Webupon

PThe basic idea of a blog is quite simple — it is a web log. A blog is anything you want it to be. Before going into a gushing torrent of words on the values of blogs, I’ll explain the technology. You get a blog on any one of many websites, then type out “posts” that are as easy to make as tapping a letter out on Word.

Blogs usually attract a nice audience who often have something extra to add to the discussion. They can comment on your posts, and sometimes, just like at a party, the discussion afterwards is more interesting than the original story! Because of the personal nature of blogs and the social nature of people, blogs attract large audiences. While many may visit once, some may check back, and others may even subscribe via an RSS feed. This is a document formatted so that anyone with a proper feed reader can know when you have made a new post, and even receive it straight on their desktop!

Well, wherever there are crowds, there’s money to be made. There are different ways of monetizing these page views (how many different people have visisted your site).

First, We Have to Have a Blog…

Don’t go into blogging trying to make money. That’s your end goal, and I’m sure that you won’t forget it. But the goal of a new blogger should be to create an interesting online persona that captivates an audience.

But don’t fake this “online persona”. It has to be YOU. Because there are so many blogs nowadays, the common advice is to find a niche. Don’t go overboard, but don’t be too specific. You like gardening? Great, get more specific. You have a pet tomato named Sparky? Pull back. Following this analogy, you might choose to blog about Competitive Gardening in and around New York.

You have to think through your blog. Don’t rush it. Give it a creative name, make a banner or two, and make sure you’ll have enough material for regular posts. If you don’t know what you are talking about, your readers wukk sense this. That’s why it’s always best to blog about something that plays a major part in your life.

Making the Blog – The Technical Side

“But what if I just use the computer for word processing and e-mail?”. Well then, my friend, you have enough skills to blog. Many of the bigger blogs are hand-crafted webpages, but if you ever reach that point in your blogging career you can hire someone to do that for you or learn a bit yourself (It’s not hard, trust me).

Some other services will get you to pay to host and run a blog. While, I can’t stop you, there are many perfectly good services available to help you run it for free! I would personally use one of these four:

1. Blogger
2. WordPress
3. TypePad
4. LiveJournal

Explore each of these sites and see which one you prefer. They seem to be the most well-frequented but if you find a site you like better, go ahead and join it. I have no affiliation with any of these sites. One tip is that Blogger is the easiest to monetize with AdSense, but we’ll get to that later.

Blog!

Blogging is YOU, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Blogging is just an internet diary — just don’t get too personal!

Your blog should have a focus and a niche as discussed earlier, but feel free to go off on a realted subject, or even on random musings.

You can attach video, pictures, and other files to the blog as well, and all of the leading services I mentioned earlier should teach you how quite easily.

Leave an email (you can make a new one just for blogging) and any other contact information you wish. As you keep blogging you may find yourself Building an Audience (part 2 out of 4)