The Balance Ad BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS BECOMING AN OWNER What Is Blogging? Definition and Examples of Blogging By Randy Duermyer Updated on November 29, 2022 Reviewed by Khadija Khartit Fact checked by Vikki Velasquez In This Article What Is Blogging? How Blogging Works Blogging vs. Traditional Websites Pros and Cons of Blogging Requirements for a Blog Man edits photos on his laptop for his blog PHOTO: BURAK KARADEMIR / GETTY IMAGES Blogging refers to writing, photography, and other media that's self-published online. Blogging started as an opportunity for individuals to write diary-style entries, but it has since been incorporated into websites for many businesses. The hallmarks of blogging include frequent updates, informal language, and opportunities for readers to engage and start a conversation. Here's an overview of what a blog is, why it's popular, and tips for starting your own blog. What Is Blogging? The word blog is actually a shortened form of its original name, "weblog." These weblogs allowed early internet users to "log" the details of their day in diary-style entries. Blogs often allow readers to comment, so as they became more common, communities sprung up around popular blogs. Note The content of blogs varies significantly. For example, travel blogs may feature many pictures with few written passages, while political blogs may weigh in with wordy takes on the news of the day. The popularity of YouTube and similar sites also gave rise to video blogging, or "vlogging." Like most internet-based innovations, many entrepreneurs saw marketing potential in having a blog, and the adoption of blogging among the business community helped further increase the popularity of the medium. Not only can a blog be used for marketing a business, but it can also become a home business in and of itself.

1. BLOGGING BASICS 101

2. WHY YOU SHOULD CREATE A BLOG AND
JOIN THE BLOGGING COMMUNITY?
1.Blogging has quickly become one of the most
popular ways of communicating and spreading
information and news.
2.It’s a great way to express yourself and also a
fantastic way to share information with others
3.You become a better person and a better writer.
4.You can make money doing it.

3. IS BLOGGING DIFFICULT?
YES…
because it requires lots of coding skills: HTML,
CSS AND PHP
NO…
Because today starting a blog can be as simple
as creating a document in Word.

4. IS BLOGGING COMPLETELY FREE?
“Yes.” You can create a blog free if you want to.

5. HOW TO START A BLOG?
1.Choose your preferred blog platform.
2.Choose web hosting for your blog.
3.Setting up a blog on your own domain.
4.Design your blog.
5.Useful resources for blogging.

6. STEP 1. CHOOSE YOUR PREFERRED BLOGGING
PLATFORM
WHY WORDPRESS?
1. Super easy set-up and is free to use.
2. Tons of free themes and layouts.
3. There’s a massive support forum in
case you get stuck.
4. Your blog will be fast and it’ll look
functional and form-perfect.
5. People can interact with you easily.
Your content can be shared,
commented on..

7. STEP 2. SELF-HOSTING OR A FREE
ALTERNATIVE?
This is the biggest decision you will have to make
before going any further…
You need to decide whether to pay for your blog or
grab one for free.

8. STEP 2. SELF-HOSTING OR A FREE
ALTERNATIVE?
WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger offer free blogs for anyone.
It’s perfect for those who aren’t super serious about
blogging.

9. DOWNSIDE OF FREE ALTERNATIVES
1. You won’t be able to get your OWN domain name.
On a free blog, your blog’s web address (URL) will be ugly
 yourblog.wordpress.com
 yourblog.blogspot.com
 yourblog.tumblr.com

10. DOWNSIDE OF FREE ALTERNATIVES
2. Limits and more limits
 you can’t monetize
 you don’t have the possibility to upload all those videos
and images you want show
 you don’t have access to the free themes offered

11. DOWNSIDE OF FREE ALTERNATIVES
3. You DON’T OWN your blog
Since it is hosted on someone else’s web property, they can
delete your blogs if they want to…

12. WHY YOU SHOULDN’T CREATE A BLOG ON
A FREE PLATFORM?
No Control – Your blog is being hosted on another
website (e.g., wordpress.com, tumblr.com, blogspot.com).
If you violate their terms of service (even by accident), they
can shut down your blog any time.
No Customization – You can’t use all the free plugins or
themes. Heck, you can’t even use custom themes to really
make your blog stand out.
Other Limitations – Free space of only 3GB. For posts,
images, and perhaps videos—that’s just not enough.

13. STEP 3. START A BLOG ON YOUR OWN
DOMAIN
DOMAIN- the URL of your website.
ex: Google.com; Facebook.com
HOSTING- the company that puts your website
up on the internet so everyone else can see it.

14. STEP 3. START A BLOG ON YOUR OWN
DOMAIN
Your domain name is important because:
•It’s your “first impression” to website visitors.
•It affects your rankings in search engines.
•It defines your brand.

15. DOMAIN TIPS
•Choose brandable over generic. A brandable
domain name is unique and stands out from
the competition, while a generic domain name
is usually stuffed with keywords and
unmemorable. (For example,
www.LisasRocks.com is more brandable than
www.RockCollectingBlog.com.)

16. DOMAIN TIPS
•Keep it concise. According to research from
Gaebler.com, a magazine for entrepreneurs, the
top-100 websites have approximately 6
characters in their domain name.

17. DOMAIN TIPS
•Easy to type and pronounce. Your domain name
should roll off the tips of your fingers and the
tips of your tongue without any problem

18. WHAT IS WEB HOSTING AND WHY DO YOU NEED
IT?
Web Hosting is the service that keeps your blog
accessible for everyone. It stores all the files, images
and content that your blog has and displays it to the
visitors.
If you don’t have a web host, you won’t be able to set
up a blog for others to see nor will you be able to use
your own domain name.

