This article is organized into following sections:

1. What the heck is a blog?

2. Me?.. Write a Blog?.. Kidding Me?

3. But what should I write about?

4. OK, how can I get started?

5. Then what?

So, here we go!

“What the heck is a blog?”

Silly question, but here’s my answer for the sake of completeness:

 A blog is very much similar to our work-diary (or any diary for that matter). Each entry is dated. An entry itself can contain text, pictures and videos. Normally, readers would be able to comment their views on an entry.

The entries of a blog appear in reverse chronological order, meaning the most recent ones appear first. Depending on what it is about, a blog may be updated daily, weekly, monthly, or at varying frequencies.

Take a look at some example blogs: #1, #2, #3.

“Me?.. Write a Blog?.. Kidding Me?”

No, I’m not kidding.

Since you have accessed the internet, clicked through links to arrive at this article, and then begun reading it, I assume that you can read & write in English, and operate a computer. This makes you more than qualified to be a blog-author. You don’t need to be an expert of the English language—if you can express your ideas in simple words, you’re all set. Of course, the more English-loving of us have some obvious advantage.

Why should you write a blog? The reasons are many- you can publish your ideas with zero censoring; people can understand and appreciate you more; it’ll serve as an online record that you can refer to years from now; you can monetize if your blog gets popular to earn some pocket money; and most importantly, it’s fun!

Now you might be thinking:

“But what should I write about?”

Every person has a story to tell.

What pops to your mind even when you close your eyes and try to think of nothing? What are you most passionate about? What makes you forget your sleep and work hard on it (other than exams :) )?

I can hear your minds screaming “CA!”, “Singing!”, “Dancing!”, “Drawing!”, “Football!” and more… Awesome.

That is what you’re going to write about.

The good thing about blogging on something you’re passionate about is, you never run out of entries.

“OK, how can I get started?”

That’s easy.

The easiest way to start your own blog is to head to https://www.blogspot.com, sign-in or sign-up and follow the instructions.

Think well before you give your blog a title (it should be relevant and easy to remember). You may want to have a tag line too. Choose a simple, minimal theme so that your readers will be able to move around smoothly.

Make that first entry a little carefully—sometimes, first impression is in fact, the best impression. Try to give an idea to your readers about yourself, and the purpose of your blog.

Don’t hesitate to add some spice and drama to every entry—hook your readers and keep them coming back. Choosing a chatty, conversational style, and addressing the reader (normally a single person) “you” help.

Blog regularly. 2 to 3 entries a week is recommended. Nothing is looked down upon like a dead blog.

Other choices you have when starting a blog, apart from Blogspot, is Wordpress, Tumbr, Posterous etc.

“Then what?”

Publicize your blog—post links to it in social-networking sites such as facebook and twitter, ask fellow bloggers to link to it in return for a link back, use word-of-mouth marketing. Get it listed in search engines (don’t worry, Google will usually index your blog automatically), post a link to it in forums. Comment on other people’s blogs and leave a link back to your blog.

What happens with most people is, they have a grand beginning, yet their interest slacks off in time. They don’t get all the attention they think they should be getting. Try not to be one of them—understand that your blog is valued by the content in its entries, not the number of comments or number of shares. Just hang in there if you are the only one visiting your blog initially—you will get popular eventually.

If your blog gets popular (that is, thousands of visits per day), you can think about switching to a more professional blogging package, and paid hosting. Then you can place ads on your blog using services such as adsense, and earn some pocket money.

What are you waiting for? Go start a blog!