Beginners WordPress for Newbies: What is a Blog Used For?

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WordPress for Beginners: What is a Blog Used for – 5 Useful Tips

By Jan Ashby    jan ashby

What is a Blog Used For – Part 1 – “Possible Options”

What is a blog? There are many attributes of a blog – but certainly a blog is used to communicate one’s message to the world. It is also used to develop LOYALTY and TRUST.  It can also be used to convey a sense of hope, if it is a good blog.

A blog can be a record of one’s personal journey or experience; a blog can be inspirational, hopeful or critical (think political blogs); it can be a humor-filled expose, a travelogue, a journal – it can be filled with revelations, deep insights, or profound truths.
blog writing
It can be a review-style blog filled with commentary by product owners. Or it might be a wonderful photography blog, filled with dazzling images and video.  And certainly, a blog can be used by teachers as a way to instruct.

To be a great blog, it can be any of the above – yet to perform well, it’s a good idea to blog often and include video. It is not necessary for every post and page to feature a video – just most of them.

 

What is a Blog Used For – Part 2 – “Your Purpose”

Web Marketing
Blogs can fulfill many functions; you’d be surprised at what you can blog about. You can for example blog about your travels in Africa , or about a sport you are passionate about. You can write about how you’re volunteering for a local Animal Shelter and inspire others to do the same!

If you’re into a cause, blog about that. Maybe you’re an avid bird-watcher and will be travelling around to various places – document your experience and take some “action shots”. Anything that you’re passionate about is a possibility.

Of course, if you are blogging for a charity then you may like to check this guide (Blogging for your Favorite Charity -). This link contains some good tips on fundraising, how to be prepared to talk to reporters  Public Speaking or in front of a board, grants management, e.g.).

You of course will want to track whether you are meeting your goals (i.e., growing trust in the local community, gaining feedback, sharing information etc.) and to this end you’ll want to PLAN your route as far as the blog is concerned. Getting started with wordpress is not as HARD as you may believe – it simply takes concentration & effort, and to HELP you out I am recommending this WordPress reference .

You’ll want to decide WHO your target audience is, who might contribute to the charity, how to use volunteers, what needs to be achieved with the blog, what content you might already possess that can be re-purposed. There may be annual events for the charity that can be videoblogged about. To read more regarding these kinds of issues, visit http://knowhownonprofit.org/how-to/how-to-create-a-blog-for-your-charity.

What is a Blog Used For – Part 3 “Earning an Income”

When you intend to use a blog for earning income, there are many things you need to do – among these, you will have to:

1) Get into a regular habit of writing
2) Structure your blog to appeal to both Mobile and online readers
3) Create Attention-Pulling headlines
4) Maintain a log book for ideas (every week search the Net)
5) Use google analytics to ascertain which of your posts is most popular
6) Build UP a supply of posts (in case of emergency)
7) Plan your calendar; know which days of the week you’ll be writing
8) Hire assistance (outsource)
9) Have staff for technical problems
10)Lay out your columns *

To get some inspiration for the different types of columns you can feature at your blog, I suggest this resource (a Blog) . It has 30 ideas – one for each day of the month! One of them is “Create a How To Guide“; for this, you can also refer to Hubspot’s tips on using PowerPoint to craft your guide

best-content

Here’s a good article about “evergreen content” – so you can gather more ideas for planning out your content.

 

What is a Blog Used for – Part 4 “Building Trust” – IMPORTANT

Another common purpose of a weblog is to build a relationship with your readers, and to build Trust. If you want to be successful, have integrity (be true to yourself, and be honest with your audience). You want to be as helpful as you can.

You’ll likely want to provide valuable external links to outside websites; in a word, DON’T be afraid to link out to other sites. Your end goal is to be helpful and loyal to your readership ==> (Tip: You can add “no-follow” tag)

It’s not like it was in the “good old days” when you’d walk down to the local restaurant, or hangout, and have coffee with the owner and the townspeople. Back then everybody knew everybody else in town. Now, in today’s world, especially online, you’ve got to enhance your reputation by demonstrating integrity and developing trust with visitors – this issue of developing trust is another BIG thing a blog is used for.

Resources :

See Content Marketing Tips (Jeff Bullas) – EXPERT
and http://www.woodst.com/blog/wood-street-journal/copywriting-web-content/content-marketing-using-content-to-win-business-and-build-trust-part-one


What is a Blog Used For
? – Part 5 “Getting Indexed”

Because blogs are active, it’s easy for them to grab the attention of Google and the other search engines (Bing, Yahoo, Dogpile etc.) – so another important USE of a blog is achieving solid SEO rankings. There are several benefits to this, with two of them being:

1.) When people visit the search engines, they’ll see the link to your website, increasing the chance for traffic to your website. You may like to look into “snippets” – these days, you can use Google Plus and your image will show next to the Google listing 😎
2.) When the search engines spiders come visit your blog, they find the various links at your website and follow them; this then helps your website to be indexed

I would recommend you take the time to perform research for your article, taking notes and organizing your stuff in Editpad, Wordpad or some word processor. Be sure you credit authors, as well. Not giving proper credit is a quick way to lose credibility in your chosen field. 😐

With a blog, you can find an outlet for your interests and you can help others at the same time. You cannot imagine how rewarding it is to see something you’ve written and are PROUD of in the search engine listings. As far as uses, blogs are used for communication, for SEO purposes, for charity work, to build trust, and to run a home business/earn an income. Let yourself imagine what your online presence should be.

Further Reading: What is the Best Blog Platform? 😛 Content Curation – with Heidi Cohen 12 Attributes of a Content Curation Strategy

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