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What is a Blog
Do you Know? Reading this Post will take around 13 minutes...
This is a common question in every newbie mind. The word ‘blog’ is not new at least for those who are involved in
reading or writing stuff online.
Nowadays, every other individual around you talks about websites and blogs. After all, what this word ‘blog’ stands
for?
I have seen many people confused among the two terms; blog and website.
One of my friend asked me one day, if everything that we access on internet in a browser is a website then what is a
blog?
I am sure you are also not clear about what a blog is. Don’t worry, you are not alone, there are hundreds of people
like you. Probably, that is why I wanted to write about this topic today.
Do you Know? Every month, more than 55,000 people search for the phrase ‘What is a Blog’ on
Google alone!
In this detailed post, I will take you to a journey of understanding the blogosphere. I will describe in detail, what all
you need to get started. If you follow this guide, you will be a blogger yourself. So let me first explain basic
terminologies.
Table of Contents
Basic Terminologies
If you want to comprehend what I am going to teach you today, you should be familiar with following words.
Please Note: Explanations mentioned below for various terms are in a layman’s language. Read the entire article to
get in-depth knowledge.
Website: A location on the internet that stores, maintains and displays a webpage or information. Everything you
access through your internet browser is a website.
Blog: It is a type of website, updated regularly with informative articles and is written in a conversational tone.
Blogger: An individual who owns, maintains or writes a blog is known as a blogger.
Blogger.com: It is a free service provided by Google for bloggers to start a blog in minutes. Visit blogger.com for more
details.
Webpage: Any single page of a website containing text, images or other information.
Blog Post: It is an article published on a blog to share information with its readers who can also leave their comments
and can engage in discussion. It has a specific date and is arranged in chronological order with other blog posts.

2. Domain Name: It is the address which one types to go to a specific page. Every website has a different domain name.
Like microsoft.com, google.com and yahoo.com, all are domain names.
Web Hosting: It is a remote server where a webpage is stored for internet users to access.
Niche: It is the topic or subject on which a blog is made. For example this blog’s niche is WordPress and blogging.
Blogging Platform: An online tool/software used to operate/render a blog. Examples are WordPress, Blogger,Tumblr,
Medium, LiveJournal, Weebly etc
WordPress: As mentioned above, it is a blogging platform. WordPress is powering more than 74 million websites right
now.
Search Engine Optimization(SEO): It is a technique of making your website or blog search engine friendly so your
articles rank at higher position in Google or other search engines.
Online Marketing: It is a technique of promoting your website, blog or products online through various methods.
These definitions are frequently used in blogging so you must keep them in mind. Enough of basics, now let me move
straightaway to our topic.
Definition of Blog
Although I have given brief description above but here I will be sharing a bit formal definitions of blog.
According to MarketingTerms:
“A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.”
According to Harward:
“A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be
viewed in an HTML browser.”
Want more definitions? Read a detailed article on Definition of Blog by Darren Rowse.
Etymology
The word blog is a shortened form of ‘weblog’. The word ‘weblog’ was shortened somewhere in 1999. When used as a
verb, it refers to writing a blog.
Concept
The concept of blog is very simple. It is, in fact, a website that is focused on a specific niche or topic. The one who
operates it or writes posts on it is known as a blogger. He(the blogger), will keep publishing informative articles which
will be sorted in reverse chronological order.
Readers may leave a comment to start a discussion with the author. Blogs usually move in a conversational tone.
There is definitely a reason or purpose behind every blog. It is the reason behind the origin of a blog that states its

3. mission. These reasons can be of following types.
Solving people’s problems
Helping your audience/customers
Creating a knowledgebase
Sharing personal thoughts/knowledge
By now, I have explained everything which you should be knowing about blogging. it is now your turn to make this
knowledge work for you. It’s super easy.
Don’t worry, I am not going to leave you alone.
I will provide step-by-step guidance to get you started as a blogger.
How to Get Started as a Blogger
Getting started as a blogger is easy. All you have to do is, follow a guideline.
Here I am going to list down sequential procedure which will help you get started. Making your first blog may be a
challenging experience but when you have made it once, it becomes easy going.
The only effort an established blog requires is the content writing and responding to comments…and some
engagement on social media and other blogs.
As a new blogger, you must learn to manage your time. it’s very important to be efficient. The best app to manage your
time is toggl, must check it out.
Selecting a Niche
It is the most crucial decision. Many people go wrong here by selecting niches in which they can never progress.
There can be many reasons for a niche to be unsuitable for you. Suitability of a niche varies from person to person.
If I can correctly recall, I have gone wrong in selecting a niche more than a dozen times. There are many factors
that can mislead your choice.
Some of the popular niches are health, finance, making money, blogging and sports. Here is a list of most used
blogging niches. I am listing the questions you must ask yourself while selecting your niche.
Questions to Ask Yourself
What are my areas of expertise?
Which topics seem interesting to me?
Would it be possible for me to remain associated with this topic for a long future to come?
Is there sufficient audience for the topic I am going to select?
How much is the competition for me as a beginner?
Is it the topic I can be proud of?
Will it positively contribute to society?
What about monetary benefits? Is it going to be self-sustainable?
Can it convert to a full-time profession for me?

