What is this blog thing all about?
Essentially, a blog (or weblog) is nothing more than a particular type of website consisting of entries, also called posts, appearing in reverse chronological order with the most recent entry appearing first.
The earliest blogs started in the late 1990s as online diaries of individuals posting information on a daily basis about their lives and opinions, but the content had to be created on websites and message boards.
Later, the blogs evolved and added features, like comments on blog posts, enabling two-way conversation between the author and the readers.
Today’s internet has become more social with the evolution of Web 2.0, the social web, where the user-generated content became more and more an integral part of the online world.
In this new online environment, blogs gained more and more in popularity. Today we can count more than 100 million blogs, and their number is growing every day. Blogs became more than online diaries, they are now an important part of the online and offline world. Popular bloggers, sometimes called influencers, are impacting our entire society with their posts.
With the introduction of WordPress, Blogger and other blogging platforms, the situation has changed dramatically. Due to the simplicity of creating new content without the need to use any special coding skills, now anyone can create a blog and benefit from it.
Today, when the online presence has become crucial for any business, the blogs’ role became more and more important, but you have to clearly understand that a blog is not THE business, but merely a tool. It’s a marketing tool meant to act as a link between the business and the online world.
Key Features of WordPress
Without any doubt, WordPress is now the most popular CMS platform in the world. According to the statistics, the biggest share from all websites using CMS technologies belongs to WordPress, which represents more than 35%. See for yourself:
Statistics for websites using CMS technologies (BuiltWith.com, December 2015)
Update May 2017: Interestingly, today, 2 years after writing this post, the statistics haven’t changed significantly.
Here are some of the key features:
Easy to add new content: Only two clicks are needed – one to display the WYSIWYG editor, the other to publish your new post or page. You can format it almost like with traditional desktop word processors. There is no need to master the web page language, HTML, although a basic knowledge would be beneficial.
Easy to update the way it looks: In the past, this features was available only to experts and web designers that actually understand HTML, CSS, JavaScript or PHP, but with the advent of blogging platforms, it is available to anyone with the help of plugins and themes.
Search Engine Ranking: WordPress incorporates all the necessary technologies enabling you to easily outrank the big websites on Google SERPs for specific keywords.
Easy interaction with your readers: comments, contact forms, opt-in forms, etc. are all features that can help you quickly grow a community around you, your passion or your business.
Easy to use admin area: due to a clear organization, you can easily administer your content, themes, plugins and other areas of your blog.
WordPress is an Open Source project maintained by hundreds of contributors all over the world, more than for most of the commercial platforms. It also means that you are free to use it for anything you want, from your recipe website to a Fortune 500 website without paying anyone a license fee. And when you’re ready for more, there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine.
WordPress is free software, but I like to think about it as both free and priceless at the same time.
Why would you need a blog anyway?
Well, there could be a number of reasons:
- Earn money using monetizing strategies.
- Create your online brand.
- Use your blog as a cost-effective marketing tool.
- Easily connect with your customers.
- Increase sales.
- Build credibility and trust for long-term profits.
- You are passionate about something and want to share it with the world.
If only one of the above topics concerns you, then you really should start your own blog. Even if you already have a blog, this eBook will help you to transform it into a magnet for your customers and be able to profit from it.
By creating a successful blog and building a following, you’ll create a flow of traffic that can be easily monetized. You’ll be able to create multiple streams of income, and the more income streams you create, the more financial freedom you have.
Okay, the monetizing thing looks very attractive, it’s normal, and this is what most of us want to achieve, right? However, as controversial as it sounds, you have to take out of your head the monetizing factor for the time being! Put your passion in the first place and concentrate mostly on this tool you are growing, and the money will come naturally.
This is, basically, what blogs are about. Keep reading the upcoming posts where I’ll show you further into blogging and monetizing techniques that will help you make your blog successful.
If you do nothing, nothing will happen.
If you are struggling with the traffic, you might be interested in how to use Twitter to drive traffic to your blog.
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