The Right Way to Blog!

Personally I love to blog. The idea of being able to publish a piece of work that you believe is worthy of publishing, is something totally profound to me. When I decided to venture out into the world of blogging, I found myself rather confused with how I should begin. A friend and editor of mine said to me, “It’s the best way to work your way into the world of writing.” And with that, I found myself looking for the best portal to begin my blogging. At that time, a few years ago, I discovered that there was hardly any real guidelines as to what’s, how’s, where’s and why’s of blogging. So for my curation assignment, I thought it would be a great idea to aggregate blogging topics and put them in one place so that anyone who wanted to start blogging would have one place to find all the answers.

What is it?

“A blog is basically a type of website, like a forum or a social bookmarking site. As such it is defined by the technical aspects and features around it, and not by the content published inside it.” (What is a Blog?)

“Blogging is creating a useful and informative place full of original content aimed at a certain audience set up as a web page.” (Define a Blog)

The idea is simple when it comes to blogging. A blog is a platform where anyone a writer, professional or amateur, can build content and place it in one particular place. Within a blog, one can find a number of aspects and gadgets that they can use to further enhance their blog and thus, bring more traffic to your blog. This in turn will allow more people to read your work. In addition, a blog need not necessarily be personal. Some choose a particular topic and dedicate their blog to it while others choose a variety.

Best Blogging Platforms

There are a number of platforms that bloggers can use to create a place where their work is properly published. With so many sites readily available to writers, it is often hard to find the best one because each portal offers a number of add-ons that can be useful depending on what you prefer.

“Wordpress has both hosted and self-install versions, both free to use. It's one of the best blogging platforms, and the most popular by far. WP is open source and has a big community of people creating new templates and plugins. The hosted version (Wordpress.com) doesn't allow you to put any ads on your blog, while the self-install one gives you full control over your blog.” (Best Blogging Platforms)

“Blogger is a great free blogging platform from Google that offers nice templates, widgets, mobile blogging, and money making opportunities by displaying AdSense ads on your blog. They also offer unlimited bandwidth and let you use your own domain for free.” (Best Blogging Platform)

The reason I left it to just those two particular platforms is because they happen to be the best online. In my opinion, for bloggers who are just starting out, Blogger is your best option. It is easy to use, navigate and understand. Later on, after one is more accustomed with blogging, moving to Wordpress would be more advisable as it looks and feels much more professional than Blogger.

What to Blog About

The hardest part, when it comes to blogging, is deciding on what to blog about. However, there are a bunch of ideas and topics that potential bloggers can get down to blogging about.

“Respond to something elsewhere on the web. Suggest an idea. Interview someone. Blog an event. Ask a question. Pick a fight. Reflect on something. Do something visual. Review something. Make a list. Write a how-to. Let someone else post.” (Ideas for Starting a Blog)

“Before you dive in and commit resources to creating and maintaining a blog, make sure that you are creating content that your audience will want to read, and that also maps back to your goals.” (What to Blog About)

It doesn’t really matter what you blog about in theory, as long as it makes sense, has a point and ultimately, is interesting. Beyond that, the world of blogging is yours to discover and paint. The more unique your posts are, the easier it to attract loyal readers who will come back time and time again to read what you have to say.

The Importance of the Layout

“The blog’s layout and design also plays a big role.  While most of the companies offering free blog hosting offer pre-selected templates, there are also some that allows customization that if you utilize this feature correctly can increase your blog’s traffic.” (Importance of a Blog)

It definitely is important to understand the importance of the layout because this is the first thing a new reader will see and will ultimately decide if they choose to stay and even come back. It is always advisable to keep your blog clean and easy to navigate. The article above insists on adding the following to your blog to help the layout:

• Customize a banner


• Personalizing photos


• Add a favicon


• Check out blog templates, layouts, backgrounds, textures and skins from sites


• Include RSS feeds


• Audio makes your blog more personal


• Advertisements

I hope this information from a number of different sites which I’ve aggregated will be useful and will make you blogging experience easier and effective.

What is your take on blogging? Did you find the material from the sources above useful?