Blogging Best Practices – Concepts, Ideas and Motives – Part 1

Abstract of my Pluralsight Course, Building Building a Successful Blog Module – Getting Started with Blogging. Blogging Best Practices.

Thinking about starting a blog? Confused about the entire idea of blogging?  I have created a course on Pluralsight relating to this very issue.  Let’s start with the easy questions: what is the difference between a blog and a website?  Websites are static sites with a single purpose.  A blog is a type of website – one that is dynamic and always changing when you post and update.  Websites and blogs are similar because they are both addresses on the internet, and a way to connect to the public.

Website or Blogs

Websites and blogs have different purposes, uses, and audiences.  Websites are good for businesses or individuals with a product to sell.  They act as a store front – they welcome the public, and stay the same over time so that their products are easy to find.  Blogs are more dynamic.  You can update a blog every day, or multiple times a week, to keep in touch with your audience.  This is like having a conversation with interested parties, and form a network or community of like-minded individuals.

Deciding to blog can be a difficult decision – there are many pros and cons.  Blogs can be a challenge to set-up, and require maintenance.  But for me, the pros far outweigh the cons!  You get to talk about something you love, meet people with similar interests, and be in charge of your own “brand.”

Different Types of Blogs

There are a huge variety of blogs, and many different types of bloggers.  Blogs fall into a few main categories: technology, personal, photography, automobile, and corporate.  I consider technology blogs to be anyone, professional or amateur, who talks about technology – hardware, software, highly specialized, or very general.

Personal blogs are the kind that are about people’s personal interests.  This can be children, religion, crafting, or even just day-to-day updates.  Photography blogs can cover a wide variety (even personal and technology), but tend to be mainly high quality photographs taken by professional who want to share their work, or amateurs who are trying to get better and would like feedback.

Automobile blogs can cover any sort of vehicle or interest.  They are often highly technical about one specific type of car, truck, boat, or sport.  Corporate blogs are professional blogs, run by companies.  They often have multiple authors, and are updated multiple times a day – or at least when breaking news about the company or product becomes available.

As many different types of blogs as there are, there are an equal number of types of bloggers.   I like to divide them into four easy categories (often with a lot of cross-over).

Different Types of Blogger

Professional: these are bloggers who blog for a living.  Maybe they work for a company and run the corporate blog.  Maybe they created their own personal blog that became extremely popular and generates a lot of income.  No matter how they got there, they are extremely successful and have found the magic button for becoming great bloggers.

Amateurs: this obviously covers most blogs.  These people blog for the sake of blogging, because they love a topic or want to share their expertise.  Everybody starts an amateur, and can progress to any of these other types of bloggers.

Artists: these bloggers can be amateurs or professionals.  They might be photographers, or simply good at painting a picture with their words.

Multi-author blogs: any type of blog can be a multi-author blog.  Some blogs start out with more than one author, because they want multiple opinions, an individual can’t keep up with the amount of writing required, or because a group of friends has a similar interest and wants to start a blog.  More commonly, a blog explodes in popularity and needs a team of writers to keep up with the traffic.

If you’re still curious about blogs and blogging, check out my course on Pluralsight!

Reference:  Pinal Dave (https://blog.sqlauthority.com)