We’ve talked a lot about starting a blog recently, but…
What is blogging and who are bloggers?
- Is it a stay-at-home mommy blogger giving parenting advice and sharing recipes?
- Is it a self-proclaimed marketing guru, teaching people how to become a millionaire?
- Is it backpacking through Europe on a budget and sharing your stories with family back at home?
- Is it rambling about your mundane, daily life and what you had for dinner?
- Is it teaching people how finish a basement?
More...
It’s all of the above and much more.
According to Dictionary.com, a blog is “a website containing a writer's or group of writers' own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites.”
It’s much more than that, but to make it super simple, I’d define it as an independent source of information that is regularly publishing new content.
What's So Special About That?
Before the internet came around, the average person didn’t have that many opportunities to share their ideas, express themselves and so on and so forth.
The need to express ourselves has been in our DNA for thousands of years
You had conversations with friends and colleagues but that’s about it. Perhaps publish a book and influence people that way, if you’re lucky.
Blogging is an amazing opportunity we have to share our ideas, opinions, knowledge and anything else you can put in writing, with other people.
It has given average people the ability to share their voice with millions of people all around the world.
You’re also going to get feedback, deeper insights from experts reading your materials and serious discussions about topics that you care about.
Freedom of Speech
This is critical.
The blogger who started the platform is in full control and no one has the ability to censor what they say or what subjects they cover.
No one is going to ask if you’ve got a marketing degree, before you publish a blog post about the subject.
These are just some of the wonders of blogging.
How Does Blogging Work?
Basically, bloggers publish “blog posts” or articles for others to read, usually talking about one specific topic.
The MonetizePros blog is about internet marketing and that’s all we’re going to get into. We’re not going to discuss world politics, religion, fitness or anything of that nature.
That’s the way the majority of blogs work nowadays, they have a niche.
There are bloggers from all around the world and from very different backgrounds. This makes it nearly impossible to generalize the meaning of a blog.
It could be something educational, like we’re doing here at MonetizePros.
A website posting funny cat pictures with the goal of entertaining other people can also be referred to as a blog. The same goes for Mr. John Doe who just wants to publicly write about his everyday life, with no goal in mind.
Your words are important!
A Blogger is Someone With a Platform
Bloggers aren’t just writing for the sake of writing. They’ve got a platform, an asset. Every time you hit publish, you’re building something new on the foundation that is your blog.
Over time, as you stay consistent and dedicated to the journey, you’ll build up an audience and it’s extremely likely that you’ll start making money off your blog.
There are bloggers out there making $100,000+ per month talking about things they love and helping other people – it’s amazing!
Common monetization methods include using display advertising, promoting other people’s products as an affiliate, creating your own infoproducts, selling fan-gear and finding sponsors for your content.
A Blogger is Someone With a Legacy
I’ve had a few personal friends compare blogging to social media, like Facebook.
It’s the same concept - you could just as easily post super useful and educational content on your Facebook and have people like it, share it and discuss it in the comments.
Blogging stands out because it’s permanently there, it’s not going to disappear into your “newsfeed”.
Something that we wrote three years ago over at MonetizePros is still relevant and getting hundreds of readers per day – it’s evergreen content.
In fact, as long as my hosting bills get paid, people will still be reading this after I'm long gone.
Unlike social media posts, blog posts also get picked up by search engines like Google and that means you’ve got the potential of receiving millions and millions of readers, without the luck of having something go viral on social media.
A Blogger is Someone With a Variety of Skills
Although there are bloggers out there who just do their thing and write, it’s usually much more than that.
If you’re looking to take it up as a career, there’s a myriad of skills that you’ll pick up on the way.
You’re not going to be a world-class expert at most of these, but you’ll be good, I promise.
You’ll start to understand how search engine optimization works, learn the basics of online marketing, know how to create and maintain websites, how to do basic web design and many other interesting things.
A blogger is a true jack of all trades.
What’s the difference between a website and a blog?
So this is probably the most confusing part for most people... How is this different from a website?
Which one do I need? Websites vs blogs?
Websites tend to be static, meaning that they do not get updated very often. Blogging is all about frequency and consistency.
Blogging is very informal and conversational - I'm talking to you like I would talk to my best friend and that's alright.
Blogging is also much more personal - you probably know who is behind this blog post, if you follow MonetizePros. Not only that, but it's not a one-way street.
Websites usually just push their information out and don't allow comments or any sort of communication/feedback except email.
If you've got anything to add to a blogpost however, you can easily leave a comment at the end of the post 😉
How do you become a blogger?
As per the definition, a blog is a website, too. Websites are scary for the Average Joe. The idea of starting a website seems fairly similar to rocket science and astrophysics.
Actually, it’s the opposite! Starting a blog in 2016 is super easy and should take you less than twenty minutes.
We’ve created an amazing, super in-depth tutorial on how to create a blog – click here to follow along!
If you’re not yet convinced that blogging is for you, perhaps check out some of the 46 benefits?
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Solid explanation!
I’ve always had a hard time explaining to family and friends what I do. Will likely just send them a link here from now on!
I started blogging 3 months back and was really confused with website and blog. Got to know the difference from above post. Thanks for your efforts.
I have a website that gets about 2500 unique visitors a day. In many ways I treat it like a blog. I try to write evergreen articles and publish them frequently. I post articles on Facebook, and I have an RSS blog that distributes my updates and new articles via an RSS feed. Having said all that, however, I am ready to add a real blog to the website and start taking comments and giving responses.
It was not easy for me to keep going in blogging because i have to face the failure almost on every step but i thought that i have to be committed on something so i decided that i will do blogging at any cost and gradually it happened. I cannot say that i am expert but i have some good knowledge about it. Thanks for this post.
What’s the main problem you’re facing?
A blogger is someone who blogs or record what he or she does each day and also gives the latest news of something.
A blogger is someone who blogs or record what he or she does each day and also gives the latest news of something.
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I still remember the days when I was addicted to blogging in my younger age… I faced many difficulties because it was very hard to satisfy my parents on blogging. It took me 5 years to wait and now here I’m still a learner and hard worker.
Gonna show them this article! Thumbs up…
There is a lot of troubles in beginning but once you know the system then everything will going ok, I advising to all the blogging need dedication and time. So best wishes for all
Thanx for your kind thoughts
Thanks for simplifying things. I just wasn’t able to explain to my friends why I have a ‘blog’ not ‘website’. Now, I can. Thanks again for sharing.
Aw, this was an extremely nice post. Spending some time and actual effort
to make a great article… but what can I say… I hesitate a whole lot
and don’t seem to get anything done.
You have posted a very well researched topic and have shared amazing content. Thanks for sharing the content with us
Good
I enjoyed using your services thank you so much