Are You Asking Yourself Why Start A Blog? Read This Intro To Blogging Primer

Written by Emil Yau Thursday, 19 May 2011 06:35

Blogs are used for many reasons these days (whether it is called a blog or not). Much of the time it is used for marketing. Other times it is used to distribute information much like a press release would. This article, however, will go back to the roots of what a blog is: an online journal.

Blogs are used for many reasons these days (whether it is called a blog or not). Much of the time it is used for marketing. Other times it is used to distribute information much like a press release would. This article, however, will go back to the roots of what a blog is: an online journal.

You can think of a blog as more than an online journal but an online journal that you want to share with the internet community. Some have used this as a soapbox to express opinioins, some have used it as an outlet for creative or comedic writing, and some have used it simply to share family updates or life updates. As blogging software continues to evolve, more features are available to the modern day blogger including video galleries, photo galleries, and more!

So what is in a blog? A blog consists of many blog posts. A blog post has these basic features:

title: this is the title of your blog entry (or journal entry)

body: this is the content of your blog post

trackback: other sites can have a link back to your blog post

permanent link: this is the link directly to that specific blog entry

comments: this allow readers to post comments on your blog.

Today's blogging software makes it very easy for bloggers to start blogging right away. I highly recommend the Blogger interface or Wordpress interface. Those are the easiest and also are web based so you can blog from anywhere. There are further customizations available for being able to blog through email and other applications as well. Another great feature of blogging software is the availability of templates or themes. This allows you to change the look and feel and design of your website blog at the push of a button.

Though I have been focusing on blogging as a way of journaling, just remember also that blogging is at its core a way to distribute information effectively. So there can be many ways you can use blogging. I personally have a personal blog as well as many business blogs. Advertising, marketing, distributing photos and videos, and distributing paid content are all ways you can start a blog for. So just keep an open mind as you start a blog, becuase you will probably find you will see many uses for blogging and will end up starting quite a few yourself!