If you have ever searched for ways or how to earn money online, blogging is always in the top 3. The reason is that a blog is one of the best ways to make money online.
If you are looking to start a blog, or still not clear as to what blogging even means. You’re in the right place.
In this post, I’ll answer all questions that you may have regarding ‘blog and blogging’. By the end of the post, you’ll know everything about blogging and it’s related terms.
What is Blog & Blogging?
You can think of a blog as a website where the author(s) publish articles.
These articles are popularly known as posts or blog posts in the blogging terms. These posts can virtually be on any conceivable topic; health, finance, travel, affiliate marketing, or just the writer’s opinion about things.
So blogging is basically writing and publishing posts on a blog. And the person who blogs is called a blogger.
If you are looking for an example; Infosmsush.com is a blog and I’m a blogger.
As a blogger, you could teach something, help people solve their problems, or you could write short stories. You could publish almost anything as long as it is in the “Niche” of your blog.
But blogs weren’t always perceived like this. In the past, a blog was more like an online diary. Even today many bloggers use blogs as a diary and write content to express their thoughts about anything they want.
What is a Niche?
Niche is basically a broad categorization of the topics that are covered in a blog.
For example, if you are publishing posts with titles like ” how to get rid of acne”, “what causes hair fall”, “nutritional value of banana” your niche is Health.
So you can publish posts that are related to health.
But it doesn’t mean you can’t write about anything else. It’s just that if you are consistently writing on a narrow set of topics, your audience is also targeted. And it’s super weird if a health blog has posts about how to remove malware from Mac.
This also helps in getting a higher ranking in Google(SEO) for similar keywords.
But, why should you care about Google? I’ll explain that later. Let’s complete this section first.
Remember, that a niche is just a “broad” description of the kind of posts that are published on a blog. As you explore a niche, you’ll find that there are multiple sub-categories.
If we continue with our Health blog example, the same blog can also have posts like how to get six-pack abs? Which would be in the subcategory- bodybuilding or fitness.
The same happens with every other niche.
If the niche you choose is the one you are interested in. You will never run out of ideas for more content. But most of all your content would feel more authentic. That’s why choosing the right niche is crucial for any blogger’s success.
What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?
You could say that SEO is the second backbone of blogging.
The first is content.
Search engine optimization is a process by which bloggers try to improve their ranking on search engine results pages(SERPs).
I think the term SEO should be changed to Google Optimization- GO. Google is the highest-trafficked site and the number one search engine. I can’t even remember the last time I used any other search engine.
Due to the quality of results other search engines don’t even come close. The search engine 2nd to Google is Baidu which is a Chinese search engine. Used mostly in China because the Internet is censored there.
But why should you care about your rankings in Google?
Well, because that’s where you will get 50-90% of your traffic.
No matter how amazing your blog is. Whenever someone is looking for information, it rarely happens that they use the search bar of your blog.
Most of the time they would go to Google and search for it. So unless you can get a good ranking in Google you won’t get anywhere.
Of course, you can promote your content on social media. But it’s still not enough.
But the good thing is, Google also loves amazing content. So what you need to do is create great content that will be loved by both your audience and Google.
One simple way to do this is: When you are writing about something try to put yourself in the user’s shoes and try to answer all the questions that he may have.
There are also some other terms related to SEO:
Keyword & Keyword Research: Keyword is a phrase that users enter in Google to find what they want.
Keyword research means retrieving information about a keyword like it’ search volume, related keywords, SEO difficulty and more.
Backlink: A backlink is a link that points to one of the pages of your blog from other sites or blogs.
There are two types of backlinks no-follow and do-follow. The only difference in syntax is that a nofollow link has rel=”nofollow” attribute.
On-Page & Off-Page SEO: On-page SEO is the change that you can make on your blog to improve your rankings.
Off-page SEO implies the methods to improve rankings with external factors.
The Topic of SEO and it’s terms are so important and complicated that all of them require their separate articles.
This is just an overview.
What is Guest Blogging?
Guest blogging or guest posting is a way to increase following and attract more visitors to a blog.
This is how it works:
You publish a post on blogs that allow guest posting. You won’t get money in return.
What you’ll get is exposure to their audience and a lot of visitors to your own blog.
Blogs that allow guest posting have a bunch of rules that you must follow to get your article accepted. If there isn’t a condition that says you can’t link to your own content, add a backlink to one of your own relevant posts.
What is Microblogging?
Microblogging is a form of blogging in which content(micro post) is really short.
Microposts usually contain less than 100 words and can include images and videos.
Some of the most popular microblogging sites are Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.
How To Make Money as a Blogger?
There are a lot of ways to make money with a blog. But here we are only going to discuss a handful:
Affiliate Marketing: In affiliate marketing, a product or service is promoted in a post or set of posts or advertisements (banner ads, text ads, etc.). When someone buys it through your affiliate link you get a commission.
Sponsored Posts: Sponsored blog posts are those articles that you get paid to write. It could be a review or introduction to service or something else.
Advertisement: You could show ads on your blog from Ad providers like Adsense, Admaven, and many others. This is the most widely used method to monetize blogs. But to make the most of this source you should allow companies to directly buy ad space. This means that you sell ad space on your blog and directly partner with companies. This is more efficient because you can get paid for just showing ads no need to get clicks. This is also more profitable due to the fact that there is no middleman and you get to keep the whole amount.
Sell Physical Products: You can create your own physical products based on your niche and sell them on your blog
Sell Services: If you have any valuable skills that people will pay for, your blog is a great place to get some customers.
Sell Digital Products: You can also create digital products like books and sell them to your readers.
Some people also create blogs, drive traffic to those blogs and sell them for thousands of dollars.
What’s the Difference Between a Blog and a Website?
A website is more on the static side and usually provides information about a company or organization and or the products and services of that company.
It is less frequently updated and usually just has pages for structure and managed by a company.
But a blog is dynamic. It is frequently updated some times multiple times a day.
A blog is updated with blog posts which are organized in chronological(newest first) order. It can also have pages like about us, contact, etc.
A new(not so new anymore) trend has emerged for even companies that provide online products or services to have a blog section.
As you can see is the case with Ahrefs.
The reason for this new approach is the fact that having a blog helps drive more traffic and as a result more sales.
How To Start a Blog?
Starting a blog is easy. Maintaining and making it successful is really really hard. There are already a billion blogs so it’s obviously difficult to make a name as a blogger.
If you are serious about blogging then buy a WordPress hosting and a custom domain. Most hosting companies will provide a free domain for the first year.
Depending on your host and plan it will cost you around $50-150 for the first year.
But if you just want to try out blogging, here’s the step by step guide to starting a free blog.
However, if you want a full-featured WordPress experience without spending much, you can buy monthly hosting with a free domain name.