Digital Prank

A blog also knows as weblog is a type of website for posting content and articles to share individual’s ideas and thoughts over a particular topic. One can come across millions of blogs across the internet on various topics. Blogs have now become part of online business and marketing for individual as well as companies and it is considered as a big weapon for inbound marketing. But when people tries to get their hands into it they find it difficult as there are no one stop guide for blogging or information scattered across internet. So I am here to pen down my thoughts and share some useful information about blogs and blogging.

Why do people blog?

This is not a million dollar question as there are only couple of reasons for blogging.

• Passion
• Money & Business

I merged Money and Business together as they are inter-related. Blogs cannot be successful or cannot make money unless it is an collaborative effort with other blogs and communities that exist across the internet.

How to choose your own blog?

When you have finally decided about blogging then it is time for you to choose the right topic to blog about. There are few thumb rules about being choosy too,

• Never choose a topic just to make money.
• Search for other blogs in your favourite topic in Google Blog Search or Technorati search and look at them for great ideas.
• Try to list down your favourite topics and choose a topic on which you have got some idea and you can write about for a long time.

After choosing the right topic for you blog make sure that you write blog posts regularly and maintain a steady readership. If you are not consistent in updating your blog with new blog posts you are never goanna succeed.

Choosing the right blogging platform

Finding right blogging software is much more important for blogging. Simple and flexible blogging platform or software will makes life much easier. Please see the comparison of blogging softwares used across the industry. For beginners the following software will be quite handy,

• Wordpress
• Blogger

The other platforms like Typepad, Movable Type are quite complex and requires some basic skill to modify things. You can also use WeblogMatrix to compare the blogging softwares.

Choosing the right blogging host

When you are done with all the above then its time to choose a right blogging host as it so important for novice as well as advance users. Though one can change the host anytime it is always good to find and go with the best in the business to save time and money in the future.

Always decide the host based on the following parameters,

• Support
• Reliability
• Control Panel
• Software – PHP, ASP, JSP, Databases
• Price
• Storage
• Website statistics
• Tools
• Knowledge Base
• Operating System
• Upgrade Options
• Host Popularity

Always go by the user reviews given by various users across the globe and you can find good reviews in sites like Web Hosting Geeks and in forums like Sitepoint Forums.

Choosing the right desktop blogging tool

Blogging tool is also very important when it comes to blogging. There are only handful of blogging tools which can be quite handy and the rest of the tools don’t have much options or flexibility. Some of the popular blogging tools for Windows and Mac are,

• Windows Live Writer (Windows)
• Ecto (Mac)
• Mars Edit (Mac)
• Blog Desk (Windows)
• w.bloggar (Windows)
• Qumana (Windows & Mac)
• BlogJet (Windows)
• Zoundry Raven (Windows)
• ScribeFire (Firefox)
• Flock (Windows & Mac)

These are the 10 tools I can think of as I have used each one of them. If you are a windows user then you cannot find no better tool other than Windows Live Writer which is so flexible and is good for beginners. Windows Live Writer has got lot of plug-ins and is used by more bloggers across the globe.

So what are you waiting for? Its time to start blogging. I will be writing more articles on how to promote and create a readership, driver traffic, SEO for your blog in the coming days. So keep watching.