After reading a Blogging for Newbies intel, I thought, "Wouldn't a newbie want to know more than that?" Such as:
What's a blog?
Blog is net slang for web log. It can be:
• A personal diary for sharing thoughts, art, comments, creative work with friends
• A serial column on a focused topic: anything from humor to politics, business to an academic subject
• A platform for paid reviews and money-earning ads
• A way to share tips, tutorials, and resources like widgets, wallpapers and clipart
• An updates log for a traditional website, organization, or cause
In short: any sort of content that works best as changing, updated content rather than a fixed page like an encyclopedia entry.
Where To Post Blogs
You might try a free account on Livejournal, which is for personal and social blogs rather than general-public and commercial blogs. Browse and join communities sharing your interests and talk to friends. Or try the blog part of MySpace. That gives you a chance to try out blogging before jumping into the deep end. Keep in mind that few people will find your blog unless you tell them about it.
Then move to one of the higher-powerd, more professional and commercial blog hosting services like Blogger or Wordpress.com. I recommend the latter because they've got great help files to talk you through everything, whereas Blogger Support isn't as supportive. You'll probably want a new username once you start blogging for the public instead of just yourself and friends.
How to Start on a Blog Hosting Service
• Register a username and blog name. For the blog name, remember it's like a company brand name: make it unique, short, and memorable.
• As soon as you've registered your blog, they'll create a basic blog template for you. You can start posting entries right away.
• At any time you can choose a theme (graphics, fonts, layout) which can be further customized with colors, fonts, and widgets (see below).
• Join groups, submit your blogs to Feedburner (a service a lot of people use to find and follow blogs) and Blogcatalog.
• Many bloggers blogroll (include links to) other blogs related to their topic. It seems like it would lose readers, but actually a) bloggers help find each other traffic this way and b) search engines like web pages that link to other pages on the same topic.
• If you want lots of visitors, learn SEO -- Search Engine Optimization, how to be found by people searching the web. The web is flooded with SEO how-to tips, tools and sites, but let me recommend three sites where I've learned a lot: 15-Minute SEO, Web Workshop, Instant Position.
Getting started can be bewildering. I suggest browsing communities like Blogcatalog and Livejournal to see what others are doing, in order to get ideas.
Making Money With Blogs
It's hard work -- don't be fooled! If all your blog has is ads, who's going to read it? You have to create content they want to read. But there are thousands of ways to make money.
There are services that will pay you for ads and reviews. Some pay you for clicks on the ads, while others pay you a commission for purchases made through your ads, or for the review itself. Some popular services:
-Google Adsense, Amazon Affiliates, Pay Per Post, Commission Junction, Smarty
You can also link a blog to another product or service. For instance, you could blog about sports, and have a link to your eBay store that specializes in sports memorabilia.
Widgets
A key concept in blog money earning is Widgets. Widgets are small self-contained blocks on the webpage that serve a particular function, like an appointment calendar, an ad block with rotating ads (like a billboard), or a self-contained block showing the latest headlines from CNN.. Some widgets like Google's Adsense ads and Amazon's little badges are designed to work on pretty much any webpage, whereas others are made to be really easy to plug into popular blogging software like WordPress.
Your Own Website / Blog
Creating a blog on your own website is like building your own store versus opening a store in a mall where there's already tons of shoppers. You'll have to work harder to get people in the front door. But then you're not bound by the mall's rules, space limitations, or quirks.
I highly recommend WordPress Software to build your own blog. If you've had a blog on Wordpress.com, you'll have learned a lot of how their software works. But when you download stand-alone WordPress software to your own site, you'll be able to add extra plug-ins created by third parties, control your blog's look/feel that much more, even edit and alter the code (CSS and HTML) if you understand it!
Conclusion
Good luck, have fun, and remember: A blog is for CONTENT. Ask yourself: "would I read this blog if I ran across it on the web?" All the ads in the world won't help if your visitors think, "*yawn* another blog about blogging" or "*yawn* another blog designed to make money!" and leave.
Also, while money-making blogs are now popular, blogs can be a place to share your life with friends, express yourself creatively, or post opinion columns. Just remember those have different target audiences! Your friends will care about you, but random readers don't care about the details of your life unless you're a celebrity or a witty writer who can make personal experiences fun to read about.
Some Example Blogs
Below are some sample blogs that demonstrate the wide variety in blogs out there.
