Why Blog ? Why do people blog? Why Blog at all?
Why blog? – For some people they can answer the question “Why Blog?” off the top of their head yet for others it can be difficult to explain. In this article, we look at the different types of blogs, what motivates people to blog and answer the question – Why Blog?
Why Blog? – For us to understand better why some people can answer this question easily whilst others can’t, we need to break down blogging in to its fundamental basics.
Why Blog? – Personal Blogs
A personal blog is one which has been created merely for the enjoyment of it.
Why Blog when you’ve got Facebook?
Like social networking applications such as Facebook, blogging is simply another form of social networking – just on a grander scale and just like these other social networking applications there are a few reasons why people turn to blogging as a form of social interaction. Now you have the whole world as your audience rather than just your family and friends.
So Why Blog to random strangers…
If you are already a blogger, sit and think for a minute what drives you to sit at a computer and write blog posts to a bunch of random strangers. Do you enjoy it when someone comments on your post? Do you like conversing with other people who share a similar interest?
Why Blog? – it’s a part of social networking!
So why do some bloggers have advertising on their blogs?
Well there can be a couple of reasons.
1. The blogging service that they are using displays ads in order to make revenue for the service which they are providing.
2. The blogger thinks “Hey, If I can make some money out of something that I enjoy, then why not!”
At some point there comes a fine line between when a personal blog crosses the line in to business blogging.
Why Blog? – Here are some examples…
An Artist’s Blog – Whilst an artist may really enjoy their artistry, they will quite often have links to sell their paintings online.
Mummy Bloggers – These type of bloggers usually enjoy what they are blogging about and conversing with other mummy bloggers however selling a bit of advertising space or reviewing a companies product for which they have received a free sample as compensation.
The easiest way to determine whether you are a personal blogger or business blogger is to ask yourself the question – “Would I still do this if I was not getting any compensation for my efforts?”.
Why Blog at Aussie Blogs? – If creating your own personal blog sounds like something you would be interested in, why not create yours today? Start by having a look at our blog ideas page and how to get started blogging on Aussie Blogs.
What do I blog about?
You’ve heard about Aussie Blogs and have decided to start up your own blog. You log in and it gets to the point of choosing your blog name. What name do I choose? What do I blog about?
Getting stuck on these questions is more common than you think. Eventually you choose a brand new fancy name, start writing your first post and hit that all too common writers block. It all seems too hard, you go to bed and then forget about it in the morning.
The easiest way to get started sharing your ideas is to write about something you are passionate about.
Some good examples are:
- Travel
- Ancestry
- Sports
- Politics
- Hobbies
- Animals
- Artistry
You need to however go one step further and get really focused. Find a niche that you are interested in. This will make it easier to write about your passion
Lets Expand on some of these ideas above.
Travel
Are you going on a holiday soon and want to document your travels. A good example of this can be found by visiting The Happy Wanderers
Ancestry
Maybe you want to document your family tree and republish any findings so that the rest of your family can see
Sports
Maybe you like Soccer. You can narrow this down even further by picking a particular team
Politics
Well it wouldn’t take to much to get anyone started on this topic, but maybe you’re passionate about a particular aspect of it. Heard about the carbon tax anyone?
Computers
Maybe you are passionate about IT Support Sydney. You could start up a IT Knowledge Base full of articles which are designed to help other people. 4IT Support did this.
Hobbies
This one should be easy. Perhaps you like cooking. Learnt a new recipe or want to recommend one to your friends.
Animals
So before you go out and get started on that new blog, spend 10 minutes over a warm cup of tea and start mapping out your plan.
Setting up a .com.au identity
With the likely hood of the big Search Engines taking in to consideration geographic location as well as search relevancy, having a dotcom.au domain name gives Australians a huge advantage at targeting Australians with their message over the traditional blogging platforms.
With the explosion of social networking on the internet we have also seen an explosion in the ease that people can “game” search engines to their benefit. Sure, there are certain factors such as domain age which almost make it impossible to get a top ranking for the most lucrative phrases however with the increase of “tools” available at only a few dollars and the ease of spamming brought on by poorly set up blogging and forum software, the search engines appear to be taking in to consideration your physical location versus the location of the domain when returning results.
Here’s an example:
Go to google and type in the word “pizza”
Notice how just typing in that single word pizza brings up results which are local to you. As you can see from the above illustration, Google already know that I’m in sydney but even more, it know what suburb I’m in right now. The very though of a large corporation knowing exactly where you are is probably sending shivers down a few spines at the moment, however it’s certainly not new technology as anyone can be located within a reasonable area using any current internet connection.
Let’s think about this for a second. You would assume that Pizza is going to be a hard word to rank for, you would even think that wikipedia should be up the top there somewhere but it’s not. Apart from the paid ads you’ve got mum and dads local pizza restaurant on the first page of Google!So how does this affect Australian Bloggers?
Quite simply there are two ways for you to reach your Australian audience much easier.
1. Get a blog with a .com.au address – e.g. yourtopic.aussieblogs.com.au – It says to google – I’m an Australian Blogger – you can see the com.au
2. If you want to be even more targeted – e.g. Selling or marketing a product in your local area – Put your address somewhere on your website – maybe in the sidebar or the foooter. Not only will this help you come up in local search results it also will give your blog some credibility.