All You Need To Know About Blogs, Bloggers And Blogging

All You Need To Know About Blogs, Bloggers And Blogging

A blog or weblog is a website that publishes or features articles, which are called blog posts or entries, written by a single person or a group of people that make use of any or a combination of the following:

• Straight texts
• Photographs or images - PhotoBlog
• Video clips - VideoBlog or Vlog
• Audio files - AudioBlog or Podcast

Blogs are usually presented and arranged in reverse chronological order, the latest posts being displayed first. People normally use or write blogs for the following purposes:

• As a online journal or a web diary
• As a content management system
• As a online publishing platform

A typical blog consists the following components:

• Post date - the date and time of the blog entry
• Category or Label - the category or label that the blog belongs to
• Title - the title of the blog
• Main body - the main content of the blog
• RSS and trackback - links the blog back from other sites
• Comments - comments added by readers
• Permalinks - the URL of the full article
• Archive - filing of previous posts
• Other optional items - calendar, archives, blogrolls, and other add-ons or plug-ins

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A blog can also have a page footer, usually found at the bottom of the blog or each post, that shows the post date, the author, email, the category or label and comments.

There are numerous types of blogs. However, nowadays, the differentiating line is getting unclear, various topics can be found written on a single blog. Below are the different types of blogs based on specific topics:

• Political blog - on news, politics, policies and other issue-based blogs. Currently, the most popular blogs are about the Campaign for the US Presidential Election, 2008.
• Personal blog - also known as online diary or journal that may include an individual's daily experience, complaints, poems, thoughts, encounters or communications between friends and family members.
• Topical blog - with focus on a particular niche that is pertaining to or dealing with matters of current or local interest, usually technical in nature.
• Health blog - on specific health issues. Medical blog is a major category of Health Blog that features medical news and updates from health care professionals and/or actual patient cases.
• Literary blog - also known as LitBlog. LitBlog focuses primarily on the topic of literature. LitBloggers may write about fiction, non-fiction, poetry, literary journals, literary criticism and more.
• Travel blog - with focus on a traveler's stories on journeys to and experiences of various countries.
• Research blog - on academic issues such as research notes and discoveries.
• Legal blog - on laws and legal affairs; also known as 'blawgs'.
• Media blog - focus on mass media; usually exclusive for a newspaper or a television network.
• Religious blog - on religious topics.
• Educational blog - on educational applications, usually written by students and teachers.
• Collaborative or collective blog - a specific topic written by a group of people.
• Directory blog - contains a collection of numerous web sites.
• Business blog - used by entrepreneurs, companies and corporate employees to promote their businesses or talk about their work.
• Personification blog - focus on non-human being or objects, such as dogs or cats.
• Spam blogs - used for promoting affiliate websites, also known as 'splogs'.

Blogging is normally done on a regular basis, almost daily. The term 'blogging' refers to the act of authoring, maintaining or adding an article or post to an existing blog. While the term 'blogger' refers to a person or a group of people who keeps a blog.

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Take A Break! Watch A Funny Video Below On "Discovering A Way To Create Instant VideoBlog" (viewed more 390,000 times).

As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. More and more blogs are being added each day. People who read blogs have also increased significantly. According to a Pew Research Center Survey published in January 2005 on 'The State of Blogging', 27 percent of Internet users in America read blogs.

This figure is continuously growing, as the availability of various blog software, tools, and other applications make it easier for just about anyone to update or maintain the blog, even for those with little or no technical background.

Because of this trend, bloggers can now be categorized into 4 main types:

• Personal bloggers - people who focus on a diary or on any topic that an individual feels strongly about.
• Business bloggers - people who focus on promoting their businesses, products and services.
• Organizational bloggers - people who focus on internal or external communication in an organization or a community.
• Professional bloggers - people who are hired or paid to do blogging.

Problogging, Professional Blogging, refers to blogging for a profit. Probloggers, Professional Bloggers, are people who make money from Blogging, as an individual blog publisher or a hired blogger.

Below are just some of the many money-making opportunities for ProBloggers:

• Advertising programs
• RSS advertising
• Sponsorship
• Affiliate programs
• Digital assets
• Blog network writing gigs
• Business blog writing gigs
• Donations
• Flipping blogs - buy a blog, update it, build traffic and sell it for profit.
• Merchandising
• Consulting and speaking

The following are some of the things you may want consider if you want to be successful in ProBlogging:

• Be patient - ProBlogging requires a lot of time and effort, not to mention a long-term vision.
• Know your audience - Targeting a specific readers or group is a key to building viewership and traffic.
• Be an expert - Focus on a specific niche topic that you are familiar with and strive to be the 'must-read' blog on that topic.
• Diversify - Experiment with various advertisements and affiliate networks and programs that allow you to make money online, aside from blogging.
• 'Look and Feel' of your blog - Focus on the layout. White spaces, line spacings, paragraphs and bigger fonts make a blog welcoming to read.

Certainly, it is possible to earn money from blogs. One just needs to be passionate, be patient, take risks and the right attitude in order to be a successful problogger.

Take A Look At - Atomic Blogging - On How You Can Optimize Your Blog.

Funny Video On "Discovering A Way To Create Instant VideoBlog".