4. All questions mentioned above point to another area of knowledge and it is not possible to explain everything here.
I will try to summarize the whole process and will give you following tips.
3 Tips to Select your First Niche
Select a topic which you love from the core of your heart, irrespective of all other factors.
Do not accord too much importance to monetary benefits in start, a successful blogger can make lot of money
from almost every imaginable niche. Here is a list of 50 awesome blogs from different niches.
Your selected niche should be aimed to resolve common man’s problem and should have audience in at least
in millions.
You will find information on other websites about niches which are more profitable than others but what is the fun in
entering into a profitable niche if one cannot excel in that very niche.
I will give you my example. About 3 years back, my niche research concluded that health and fitness is the most
profitable niche. I got a classic domain and a premium WordPress theme. Worked day and night to optimize
everything to perfection.
After 3 weeks of effort, when I started to write content, I realized that for a person like me who is not a health
professional, writing on this subject is quite boring.
It was not only boring but it was also very difficult to compete with other bloggers who were either health
professionals or have hired concerned people for the content.
Imagine a WordPress expert like me writing an article about ‘Precautions against Malaria’…isn’t it funny?
Its not the potential of niche rather its your own potential that will matter.
Leave the whole world aside and burry all the big tips you get from others – Go with your heart. It is the single best
tip I can give.
Selecting Domain and Hosting
Once you have finalized the niche, you will need a domain name to start with.
Domain name is your only identity online so be very creative and careful while selecting your domain name. Many
starters choose to go with free sub-domains. It’s the worst decision you can ever make.
Free VS Top Level Domain
There is no comparison between free domains like xyz.wordpress.com, xyz.blogspot.com etc and a premium top level
domain (TLD) like www.xyz.com.
Please don’t waste your time with free domain. You will never get the desired exposure and results. All you will get is
lot of disappointment and inferiority complex. People won’t consider you a serious player.
A proper domain will cost you around $10 per year, not a big amount, but it will definitely make a big difference.
Want to search for a domain name? Try one of the following website.

5. Godaddy.com
Domain.com
Tips to Select a Domain Name
Your domain name should be short and easy to remember. Even if it is long, it should be good looking. it may be hard
to find your favorite domain name because there is lot of saturation in .com domains.
Try your level best to find a .com domain that fulfills your requirement. Worst come worst, you should not select
anything other than .net. You will have problems in search engine ranking if you decide to go with any other domain
extension.
There are many mistakes which beginners make while selecting a domain name so I would suggest you should read 5
mistakes to avoid while selecting a perfect domain name. There is another article 11 Quick tips to Select a Domain
name which can help you make your mind. Must read these article before you make your decision.
Selecting a Hosting Provider
You don’t need to select a different domain and hosting provider. It is the hosting provider that you should be very
careful in selecting. All hosting providers have the capability to get your selected domain name registered for you. All
you have to do is add the domain along with your hosting package while making the purchase.
So the most important thing is to select a hosting provider.
In start, you need a very simple hosting with basic features. You should look for ‘shared hosting’ packages. It would
cost around $20 to $40 per year. Many would provide a free domain name for first year.
Following are the most famous hosting providers.
There are many more but I would recommend only above three. If it seems expensive then I can provide you a
hosting service on my own server for only $15 per year. The entire solution (Domain + Hosting) would cost $25
per year.
Unbelievable Offer: I can provide a .com domain and one year hosting for only $25/year. I will install
WordPress for FREE. 24/7 email support. Contact me
You need a hosting if you decide to go for a self-hosted blog. If you choose blogger.com or WordPress.com then you
don’t need your own hosting. I will explain in next step why you should only go for self-hosted option.
Which Blogging Platform to Use
There is no platform better than self-hosted WordPress.
Don’t waste your time making bad decision here. There are dozens of other platforms but they are no match to
WordPress. More than 74 Million sites(19% of entire internet) are being powered with WordPress. It is powerful,
customizable and scalable.
The best thing about WordPress is the a huge vibrant community associated with it. WordPress support forum is an
excellent place to get free help.
If you are a WordPress user, you are in a very good company. There are thousands of free plugins and themes in