19. THERE ARE GOOD & BAD HOSTING COMPANIES
Choosing your host is one of the most important aspect of
creating your blog.
Bad web hosts cause most of the issues people have related to
their blog. For example, unhelpful customer service and hidden
fees are quite common…
Many cheap hosts also overuse servers to cut their costs—and
that leads to your site potentially not working just because
many people are visiting some other site. Only some cheaper
hosts control the resources well, so that your website always
works right.

20. STEP 3. START A BLOG ON YOUR OWN
DOMAIN
1. Sign up with a web hosting
(Self-hosting or Free alternative)
2. Choose the hosting plan
ex. iPage, Bluehost
***choose from BASIC, PLUS, and PRIME
3. ***Choose the domain name you want
It doesn’t have to end with .com, so you can also use different endings
(such as: .net, .org, .co.uk, etc.)
*** if self-hosting

21. STEP 3. START A BLOG ON YOUR OWN
DOMAIN
4. Complete your registration
• Domain privacy – When you register a domain name, all
your information is added to a public database. If you
don’t want that, you can tick this option, and BlueHost
will appear as the registrant (you still have full control
and ownership of the domain). So, this option protects
you from spammers.
• Site Backup Pro – While WordPress is quite secure, it’s a
good choice to sign up for Site Backup Pro just in case.
If you are scared that you’ll mess something up, tick
that box to have backups available.

22. INSTALL WORDPRESS WITH ONE-CLICK
INSTALLATION
5.step-by-step guide to install WordPress on
Bluehost
• 1) Login to your Bluehost control panel at:
my.bluehost.com
• 2) Once you’re logged in, you’ll be redirected to your
Control Panel. From there, choose “Install WordPress”.
• 3) This leads you to the next page where you can
choose your blog destination URL. Use your root
domain (www.YourNewDomain.com, not
www.YourNewDomain.com/blog/).

23. •Log into your new blog
you should now have a blank WordPress site installed,
along with your admin access username and password
Start by typing in your new web address
(www.YourNewBlog.com) to see what your WordPress blog looks
like.
Next, log in to your admin panel by going to an address
like: http://YourNewBlog.com/wp-admin/.

24. STEP 4. CUSTOMIZING AND CHOOSING A BLOG
THEME
various admin menu items:
• Dashboard – This is the page you see right after logging in.
• Posts – Here you can write and publish new blog posts and view and
edit old ones.
• Media – This is your media library with all the images, PDFs, videos,
etc. you’ve uploaded.
• Links – Many blogs don’t use this at all.
• Pages – Here you can write and publish new pages and view and edit
old ones.

25. STEP 4. CUSTOMIZING AND CHOOSING A BLOG
THEME
various admin menu items:
• Comments – Everything related to comments.
• Appearance – Here you can change what your blog looks like.
• Plugins – Here you can add and remove plugins, which add functionality to
your blog.
• Users – If you create your content with others, you can add them as users
here, so they can edit posts.
• Tools – Here are some additional tools you can use for publishing posts.
• Settings – Here you can edit your blog’s settings.

26. CHOOSE A FREE THEME FOR YOUR BLOG
The good news:
• You can do it all on your own.
• You can get a FREE WordPress theme that makes your
blog look great.
• You can change it later (just don’t change it so often
that your readers can’t keep up).

27. CHOOSE A FREE THEME FOR YOUR BLOG
The bad news:
• You can spend a LONG time looking for the perfect
theme.
• A WordPress theme is responsible for how your blog
looks, so it’s an important decision.

28. HERE’S WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A WORDPRESS
THEME:
•Simplicity: Unclear design makes it difficult for
readers to navigate your blog.
•Responsiveness: The theme needs to adjust its
layout across different screen sizes and
devices. In the highly mobile world we live in,
responsiveness is a necessity.

29. HERE’S WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A WORDPRESS
THEME:
•Speed: Although most themes don’t slow down
your blog significantly, it’s still good to test it. To
test a theme’s speed, use the Pingdom Website
Speed Test, enter the URL of the theme’s demo,
and see how long the page takes to load. If the
load time is longer than three seconds, you might
want to find a different theme (ideally, the load
time is below two seconds).

30. HERE’S WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A WORDPRESS
THEME:
•Ease of customization: It should be easy to
customize the theme—otherwise, you’ll
struggle every time you want to tweak
something. Fortunately, many themes offer
plenty of easy customization options.

31. HERE’S WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A WORDPRESS
THEME:
•SEO readiness: The theme shouldn’t make a
huge difference to search engines. But it’s still
better to choose a theme that’s designed with
SEO in mind. (Look for “SEO Optimized” or “SEO
ready” in the theme description.)

32. HERE’S WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A WORDPRESS
THEME:
•Security: Themes don’t generally create security
issues. But it’s anyway good to check some
user reviews and comments—and while doing
that, check if people have had security
problems with the theme.

33. STEP 5. ADDING POSTS AND PAGES
Go back to your WordPress admin panel
(http://your_domain.com/wp-admin/) and then
to “Posts » Add New” (or “Pages » Add New)
from the left sidebar.

34. THE GUI
• Title Area: This is where you write the title of
your post.
• Content Area: This is where the body text of
your post goes. The whole area works just like
text editing in Word or Pages. You can also add
images and other media to your post by
clicking the “Add Media” button.
• Standard Editing Tools: Here are options like
bold, italic, lists, paragraphs, and headlines.
• Publishing Tools: This is where you get your
post shown to the world; chief among them is
the big blue “Publish” button. You can also set a
publication date to schedule your post in the
future or save the post as a draft for more
editing.

35. PUBLISH YOUR POST (OR PAGE)
When you’re done working with your post, click the
“Publish” button and then the “View post” link that’s
going to appear at the top of the page