Q: What is a Blog and Why Should I Blog?
Answer: A Blog Is a Tool and It Will Help You Get What You Want In Life…
This has been ask way too many times, and way many ways, “What is a blog?”, “What is blogging?”, “Why should I even start a blog?”
A blog is all the rave these days and will continue to be. I have an interesting theory and bet going with my friends that within 10 years, 90% of the people on the internet will have their own blogs.
In this blog post, I’m going to try to explain to you what a blog is (it’s really not that complicated), how it can help you get anything that you want (lose weight, get a date, become famous, etc…) , and how to start your own blog in under 15 minutes.
What is a blog anyway?
A blog, in its simplest definition, is nothing more than a website that you can publish on. Alright, there you have it – now you know what a blog is 
Alright, to elaborate, you can think of a blog as an online journal – at least that is how blogs started out to be, but people have started using blogs for other commercial purpose.
For the geeky people, a blog is a Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to publish and manage blog content (blog posts, pages, comments, and trackbacks).
What kind of blogs are out there?
As time evolve, people also have used blogs for other purposes, many for business, and many more personal.
Just like there are many types of websites, there are also many types of blogs.
Personal blogs are popping up everyday. In fact, my 60-year old dad has his own travel blog!
In business context, blogs are mostly used as a platform to announce company news (for example, XYZ company is releasing a new product).
However, personal blogs can also be commercialized by placing advertisements on the blogs so these blogs can also generate income – read on to learn more about this if you are interested in this aspect of blogging.
Here are just some of the kinds of blogs you will find on the internet:
Personal blogs
We all know this. Personal diaries, people’s personal rants, etc. Some people start their own personal blog so they can become famous.
News blogs
You don’t need a degree in journalism to start your own news blog. In fact, everybody could be a reporter. Sorry, print newspapers will be out of business some day.
Review blogs
Many review blogs are started because people love the latest techno gizmo, or follow a particular brand and will blog about a new product release. Be careful, though, fake review blogs are also prevalent because online marketers understand how much “trust” consumers have in these review blogs.
Company blogs
Blogs can be setup as a separate “tab” on company website’s navigation menu. The advantage of a blog platform is that they can fire their webmasters because with a blog it is essentially a CMS (Content Management System) and you don’t even need to know HTML to publish something on a blog.
Political blogs
People who are into politics usually have their own blog to express their political view.
Weight loss blogs
An interesting application of the blog is to use it as a tracking tool. Some people use blogs to track their weight loss progress. Same concept applies to people who use blogs to help them get out of debt. Since the blog is usually “public” it provides some sort of accountability to the blogger.
Why Should I Blog?
It is like asking your mother, “Why should I keep a diary?” and your mother tells you “Just do what I said.”
Well, I’m not your mother, and I will give you a perfectly explainable answer that even if you are just a 3 year old you would understand and would want to start a blog right away:
A Blog Will Help You Get What You Want
When you blog, you will be helping someone else if not yourself.
Think about what you want, what your next goal is.
Is it to get out of debt? Lose weight? Become famous? Make money? Rant (so you can feel better)? Improve your writing skill? Make more sales? _____? (fill in the blank yourself).
Well, all of the above desires can be achieved if you simply start a blog, and I will show you how.
If you want to get out of debt, lose weight, or improve a certain aspect of your life, your blog will be a tool to hold you accountable, responsible, and to keep track of your progress and the actions you take.
It is very easy – you start a blog, publish your plan on what actions you would take to get out of debt, or to lose weight, tell a few buddies of yours that you have challenged yourself to something you’ve always wanted to do for the longest time – they will probably laugh at you, and said “Yeah, right, like we’ve never heard that time before”, and be in complete shock because they know you are dead serious this time around when you show them your blog.
It is this public humility that is keeping you accountable. Sometimes we all need a little kick-in-the-butt to get us do what we should be doing.
Now, if you want to become famous, generate more leads, or make money (or blog for financial gain), your blog will be a tool to help educate your prospect on why they should choose you over others. It can also be a tool to get your sales message across to your prospects.
This is also very easy – Let’s continue on with our previous blog example about you starting a blog to help you lose weight. Let’s say after 3 months of blogging and following your action and tracking your weight loss progress, in fear of public humility, you are actually successful, you lost weight, you are in great shape, and mentally sharp. You just shut your buddies up because you did what you said you would do, with the help of a blog, of course .
Now, if you want to make some money off your blog, you could have placed advertisements on your blog while you were going through your own case study and make some money that way, or you could also have written an honest review on 8 minute abs versus 6 minute abs and how they all suck and people should just buy your 3-week soup diet recipe that helped you lose 10 pounds without exercising!
You see what we did here? We had just turned a blog of a personal purpose (lose weight) into a commercial purpose (creating value, make money, and perhaps a little bit of fame).
Think about how much benefit your blog would be to other people who share similar goal or desire as you, who may find you and/or your blog to be an inspiration and an example for others.
Bottom line, you should start a blog for your own personal or business transformation – and I’m here to help you succeed at that, because I want to hear your success stories as they are the biggest compliment to my blog.
How do I start a blog?
First you need to decide what your blog will be about, what its purpose will be. Try to stick to one topic per blog if you can.
Next you need to decide if you want to use a free blog service, or set up your own blog on your domain name.
I personally use this procedure to set up any new blog in 15 minutes.
Now, you are not alone out there. For whatever reason that you have decided to start a blog – I’ll be here to help you personally every step of the way.
Make sure you subscribe to my blog and feel free to ask your questions using the comment form below.
2 Responses
Thank you for the information. My questions are: Who reads other people’s blogs? How do they find them?
Thank you,
Leslie
Hey Leslie,
People usually read blogs that are related to their interests.
Usually they will find you via the search engines (ie. how did you find my blog?).
Blogs are very search engine friendly – meaning as long as you put out content on your blog, they become searchable by other people.
There are definitely more proactive way to finding your readers and it simple boils down to advertising… word of mouth, participating in forums, buying ad spaces on related blogs, etc.
One free way to advertise is to get your blog post syndicated by other related blogs. See this video here:
http://www.howtostartablog.com/syndicate-blog-content-blog-carnival.php
Hope that helps to get you started,
Steven Chang