This beginners guide to blogging will give you a short, but comprehensive overview of this powerful form of online content publishing. My goal is to give you enough information to understand what blogging is and, at the same time, point you towards some helpful resources to help you get started.

Many people have some idea of what a blog is: after all, there are over 100 million blogs in existence. Put simply, a blog (which is the abbreviation for the term weblog) is a place where a writer can publish content (writing, audio, images, or video) on the World Wide Web. Blogs are noteworthy because of this ability to mix types of content as well as incorporating links to other websites. Another common characteristic of a blog is that the contents of a blog are published in the form of an online journal, with the latest material appearing first and with older material being published in reverse chronological order.

People write blogs about virtually any topic under the sun. Common blog subject areas include:

Politics
Celebrities
TV, movies, or music
Sports
News
Hobbies
Making money online
Personal journals

You need three things to create a blog:

(1) A blogging platform (sometimes called a content management system)
(2) Topics to write about
(3) At least one writer

In more detail:

A blogging platform is a website powered by software that allows you to publish content with a pre-determined "look and feel". If you are new to blogging and you are learning the ropes, then your two best choices for blogging are Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. These two platforms are available at no cost to you, simple to use and do not take very long to start up. Other platforms are available, including services that require you to pay for their use, but blogger Michael Martine has written a good post that suggests that a free blogging service may be the best place to start: http://www.michaelmartine.com/ 2008/01/07/starter-blog/

Topics: I've suggested several blog topic areas earlier in this article. You can be very general or very specific in what you blog (the verb commonly used for publishing content in a blog) about. To get some idea as to the wide diversity of topics that people blog about, try checking out Technorati: http://www.technorati.com. Google Blog Search (http://blogsearch.google.com) is very similar to the standard Google Search webpage, but it focuses specifically on blogs.

The writer (or blogger): as important as the first time items were, you cannot have a blog without a writer! You may be the only writer of your blog at the beginning (but more authors can be added over time). The best thing that I can suggest to you is to practice the fundamentals of writing and to read as many other blogs as you can. These two things, along with talking to other bloggers about what they do, are the best things that you can do to develop your blogging skills. One further place to learn about blogging, the best collection of blogging tips, advice, and information on the Internet, can be found here: http://www.problogger.net/arch ives/2006/02/14/blogging-for-b eginners-2/

I hope that this very brief beginners guide to blogging is useful to you, the person who is interested in blogging. Don't just take my word for it, however. Check out the resources that I've listed to get even better information. Good luck!

Learn more about this author, Mark Dykeman.
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