A Blog is an online journal or informational website where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject. Over the time, the appearance of the blog has changed and improved a lot. Features of a typical blog include:
- Header with the menu or navigation bar.
- The main content area with highlighted or latest blog posts.
- Sidebar with social profiles, favorite content, or call-to-action.
- Footer with relevant links like a disclaimer, privacy policy, contact page, etc.
The blog is a multi purposeful tool which benefits an individual. Let it be providing information, writing your own thoughts, advertising, making money, corporate newsletter, building a community etc.
It is not only a place where one can write. Links, images, and videos can be posted as well giving a hope to many entrepreneurs.
How Blogging has changed in the last 10 years
1.Google’s relation with Blog:
Google first disliked the way blogs are, it stopped encouraging the sites that looked like blogs. Sites that poured the content but often have very few links in that content.
Fast forward a few years and internet marketers figured out the game. They realized that they could dominate long tail results with a powerful domain and a lot of content. Demand Media is a company that grew out of this strategy. They’re known as content farms and blogs are basically content farms.
2.Panda and Penguin:
Panda is the change to the algorithm that sought to penalize low-quality sites. Coupled with “Top Heavy,” which penalized sites with a ton of ads, this hit a lot of sites that churned out a ton of content that really wasn’t all that good.
A lot of bloggers were writing a lot of content with the same strategy in mind – get it to rank. Penguin is the change to the algorithm that sought to lower the rankings of sites that violated Google’s nebulous rules about black hat SEO. A lot of bloggers were affected by these two algorithm changes and while they weren’t the intended target, they got swept up with the rest.
Read More About Panda and Penguin: 8 Major Google Algorithm Updates
3.Sponsored Posts:
Sponsored posts, sponsored reviews and paid posts are all the same. Publishers used to get paid to post content provided by an advertiser or write a review about a product provided by the advertiser.
The mechanics are simple – advertiser gives the publisher some consideration (cash, product, services) and the
publisher posts content that links back to the publisher.
This is not a new phenomenon as well. Before pages of content were called posts, they were called pages, known as pre-sell pages. Pre-sell pages looked like advertising pages for whatever product they were selling.
It was a marketing tool, not an SEO tool, and so it paid like a marketing tool… which is to say it paid way better than paid posts. Eventually, those same folks buying pre-sell pages realized that the value was in the link, not the sell, and focused more on making presell pages look like regular content.
4.Email is crucial:
If a blog can’t easily build little streams of search traffic through search, then we need to build a stream of traffic somewhere else. Back then, with all that search traffic, we could get away with not using a list or underutilizing it.
Nowadays, we need to build up a list or you become beholden to search. We all know how dangerous that is.
5.Making own Products:
A little cash can be made as an affiliate or just relying on advertising, but if differentiation and connection with readers are made, a product will provide a far more stable and lucrative stream of income than an affiliate, especially if the build up of a list is there.
6.A blog can’t be sold for millions:
Earlier, several personal finance blogs we sold for several million each, but a blog is no longer different from any other website. Any business with a good brand, strong revenues, and good products will find a buyer. There will be blogs being bought and sold for millions for many years to come.
Attentiveness for your BLOG
- Blog plays a crucial role in almost every aspect of the internet world. Grabbing attention is the only way to get more output.
For instance: An aspiring businessman has started a small business with less budget. If he is able to write a blog creatively with all his ideas and products of his business, the more attentiveness his blog receives, the more prosper his business begins. No paperwork, no banner work for promoting his business.
- In this competitive world of the internet, if attention is not drawn from a blog, hard work the blogger kept, information which is provided in it has less importance.
- Once the blog receives attention, automatically the work will spread to many other people through the viewers.
They share the information through social media where millions view it.
- Making money will become a cup of tea once the blog receives quick attention. Many bloggers, even well-known bloggers, still work on building their awareness and will jump at almost any opportunity to spread the word about things they are working on.
Many bloggers have business interests beyond their blog that need exposure. Many bloggers are also authors and have books to sell.
- A Blogger who adds an attractive headline reads and in turn replies to every positive and negative comment of his viewers grabs a lot more attention than other bloggers. These viewers will be engaged and will be waiting for other blogs from the same person. More engaged blogger can keep the viewer, stronger the information is spread and understood.
- Speaking the audience language is very important for a blogger. Sometimes when marketers start the blogging process they start typing words that sound more like a press release than a conversation. Bloggers benefit more (both from an SEO perspective and general engagement) from using terms that resonate with the end customers, so the blog shouldn’t be used for impressing high-school English teachers, it should impress the customers instead.
Few more reasons why a Blog requires attention
- It defines one’s thoughts: Wrangling and wrestling those words into shape will produce clarity from a cloud.
- Rewards the creator: Creating is one thing, but publishing is another. Being willing to put the ideas out there takes bravery and willingness to be vulnerable.
- Blogs amplify humanity: A blog amplified by social networks with simple-to-use interfaces is the intersection of humanity and technology. It is an extension and amplification of uniqueness, creativity, and content to 7 billion people.
- Blogs connect us to our tribes: Connection with global communities provides insights and networks that can accelerate the learning process, opportunities and success.
- Voice to introverts.
- Blogs embrace the experiments: In the age of print, making mistakes was expensive and time-consuming. With the online publishing platform, the experiment in real time with no financial risk can happen.
- Once a blog grabs attention, it opens up a world without borders: Opportunity in the past was often limited to “local”. Today online platforms aren’t restricted by geography. The world is now a blogger’s playpen.
- Discovery is accelerated: The low friction of the social web allows content creators to bypass the old gatekeepers of editors and publishers. What took years or decades to achieve that important attention can be done in weeks and months.
Conclusion
A Blog can thus be used as a passion project to share one’s own thoughts, feelings and passion, an entrepreneur’s
platform to exhibit his business ideas, products, brands etc and also an expert’s expression where the blogger distills the experiences, thoughts, and ideas that they have learned during their education, career, and life journey.
The consistent and persistent effort of online creation and publishing is a powerful journey in self-discovery and growth. It will be a career enhancer and a life changer. That willingness to be vulnerable, to make mistakes but keep creating will change a person.
It’s only through the door of risk that growth can enter.