The Basics of Blogging

Good question, what does blogging do? and probably the next question to follow that one is how are you supposed to do it?

The truth is when I first started out I didn’t really know, I could have quoted the usual stuff, you know ‘it is an abbreviation of web-log’ or I could have been a little more clever and said it is a chronological list of posts published on the Internet that reflects the thoughts, ideas and philosophy of the author.

Some people might say it is a method of communication, a social engagement tool that allows you to reach other like minded people. Maybe it’s just a business aid to help promote a company or a charity. It could just be a way of selling stuff on the Internet or even giving it away.

Well actually blogging is probably all those things and quite a few other things as well; depending on who is responsible for it.

My first attempts at blogging were totally unfocused ramblings about lots of different activities that were occurring over time involving a variety of different subjects. A visitor to my first ever blog described the content as being a little random. I suspect he was being a little kind, the posts were actually completely random. If I had carried on in that way I have no doubt it would have drawn an audience of a sort but not an audience  who were interested in cohesive and focused content.

Of course that wasn’t my objective, the reason I was blogging at all was to get noticed on the Internet by potential customers for my businesses, just as many people do.

The randomness came about because of my complete lack of understanding of how blogging should be used. That was several years ago and I now understand, or at least I think I do, that to create quality content and to draw an audience, there does need to be some level of focus and planning.

The basic requirement of any blogger is that they chose a subject of interest, one that they are passionate about, and then go about creating quality content which is marked by their personality and individual style in a way that engages people at a social level.

So do that and you will likely be a very successful blogger, fail to do that and you probably won’t be successful at all.

Blogging, is not an exact science, there will be people that break the rules and still get a huge following, but they will be few and far between.

Nobody really knows why some people seem to have a bit of magic at their disposal and others don’t. It is a bit like trying to predict who will have the next GangNam Style hit. That said there are underlying rules that set standards. A blog needs to work technically for example, be easy to navigate and should not throw up flags to search engines that say ‘I am trying to fool you’.

There are also other methods and approaches to blogging that should ensure you at least get the basics right. And that is what this blog is all about, it provides the general guidelines that explain what a blog is, how to get it published and then market and promote it in a way that most individuals and small businesses can understand and implement.

Search engine optimization is one of the big subjects covered, along with how social signals now go hand in hand with SEO and generally which are the best tools for blogging and web marketing.

As for the magic ingredient, well that is up to you to provide ♥