Chapter 1: What are Blog and Blogging Phenomenon?

What is a Blog?

A blog is a website made up of short, frequently updated posts written by the website owner. The person is known as blogger.
“Blogging” is the act of writing and publishing blog posts. These actions had a huge impact on the way information is presented, published and consumed on the internet. Unlike many online developments that turn out to be just fads, blogs are most definitely here to stay.
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History of Blogging

The first few blogs appeared on the web at the end of 1990s, no one could have predicated the amazing growth they would experience over the next few years.
Blogs started as a simple, user-friendly way for people to publish on the Net and regularly update their thoughts and views, information that are relevant to their readers and also links to other websites. However, these early blogs were mostly produced by people with a lot of Programming knowledge and they catered to a narrow audience of technically minded people.
Finally, in 1999 an easy to use online application called blogger made blogging accessible to anyone, and this new technology really started to take off. When mighty Google bought Blogger in 2003, the search engine secured the future popularity of blogging as an online activity for millions of people. The number of blogs on the internet soared and blogging officially become an online phenomenon.
Blogging had arrived and arrived with a bang!
Since then, blogging has continued to grow in leaps and bounds becoming more and more popular as time goes by. There are no signs of this incredible trend slowing down.
A new blog is created every second.
Bloggers add more than 33,000 new blog posts every hour.
Plus the internet big boys have all joined in. Yahoo, MSN and AOL are all joining Google Blogger in taking blogging to the masses.
The result of this blog explosion is that everyone from millionaires to work-at-home mummy to carpenter to directors of fortune 500 companies can now have their own blog.

What is the New Age Blog?

A blog can be a stand-alone website or part of a larger website which made up of short articles of pieces of information that usually contain links to other relevant articles or website.
These posts are written by the website owner or by an appointed person on a regular basis with the most recent post appearing at the top of the page. Blogging software automatically archives each post by date and often by category, so it is easy to find older posts. This reverse chronological content system and automatic archiving make blogs different from regular websites.
Another difference is that the comments system common to most blogs which allows bloggers to have conversations with their readers by letting visitors to post their own comments or views on the topics being discussed.
Blogging allows anyone and everyone to have a voice online, no matter what is their level of technical knowledge. This influx of fresh voice onto the internet combined with the open communication, blogging has thus helped to stop web from being dominated by large corporations.

Blogs have become flexible tools with many different uses. Most importantly, for our purposes - Blogs have become a highly effective business tool. Both online and offline businesses can use blogs to take their products and services to a wider audience, increasing their traffic, leads and sales. There are even bloggers today whose sole source of income comes from blogging.
However, before we start to explore on how blog can benefit your business, it is important that you understand the reason why blog have become so popular.

Why Blog & Blogging?

Bloggers and their readers love to read blogs, for a number of reasons.
One of the key reasons is that there are a lot of very good blog writers out there; all sharing their opinions, knowledge and advice on topics people are interested in reading about.
It is the human aspect of blogs that draws many people to them. Bloggers tend to write in a very personal and informal style, which is in contrast to the many more corporate and faceless websites out there.
Another very popular feature of blogging is its conversational aspect. Many blogs allow visitors to leave comments on what they had read and other readers can then reply to these comments and continue the discussion. Popular blogs often create a sense of community because the same people return again and again to post comments and connect with other people interested in the same topics.
Blogs also offer people with new fresh opinions, a change from the main stream media and online news websites. Since blog posts are usually brief, regularly updated and easy to read, many people now read their favourite blogs everyday as much as they could just like an online newspaper or magazine.
From the point of view of bloggers themselves, the incredibly user-friendly content management system offered by blogging is a major factor in blogging rapid ascent. People jumped at the chance to publish their thoughts and views on the internet without needing any special technical knowledge or even their own website.
The services or providers like blogger, typepad, wordpress and Yahoo 360 make blogging easy to use, quick and inexpensive or even free, which resulted in blogging now plays a major role in today’s online communication today.
That is why if you have an online or offline business or even no business at all. Blogs are one online development that you simply cannot ignore.

The Growth of Business Blogging

Everyone from the one-person business to the huge corporation has joined the “blogosphere”. What is particularly interesting to internet business owners and offline business owners large and small is the way blogs are fast developing into a very useful business tool.

For example, if you are currently having an online business and you can add a blog to your website you can:

1. • Attract more traffic to your web site

2. • Encourage your customers to return to your site more often

3. • Build better customer relations

4. • Reach a wider audience

Ultimately, generate more sales and more profits on the internet!

Many other businesses have also started blogs and have been enjoying great success with them. Of course, this is very good news for you, because there are a lot of successful blog models out there to learn from. We now know what works and what doesn’t - so you don’t need to waste time on ineffective tools and strategies.

On top of the growing number of successful business blogs, more people than ever before are aware of blogs and what they are. In fact, there is probably no better time to start a business blog than right now because

Blogging is easier than ever with improved services from the likes blogger.com and wordpress.com

There are tons of great tools and blogging resources you can use, such as blog directories, RSS feeds and dedicated blog search engines

There are more way to make money with your blog than ever before, such as Adsense and Blog Ads

In this eBook, we will show you step by step on how you can create your own business blog and capitalize on this exciting phenomenon.

We will give you the best strategies and tools you can use to promote your blog and use it to meet your objective, whether that means increasing your sales, presenting a more human face to your online customers, reaching out to a wider audience or just generating some extra income.

And because the vast majority of bloggers don’t use these tools and strategies effectively, just reading this eBook will give you head start when it comes to launching your first blog