for Web log, is an online diary or journal. It’s a place where you express yourself to the world. It makes connecting with people from other parts of the globe easy. You can easily share your thoughts, experiences and passions in life through this web machinery.
The ability to stay connected anytime, anywhere allows bloggers to update their blogs or personal websites on the go.
Anyone can blog. I mean anyone willing to post about their lives in public through the web world.
In an infographic produced by BWH Greek in 2013, it showed that there are over 152 million blogs on the internet and that a new blog is created somewhere in the world every half a second.
In 2016, 6.7 million people blog on blogging sites while another twelve million people blog via social media networks like Facebook posts.
When I started writing this article, there has been 3.2 million blog posts written already. By the time I finish this article, it would be close to 4 million blog posts.
There’s a steady upward trajectory in blogging. Bloggers are encouraged more and more to post because more and more people are reading blogs. Most people read blogs more than once a day.
According to WordPress.com, over 409 million people view more than 24.6 billion pages of blogs each month.
People find reading blogs helpful. For one, blogs influence purchases. Blogs are helpful in inspiring a purchase and deciding on a purchase. Consumers discover a product or service through blogs. And blogs can also provide support and answers to consumers’ queries.
We all have a voracious appetite for knowledge. We want to be informed and the internet made it easy to access information. Blogging is a very effective instrument to get information.
Why People Blog
The answer is very simple. Every human believes that he or she has a voice and that voice needs to be heard. We all have something to say about something or someone and by making that voice reach a global audience, there’s a feeling of satisfaction knowing that we have the opportunity to provide information and help to other people who might read what we share.
Blogging Benefits
Blogging can be incredibly valuable to a variety of people and for a variety of reasons.
Blogging is not only good for businesses. It can also be beneficial to people – personally, professionally and financially. Here are some of the benefits or reasons why people should blog.
Blogging is easy. If you are able to write an email, then you are also able to run a blog.
Blogging attracts an audience. You can promote yourself or your business through blogging which has the potential to reach billions of people who use the internet.
Blogging can generate opportunities. It can be financial in nature or otherwise.
Blogging can expand your circle of friends and contacts. These new contacts and friends will prove to be helpful in the future.
Blogging makes you your own media company. You can tell your story the way you want to tell it without anyone telling you how to do it.
”When you are writing about a topic of your own interest, you can decide how to portray a story, what information to include, and what information to exclude. Blogging allows you to ensure that all information included in the blog is factual.”
Blogging can help you make money. Yes, it’s possible to monetize your blog. It will also help your business to grow.
Blogging helps other people. You can spread knowledge and information through blogging. Every blog helps other people in their own way. People have specific problems and they are looking for some help, solutions and ideas to help them in their problems. By providing valuable and factual information on a blog, you can actually extend a helping hand to people who don’t know and help make their lives better.
Blogging can help you improve your writing skills. When writing a blog, you are forced to organize your thoughts and to teach yourself how to articulate what you know in writing. Your grammar, communication and presentation skills will be put to the test. You have to find ways to improve your competence in these areas to improve your blog and make it more appealing to you audience.
Blogging can make a huge impact on one’s writing skills. There is a research done to show the correlation between blogging and enhancing writing skills.
How to Start Your Own Blog
It’s easy to start your own blog from scratch. Here are some tips that I hope you’ll find helpful.
1. Choose your foundation
When deciding to start a blog, you need to find the right kind of platform that will suit your needs. The kind of platform will depend on the kind of blog you want to have.
For instance, if you’re something of a social network enthusiast, Tumblr will be an ideal platform for you.
But if you wish to build a potential brand around your website, then WordPress is the one for you. WordPress offers functionality and plugin integration. Whether you self-host your blog or run it through dedicated servers, WordPress has a plethora of options for you.
2. Pick a domain name for your blog
Choose a good name for your blog. Remember that you are promoting yourself or your brand.
Choose an easy-to-remember domain name. Don’t choose a nonsense name or something tough to spell.
Be unique and descriptive. Come up with a domain name that reflects who you are and what you care about. Build an identity that you are excited about and that will attract people’s interests.
Finally, choose a trustworthy domain extensions like “.com”, “.org” or “.net”
3. Configure, Design and Tweak your Blog
Remember that the appearance of your blog and the vibe it projects are important. Your blog site needs to be user-friendly. Make an effort to provide a pleasant experience to your audience when they navigate your blog site.
You can check this link for more information about how to configure and set up themes and designs to your blog site.
4. Quality of content
Keep your blog informal and casual but professional. Create a blog that is of value that you can attract an audience and eventually convert them to customers, partners, friends, or otherwise.
“When it comes to content, you need to apply the same strategy you would to any other product or service, and that’s creating content that is engaging, relevant, comprehensive and carries value to the consumer, whether it is podcasts, articles, visuals or explanatory videos. At the end of the day, content is exactly the primary determinant of your blogging success.”[4]
When you write content for your blog, create a need for your readers as to why they need to read your blog and help them see how they can benefit from it.
You can offer readers a series of tips or simply provide them with impressive and informative content. Ensure that the experiences you will share are relevant and that your audience can connect to.
It’s best to remember that you are communicating with your readers through your blog. Try to appeal with them through the content of your blog. Make them feel that they are a part of something and that they can contribute to you. In this way, your will have a positive impact with them.
Here are some ways to add value to your blog
- Talk about customer concerns
- Take surveys to see what they want
- Offer free e-books or information
- Include media such a podcasts and videos
- Use infographics and images to spark interest
5. Online relationship
Create a perfect About Me page. Let your audience know who you are.
Add a Contact Page/Form on your blog. This will allow your readers to contact you and have an exchange of ideas. This is one way to let your followers know that you want to hear from them and that you are eager to hear what they have to say as well.
Your conversations with your readers can help you improve your blog and can also be a pool of ideas that you can draw in terms on content topics.
Start Now
Starting a blog has never been this easy. With so much information available on the net, starting your own blog site will probably take you less than 30 minutes to set up. What I have provided in this article is not comprehensive but it’s enough to get you going.
So what are you waiting for?
Remember the number of blog posts when I started this article? It was 3.2 million. Now, it’s 3,705,245 and counting really really fast!