6. WordPress repository to match your requirements.
I don’t want to involve myself in useless discussion by comparing WordPress with other blogging platforms.
WordPress is unbeatable and should be the only choice of every blogger.
However, If you just want to waste your time around and you are not serious about blogging, then start playing with
Blogger.com. No domain name, no web hosting and nothing else to worry about. But, only if you are not serious!!
Bring the Blog to Life
Now its time to bring your blog to life. If you have selected Blogger.com then you can read How to Start a Blog on
Blogger. If you selected WordPress.com then read How to Start a Blog on WordPress.com .
For self-hosted WordPress.org users, I am going to share brief procedure here. I am writing everything in form of a
checklist.
Congratulations! You have become a blogger.
Don’t be angry if I tell you that the journey has just begun and there are many milestones which you are yet to
achieve.
Starting something is the most difficult part but now you know how to do it. What’s next? It is time to take your blog to
next level.
Content Writing
A blog is evaluated basing on its content(the information it contains). Your content is your only tool which you can
use to achieve success as a blogger.
You’ll have to write amazing content and lot of it. The more content you have on your blog the better it is. Don’t be
disappointed if there is no traffic on your blog in the start.
It happens to everyone in fact. Just put your head down and keep writing. On my very first blog, I started getting traffic
after publishing around 50 quality posts.
Tips to Write Quality Content
Writing content is a vast subject so here I am going to list down few tips which you should keep in mind.
Create quality content. Prefer quality over quantity.
Produce purposeful content. Try helping people by solving a real life problem.
Post regularly. Atleast three posts a week. I would prefer one post daily for better results.
One single post should contain minimum 500 words. The ideal is between 1000 to 2000 words. The article you
are currently reading is of 3100+words.
Format your article with headings and bullet points to retain readers attention.
Proofread at least twice before publishing to eliminate writing errors.
Mistakes to Avoid
You should stay away from these bad practices.

7. No plagiarism. Copying others content won’t fetch you anything, rather you will be penalized by search engines.
Its better not to publish an article than copying it.
Don’t use vulgar language. Produce content for all sort of audience.
Avoid grammatical errors.
Search Engine Optimization(SEO)
As a beginner, stay away from this. Its of no value until you have developed a reasonable blog. As a newbie, you
should only this that it is all about ranking your articles higher in search engines and nothing else. Still interested?
Read What is SEO.
Social Media Promotion
We all use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. After you have made your blog, you’ll need to create
your official presence on all famous social media platforms. I advise you to do following.
Make a Facebook Fan Page
Create a Twitter account
Create a page on Google+
Make a pin board on Pinterest
Do you know? You can automatically share your new posts on social media sites Facebook, Twitter
etc using an amazing service IFTTT.
You can bring continuous swarms of traffic to your blog by actively participating on social media.
Making Money from a Blog
For many people, this is the primary reason for being a blogger. In theses days it is very easy to monetize a blog. All
you need is traffic. The more traffic you have, more are the chances of earning money from your blog.
There can be many ways of making money from your blog. Let me list down few methods here.
6 Easy ways to make money from your blog
Display 3rd party advertisement via Google Adsense, Chitika, Infolinks etc
Sell your ad spots directly. BuySellAds is the best platform for this.
Sell eBooks.
Sell physical goods.
Promote affiliate products.
Offer expert online and offline services. Just like Chris Ducker.
The most common way of making money from mediocre blogs is Google Adsense. It is easy to setup and the outcome
can be quite reasonable.
It is not possible to provide any factual data but as a rough estimate, I can provide few statistics.

8. A blog targeted on US/UK audience with 30,000 pageviews/month can easily make around $150 –
$220.
At the End
This is not the end yet man. There is no limit to which you can take your blog. Neil Patel, a renowned marketing expert,
has elaborated various stages of a blog in his post Stages of Blog Success. There are bloggers making 7 figure
income from their blogs.
But you know, a very small percentage reaches that tipping point where they can leave their day job to become a
blogger.
Darren Rowse has shared income statistics for bloggers in one of his post. Just to mention, he is among the pioneers
of blogging. I have learned a lot from his insightful tips.
Conclusion
The four letter word ‘blog’ has radically changed the entire internet world. it is just because of these blogs that so
much information is now available on internet.
if you have the capability to write persuasive content then you must start your blog. It is easy to start but takes lot of
effort to become famous and get recognition as a brand.
it requires, may be, more effort than your real-life 9to5 job, but if you get it moving once, you’ll be your own boss
soon.
I am proud to be part of a wonderful community and I love helping fellow bloggers.
Please let me know if you need any sort of help in getting started as a blogger, I will be happy to assist.

9. I have tried my best to create an informative article. Please let me know if I have missed something here.
Good luck. Happy blogging!