Thinking about starting a blog? There are just so many blogs available for reading on so many different topics that it is almost mind boggling. Trends in the coming year show that longer blog posts are doing better in search engines than in past years. Video content boosts a post’s performance.
REASONS
The big blogging channels are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube but gaining in popularity is Pinterest. These channels have their advocates and foes. They each offer a means for expressing yourself and for socializing. Why would you want to create your own blog when these blogging channels are already well established? For the most part, the answer is that you have more options on your own blog. You set your blog’s policies. Whereas, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest have policies in place that prevent such things as spamming.
YOU LOVE WRITING
If you love writing, having your own blog enables you to write to your heart’s content without guidelines and character limitations. If you write posts on a regular basis, you can work on your writing skills. My mother did that when she was in college. As a Humanities student, writing was a huge part of her college experience. She often wrote her “homework” in a blog post before submitting to the professor. These articles are still online and she graduated seven years ago, so it’s a nice archive of posts that she could possibly use in other ways than first intended.
BUILD YOUR OWN TRIBE
Having your own blog enables you to build your own tribe. Your tribe will read your posts and leave comments in much the same way as on the “big” blogging channels. The difference is that if your tribe saves a link to your homepage and if you send an email reminder each time you publish a new post, you’ll have a group of followers who don’t have to wade through hundreds if not thousands of other posts to find yours. We all have experienced a blogging channel’s change in algorithm that causes posts to not be seen by the fans who want to see them. But that’s another story.
BUILD YOUR WEB SKILLS
While you learn to create your own blogging channel and build up a tribe, you’ll also be acquiring new knowledge about web building and other technical know-how. Perhaps one day you might be able to monetize that knowledge as a webmaster and teach others how to start a blog. Creating your own blog may inspire you to learn new self-organization techniques, the importance of regular content creation, how to manage your tribe, and much more.
EARN SOME MOOLAH
But, for many people, blogging becomes a way to earn a living. It’s very important to those people. They don’t want to just cover their costs, they want to make a profit they can live off. To do that, you need to stick with your blogging routine for quite a while. You need to know how to market yourself and your blog.
HAVE FUN
Of course, some blogs are created just for fun. Perhaps you travel a lot and just want to share your stories and photos with friends and family. You don’t plan on monetizing the blog at all. Maintaining a blog just for fun still requires effort but you won’t necessarily feel competitive about having the best blog in your niche. You can work with other bloggers and share content.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Read the other articles in my Make Money $ Blogging series. Read blogging articles on other sites. As a matter of fact, you should read as many blogging articles as you can before starting your own blog, and then continue to read blog articles. Why? Because there isn’t any one blog post that covers everything there is to know about starting or monetizing a blog.
USE BLUEHOST
Consider using the same blog host that I use: Bluehost. They are the #1 recommended web host by WordPress.org. You will get a 1-click WordPress installation through Bluehost. They offer 24/7 support. I haven’t needed any support but it’s available. There’s a money-back guarantee where you try Bluehost and love it or get a refund within 30 days of signing up. And every website hosted at Bluehost is given a free SSL certificate (this is a great protection for your site visitors).
