What is Blogging?
A Basic Blogging Guide
Simply put, blogging refers to a frequently updated page that contains your own personal thoughts, or topical content of interest to visitors to your web site or blog. Blogging entries are usually short, and often contain links to longer articles, or to specific pages on your website, especially if you're using your blog for internet marketing or affiliate marketing, or to draw blog readers to your website for any other reason. A second type of blog operates as a forum, allowing all members, rather than just the blog author, to post their thoughts and observations.
In either case, the essence of blogging is its topical nature, and frequent updating. A blog isn't all that different from a newsletter, the main difference being the fact that the articles in a blog are usually short and to the point. Of course, a blog can contain links to longer articles, so it can be used to post what amount to "abstracts" of longer articles which appear in newsletter form elsewhere.
Originally, blogs tended to be personal journals, but as they caught on, it became commonplace to use them to advance information on political issues, and/or for marketing purposes. One famous blog was started by a young man who wanted to tell the world about events in his war-torn country, from the perspective of the common man. Other blogs have been used to post news tidbits of a political nature. Lately, blogging is becoming a common promotional method for internet marketing.
So how do you start blogging? If you have an existing website, the simplest way is to post a page there, and update it frequently. You'll probably want to include the word "blog" in your page name and links to it, mainly for the sake of the search engine spiders, which, by the way, are hungry for blogs because of the constantly updated content. Check out the Best Biz Builders internet marketing blog to get an idea of what a blog looks like.
If you don't have a website, but want a blog, there are two additional ways to go, both of which are really very simple. One is to develop a mini-site that is little more than a blog. You can learn about mini-sites here, and we also have links to several mini-site tools. If you'd prefer, you can simply sign up (usually for free) at one of the major blogging sites, the most well-known of which is blogger.com
Once you've got your blog set up, you'll want to publicize it. The best way is to list it at one of the numerous blog announcement sites and blogging guide directories that exist for just that purpose. To get you on your way, here's a short list of links to major blog directories that will accept your listing for free.
If you really want to take your blogging to the next level, you need to accompany it with an RSS feed to announce it. Don't know what RSS is? "Really Simple Syndication". In a nutshell, you post a special web page that uses XML instead of HTML for the code, post a link to it on your web site as well as on some of the major RSS announcement sites, and you're in business. RSS provides a way to "syndicate" content, in the form of headlines and short announcements, that people can subscribe to using an announcement site or an RSS Reader. Once people have subscribed, every time you post an update to your XML page, they are automatically advised that you have new content for them. To combine RSS with a Blog, you simply post a headline and a sentence or two on your RSS feed, and link it to a longer post on your blog, which in turn can link to a still longer article, if you so desire.
I hope this short blogging guide has provided some answers to the basic question of "what is blogging?" Especially if you're interested in internet marketing, whether you're already an established marketer, or just starting out, you might want to check out these top-notch blogging guides and RSS resources. The authors have years of experience between them, and, in addition to their guide books, they maintain websites that are constantly updated with the latest information to help you take your RSS and blogging ventures to the next level.
I've recently released my own blogging guide ebook and website. Click on over and learn more about blogging and RSS, and their amazing usefulness for promoting any product or service online!