Apollo Hosting- Company Blog

Welcome to part 2 of our series on blogging. In the first part, we covered some popular platforms for blogging, from hosted services to services you run on your own website. This part will deal with the real meat of the issue, your content. Content is why people will come to your blog, and, more importantly, why they'll keep coming back. Unfortunately, there's no real magic formula that can be applied to any content to catapult the author to the height of Internet stardom.

The most basic question about your blogs content is simple: what is it about? What are you going to be blogging about? There's really only two types of answer to this question, but fortunately they aren't mutually exclusive.

Personal Blogs

The first type is personal. These are perhaps the most common type of blog by far, as the sheer number of MySpace accounts attest. The explosion of the popularity of the blog is driven by a desire to create a diary of personal thoughts or speak out on topics that are very important to the author. For many, the blog is just a modern equivalent to a dairy, just one without the lock and available for all the world to see.

Pure diary style blogs may not be destined for Internet legend, but they generally don't aim for that. They are more about keeping in touch with friends or family, providing insights into a life, and practicing the slightly therapeutic art of writing things down.

Personal blog can also be focused on an issue about which the author feels passionate. Topics range far and wide, such as:

• Political or Social issues
• Hobbies
• Entertainment
• Technology
• Help / Tutorial

Many authors have highly personal blogs that say little about their daily lives and more about their point of view. The rise of "issue" blogs is something that fueled the emergence of blogs and blog authors on the national scene. Bloggers have become opinion-makers and fierce advocates for many causes. This shows that, with the right topic, your blog can be personal, as well as "professional".

Professional Blogs

I use the term "professional" to describe a blog which, among other things, is designed to generate income for the author. There are varying degrees of this:

• AdSense / PPC Networks
• Banners
• Corporate Sponsorship
• Product / Service Sales

The amount of income a blog generates is fairly equal to its popularity. The more popular it is, the more eyes there are to see the ads and fingers to click on them or buy your products.

The great thing about using a blog as a source of income, is that it can still be a highly personal, issue-based blog. A lot of those nationally known opinion-making bloggers run ads on their blog, and take some cash in exchange for their opinions. Though looking to build a popular blog and make some cash on the side should certainly think about starting with something they are passionate about.

Though it's hardly unheard of for someone to write a blog purely for professional reasons, without any personal investment at all, it is a naturally more difficult task. Those prepared to take on the challenge, for the glory, or simply because they lack a passion about anything, should approach the endeavor carefully by researching a strong niche to target. Like any business prospect, solid research is a must for success.

Up Next...

Next time we'll look at a what can be a very fulfilling, or very frustrating (many times both) aspect of successful blogging, the community that develops through the comments on your blog.