For those considering blogging, whether for entertainment or as a money making endeavor (yes you can make money from this but it is a lot of work) there are a few things you should do before you get started. First of all, you should know what a blog is. The basics are not always as simple as they may appear. There are a lot of intricacies involved with blogging that might make it a little more of an involved process, as you would have originally thought.



A blog is a weblog. For those who are interested in maintaining the integrity and purity of original blogs, it is much more than a mere diary or online journal. A weblog originally pointed the way to other articles, sources, and resources (some quite obscure) on the Internet. Even more than this, it brought unity to several of these sources, resolved arguments based upon them and shed new light on old issues. Weblog owners in the original traditions truly knew how to bring a feast of discussion to the tables of all who stopped by.

There has recently been a trend of writing personal information and little information of value to anyone who doesn't know you personally. While blogs such as this might be a great way of staying in touch with friends and family, they are not the greatest way of earning money, making a living, or being particularly useful or interesting to the general blogging community at large. The more people trend away from the original purpose of blogs to provide information and references to other web locations, the more pronounced and elitist the attitudes of those sticking to the original traditions become.

The important thing to remember if you are planning to start a blog of your own is that there is no right or wrong thing to write your blog about. If you want a personal blog, then create a personal blog. If you want a blog about the stars, then that is what your blog should be about. You do not have to cater to the desires of any particular blog community nor should you. Write what you feel like writing and enjoy the process. Some of the greatest blogs I've seen have been created about nothing specific but have taken on a life of their own.

If you're writing for your own personal entertainment you really should write when you feel like it. If you're writing for business rather than pleasure you really should try writing daily. I know, it gets difficult as life often gets in the way and making a dollar that is guaranteed is often much more important than concentrating efforts on dollars that might someday be. But writing daily provides fresh content that will keep readers coming back and increase the possibility of advertising revenue.

When writing for blogs be short, sweet, and to the point. Web readers are far less patient than print readers and you are much more likely to loose their interest quickly. Make your point and move on. Blogs work wonderfully this way and you can say what you have to say without writing a book on the matter. These are the bare bone basics of blogging there is so much more but this is a pretty good start.