It has been brought to my attention that I have never made a post on simply how to blog.

I actually thought I did but after reviewing the post on this blog I saw that I really didn’t cover the basics of how to blog.

Basically blogging is just writing that is shown on the internet for the whole world to see. That is all it is and to blog all you have to do is write.

The key is to (as Wizzer would say), “Do It Now!”

That’s right to get started just write, don’t worry about RSS, SEO, widgets, plugins or anything else just get your first post up and available for the world to see.

Why do I say the secret of how to blog is just getting that first post up there?

Simple a lot of people want to blog but they don’t have any idea what to blog about. Getting that first post up is a major step in blogging and it could be in a niche that will be profitable for you or is could just be about the weather but if you can’t make one post then you will have a hard time posting every week.

This doesn’t mean that you should blog about just anything, if you want a profitable blog you need to stick to subjects that people read but this can come later.

The key point is to get comfortable with writing a post. This can be on a free service like WordPress.com or you can install WordPress on your site.

Please note that I only recommend free services for getting started I don’t recommend them for running a profitable blog because of the limitations in what you can do, but for starting out the key thing is to get started.

The more post you write the better you will get at coming up with ideas and the more comfortable you will be at entering your posts on your blog.

Once you are comfortable creating post it is time to get serious, you need to find a topic that you are interested in that can be made profitable. This is called finding your niche.

Once you find a niche you like that you know people look for you can just start blogging and hope that you will turn up in the search engines or you can do some keyword research and target the keywords that people are searching to get targeted traffic to your blog. I have actually seen both ways work but if you the target the keywords people are searching for you will get visitors to your site much faster.

The reason that the just start blogging method will work is because if you create enough posts on any topic you are sure to cover some of the keywords people are searching for and this will get you some ranking in the search engines. But if you know your keywords and work on them you will find traffic coming to your site much, much faster.

With that said there are a couple of things that really contribute to the demise of a blog.

1. Burnout

2. Giving up

Burnout comes when you post constantly and you end up feeling obligated to post every single day or multiple times per day. This makes it seem like work instead of fun. Blogging should be fun! Yes, it is good to post everyday but if you get burnt out and stop posting will you still get traffic? That depends a lot on how the blog was set up, but we aren’t covering that here.

To avoid burnout write when you are inspired to write, this can be one post per day, one post per week or 20 posts in one day. When you have extra posts schedule those to be added to your blog in the future instead of posting them all in one day. This way you are covered if you feel like taking a day off.

Giving up, a lot of bloggers give up because they don’t see a lot of readers and think what they are doing is just a waste of time. I hate to say this, but it might be a waste of time in that niche or it could just be that you haven’t cracked the keywords that you need in the search engines yet.

They keep writing posts and when they look at their blog they don’t see comments and they don’t see sales through their affiliate links. This actually adds to the burnout because it is harder to write when you don’t think anyone is reading it.

But here a not so secret, all blogs start with very little traffic, very few readers and very few comments on the posts. From looking at my traffic stats I average about 1 comment for every 500 visitors and most of those are from regular readers. If you have done your homework for the niche and keywords you will end up with visitors sooner or later so just keep posting and use some of the other techniques to get traffic to your site.

How To Blog synopsis:

Do it now, get your first post up. Don’t worry about appearance or anything else that can come later.

Your topic should be something you love or at least like this will help you avoid burnout.

Once you are comfortable writing a blog you should do some niche research and keyword research but if you aren’t comfortable writing something for the whole world to see you probably shouldn’t be blogging.

Once you have found a niche you can work in it is time to actually set up your blog the right way and get your traffic from the search engines, social sites, RSS feeds and anywhere else you can get it from but the key on how to blog is to get your first post up for the world to see.

As you probably know every blogger out there (or at least a vast majority of bloggers) are looking to make some type of income with their blogs.

There is nothing wrong with this but the typical technique used is to put up a blog throw some advertising on it and expect instant income.  Isn’t that what all the over-hyped products tell you?

The average results for this type of attempt is usually the blogger makes nothing, nada, zip and quite often it ends up costing money.

Now, don’t get me wrong I do believe you need to spend some money to make money.  If you aren’t spending money then you are spending your time doing the work, either way it costs you.

But that is getting off the point.  There are basically two different types of blog formats that can create a good income for you:

