The history of blogging Regularly updated content-managing websites, known as blogs, have quickly become an outlet for people with access to the Internet to express themselves and their interests online in the past few decades. The opportunity to make money off a blog, however, is a more recent development.
Stepping back about 20 years, the first generally recognized blog – Links.net – was started by Justin Hall in 1994. But it wasn't until three years later that the term 'weblog' was invented by Jorn Barger – and later shortened to 'blog' by programmer Peter Merholz in 1999, according to webdesignerdepot.com.
Soon after these first blogs came into play, blogging platforms such as Blogger and Wordpress started popping up in the blogosphere in the early 2000s to host users.
It wasn't long before some bloggers started turning a small profit from their online platforms, much like Calgary's own Mike Morrison of Mike's Bloggity Blog. He is just one example of how a successful blog can one day grow into a successful career.
Setting up a blog is as easy as following the four simple steps outlined below. If you're looking to start a financially successful blog and find a new career, you could benefit from the advice of professionals like Morrison.
Get started!
"Just start it already, start it five days ago, just do it... you're not falling behind, but there are other people who have already started, and so every day you wait there's sort of more blogs that you have to compete with."
Find your focus:
"You should figure out your angle while your writing, not before you start your writing, or you'll never start."
Promote your blog over social media:
"[Your message] has to read differently across [different] platforms – [you] don't want people to see the same thing four times!"
Take inspiration from other websites:
"Spend some time online and pay attention to what you're clicking on. What about a website makes you want to click on it? What do you enjoy aesthetically? If people pay attention to what they click to and apply that into their own stuff, that click through is going to be way higher than maybe if they did the basic site."
Don't tell anyone about your blog:
"Don't tell people you've started a blog if you only have one post, because people will come to your site and if they only see one blog post, they won't stick around very long."
Have fun!
"If you don't enjoy what you're writing about, you're not going to write about it."
Success storiesSome of the most profitable blogs and bloggers today are those like the Huffington Post and Mashable, both of whom have enjoyed more than a decade of success so far.
Below are listed the top five blogs in the world. To see more like them, visit incomediary.com
To read more about Mike Morrison's adventures in the blogosphere, read our story here.
ncruickshank@cjournal.ca
Thumbnail courtesy of Mike Morrison.
The editor responsible for this article is Michaela Ritchie, mritchie@cjournal.ca
Source: 4 quick steps to finding blogging success from Calgary blogging sensation
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