To begin with, you should understand what is blogging and what is the difference between a blog and a website. Before blogs, websites were generally very static, with little-to-no user interaction, and were usually coded by hand or in something similar to Dreamweaver. These websites were very boring compared to modern day blogs, and were also very hard to update - each update requiring you to edit the source code in a language called HTML which you had to learn yourself - something that could take anywhere from a few weeks to four years in university. Most people didn’t have time for this, and so most of the web was made by people who had the time, or could afford for other people to do this work for them.
Then came blogging.
Blogs and blogging software, is basically a bunch of HTML & PHP files that are installed on your web host, and accessible online through a web browser. You install the blogging software (such as Wordpress) onto your webhost, and then start blogging. This allows you to write up posts from a web-interface, similar to how you write a letter in Microsoft Word, rather than having to write up complicated and confusing HTML code. This made it much more accessible for people to publish there own thoughts and content (ie. to ‘blog’).
The most commonly used blogging software is Wordpress, which is what Blogmastr uses, and what I’ll be teaching you to use. It is open source, and very reliable, whilst still being flexible and very powerful. You can use custom themes to make it pretty, or add extra features to make it more functional, or just use the “default” set up, which is powerful enough in itself.
One of the first things you’ll have to think about when you’re blogging is is it worthwhile? are you going to achieve what you want to? Keep in mind that not everyone can make even a cent from their efforts, whilst some people use little-to-no effort and make thousands of dollars. It all depends on thousands of factors, but most importantly, your perseverance, your demographic, your niche, and your content. If you’ve got no perseverance, or poor content, don’t bother even trying to start blogging in the hopes of making money.
On the other hand, if you just want to share your thoughts with your family and friends, feel free to set up a blog and post the worst content you can think of.