1. Authority type blog – this is a blog that usually ends up being a very large blog with lots of content on one subject.  Make that good content on one subject.  The goal here is to dominate the subject, build a loyal following and monetize buy either selling directly to your followers or through affiliate programs.
   • This type of blog brands you as an expert of that subject.  With the authority type of blog you need to pay close attention to your content.  It can’t be a PLR article that provides bad information (yes, a lot of them do).  It needs to be content that provides reliable information or you will find that you end up with a bad reputation in the subject which makes it hard for you to sell or even refer people to products.
   • This leaves you with advertising to monetize your blog.  If you have a bad reputation your traffic will drop and your advertisers will go away which leaves you with only the advertising systems that pay you pennies per click and since your traffic is dropping they won’t pay that well.
   • Good content in the key to keeping people coming back to your blog.  People reading and liking your content is the key to getting traffic from social bookmarking services.  If they don’t like your content they are not going to bookmark it, are they?
   • To summarize the authority type blog needs good content to succeed (preferably a lot of it) so make sure you KNOW the content is good before it is published on your blog.
2. Mass production blogs – This is where you put up a lot of blogs usually targeted at a few long tail keywords.  The goal here is to rank for the keywords you selected and drive traffic to these blogs to create an income from them. 
   • This income from mass products blogs usually isn’t very good on a per blog basis but once you get enough of them going you can make a decent income.  For example:  if you are making $20 per month from a blog that isn’t much money but what if you have 100 of them? Or 200 of them? Or 1000 of them?  You can see the income quickly increases.
   • The main problem with this type blog is that there are a lot of people trying to do this with private label content they purchase.  Which is actually a good way to do it BUT most of them don’t change the content, they just publish it the way it is and a lot of them buy content that is pure garbage and don’t check it or change it.
   • Eventually what happens is the search engines get wise to this technique and the blogs stop turning up in the top results of the search engines.  No search engine results means no traffic. No traffic means no income.
   • So again, you can see we are brought back to your content.  Private label content is fine to use but you MUST edit it or hire some one to edit it for you.  Yes, you can get software programs that will change your article but most of the time the results are a terrible article.

Your articles should be edited by some one that has at least a little knowledge of the subject you are working in.  This will ensure that you don’t publish garbage on your site and this can make the difference between success and failure for your blog.

If you actually read this article you will know that the success of your blog doesn’t rely on content but on quality content.  If you are using private label content change it, make sure it is good information.  If you are allowing other people to post on your blog read their posts before you approve them.  Content may be king but that king could have a very poor or debt ridden kingdom. With quality content you can be the king of a thriving kingdom.

Blog marketing is using blogs to create a form of income or sometimes it is used as a term for promoting your blog.

We will start with using blogs as a form of income.

There numerous ways to create a money making blog, you can use any or all of the following methods:

• Sell adverting – this can be placing advertising on your site with a service like Google Adsense or you can sell directly to businesses.
• Promote affiliate products – Affiliate products can cover just about anything. Using services like ClickBank, Chitka, Commission Junction, Amazon, etc. and other independent sites you can find a product that matches almost every niche. These will range from digital information (usually the highest percentage commissions) to physical products to automobiles.
• Lead capture – this is where you get paid for getting someone to sign up somewhere. Good examples are credit card companies and insurance companies that will pay you when ever some one clicks on you affiliate link and fills out a form on their sites. This can vary from a few cents per signup to twenty dollars or more per sign up.
• Selling products directly – this is where you either have your own product that you created or you have a product that you have a license to sell. The largest difference between selling your own product and selling affiliate products is that you get to keep 100% when you sell your own product.
• Traffic collection – this is a form of blog marketing that is similar to all of the above but you don’t make your money directly from your blog. Instead you use it as a targeted traffic source to build a reputation for another site. This site is an example of that. This blog is targeted at people that want to learn how to blog but I don’t sell anything directly from this site. Yes, there are affiliate links but the main purpose of this site is to find people that are interested in creating money making blogs and get them to purchase my product at Blogging Beginners. A side note here, there will still be a lot of good information on this site but Blogging Beginners will have much, much more and go into details. But you have to have good content if you expect any blog marketing method to succeed.

Now to the other way I have seen the term blog marketing used. Some people (not that many but a few) use the term blog marketing to refer to the act of marketing a blog. In other words, this is the method(s) they use to get their blog noticed.

There are a number of ways this is done:

• Search engine Optimization (SEO) – blogs especially WordPress blogs are excellent platforms to create sites that rank high in the search engines. This is due, in a large part, to the plugins you can use to customize your site.
• Web 2.0 – This are socially interactive websites where you can join or create communities, find friends or followers. These are usually used to inform people in your group (your friends and followers) about thing you find interesting and of course you find your own blog interesting.
• Social Bookmarking – These sites were originally designed to let you save your favorite sites on the web so you could access them from any computer with internet access in the world. They evolved into sites that let you share your favorites with other people with the same interests and some even evolved to the point where you can rate the links. By getting your blog listed in social bookmarking site you are promoting your blog. The more people that bookmark your blog the more traffic you will get.
• Back Links – are links from other sites pointing to your blog. By getting a lot of back links not only will you get traffic from the links themselves but you will also boost your search engine results.
• Directory submission – there are thousands of directories that cater to specific niches and directories like Technorati that cater to blogs. By submitting to these directories you are not only marketing your blog but you are creating back links and (depending on the directory) traffic.

These are the most common methods used to market blogs but there are others such as press releases, contests and more. Your best bet is to use as many as you can to get your blog noticed. If you are looking for a course that teaches all of these step by step check out Blogging Beginners