So You Want to Be a Blogger?

Alex and Laila

There are 77 million blogs, and a new one starts every second. But there’s always room for one more, and it might as well be yours. If you’re looking to build connections—professional or personal—or strengthen those you already have, a blog is a good way to do it. Or if you want to make a career change, a blog might smooth out the transition. In either case, a blog can let people know what’s going on in your life, while you learn more about theirs.

But a blog requires a big time commitment, so you should be clear about your reasons for starting one—whether to connect with family, expand your community of interest or improve your job prospects.

The top 10,000 blogs, the ones most of the tens of millions of American blog readers end up frequenting, are invariably done well. Here’s how to get started.

What's a Blog?

The word blog is short for Weblog—a Web-based log of events, thoughts, ideas. Unlike a printed document or a static Web page, a blog changes regularly, sometimes every few hours. If a Web page is like a pamphlet, a blog is like a conversation. Some blogs are like public diaries of daily life or life with grandchildren or life away from home. You may be inclined to share some of your most personal feelings. Just remember that blogs are public: Anyone can read them.

More often a blog is about ideas. Some people create a blog that regularly lists links to new ideas they’ve read and liked. Other people create blogs that are a depository of ideas they’re thinking about.

The format of a blog is very simple. The most current entry is front and center; a list of topics is in a sidebar. The best blogs are dedicated to a single topic, and if only by virtue of writing about a topic three or four times a week, the blogger is an expert in the field.

Blogs also have a space for responses and comments. One thing that makes a blogger different from a newspaper columnist is that the blogger is always having a discussion with the readers. Every entry into the blog is called a post. The post is a starting point for an online community discussion rather than the final word—as in a print publication.

How Blogging Can Help You

Blogging can help you stay connected. If you want people to know about your travels, your grandchildren or your newest music interests, this is one way to do it. The software for blogging makes it easy to publish tidbits of your life. A blog is structured like a long list of your life, so scrolling through it can chronicle your days.

You will make new connections with people through your blog if you link to the type of people you want to meet. It’s a way to tell people who you are and then converse with them—through links. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you get to know new people if everyone regularly posts new information about themselves.

Blogging is also a great way to get the career you want. If you need a change but aren’t sure what to do next, blogging will allow you to experiment. Maintaining a blog puts you smack in the center of a given field almost immediately. After a few weeks of blogging you’ll have a strong sense of what interests you and what doesn’t.

Blogging helps you know where your passions lie. If you want to change careers without restarting in an entry-level position, you can blog as a way to establish expertise in the area and then get hired to a mid-tier position.

If you want to have a side business, blogging can help you drum up clients. Many consultants have a six-figure business by way of blogging. A solid blog may be the only marketing you’ll need.

If you need to bolster your network in order to meet your next career goals, blogging is a fast way to do it. High-level, high-powered people are blogging, in more fields than you could imagine. Though difficult to approach offline, they’re very approachable via their blogs, especially if you’re a blogger yourself. It’s a fast, easy way to open a conversation with someone who can help you.

How to Get Started

Remember the first time you sent an e-mail? You probably had no idea what you were doing. The more e-mails you sent, however, the more comfortable you became, until it was an essential part of your life. The same will happen with blogging, but you need to get through an initial phase when it seems odd and uncomfortable.

1. Surf blogs for two hours a night for two weeks. At the beginning, you might find only silly blogs and become frustrated. Think of it as paying dues. Trust that after a few hours you’ll know a lot more, and after five or six hours you’ll be able to determine if a blog is good or bad in about six seconds. If you don’t know where to start, click one of the links in this article.
   
2. Pick a topic. Your topic is the way that you will connect with people and let them know what to expect from you. It might change, but that’s OK. You have to pick one to get started.
   
3. Set up the software. There are zillions of ways to do this, but consider going to websites that have free blogging platforms such as WordPress or Blogger. Follow the very easy three-step process for starting a blog. You will have to make a few decisions, but there are no bad decisions, so don’t worry what you choose.
4. Write a blog post. Wake up the next day and write another. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect, or you aren’t following rules. No one will see it. Getting started means getting your feet wet. Later you’ll understand how to get people to come to your blog. You’ll find, for example, ProBlogger, a site for bloggers about blogging.
   

For now, don’t worry about making mistakes. Worry about never getting started. The important part is just writing posts. Keep at it. You’re a blogger!

Should you be blogging?  Take the test:

1. Do you have a clear goal that can be addressed by a blog?
2. Do you have five or six hours a week to devote to reaching this goal?
3. Do you like ideas, reading and writing?