In the latest years the number of blogs and their importance on the Internet increased in an exponentially. Today, when somebody needs some information or some good advice all he or she has to do is simply searching and usually finding few or more blogs treating the respective problem. A blog is a website or a part of a website which is maintained by a team/individual. The maintenance consists in regular posting interesting articles, videos, graphics –the more and the greater the quality, the better, offering comments and feedback to the responses of the readers and so on. The person who owns and manages a blog is called a blogger.

Advantages and disadvantages of having a blog

Advantages

1. A blog could be a good source of income

   It is not a secret or a shame to build a blog to gain some extra money…the statistics revealed that almost three quarters of the overall blogs have as a main purpose the addition of new income to the owner. This is a situation that creates competition on this market, making it strong and competitive: the money received by a blogger is in direct relationship with the traffic gained, but the traffic is obtained from posting cool stuff. In simple words: the better the blog is the more money you receive…

2. Get in touch with a lot of people from various parts of the world

   It is a super feeling that any blogger enjoys when he sees that his post, which usually requires a huge amount work, is catalogued as a “high quality” article, and it is read by people situated in different regions or even continents. The comments about posts have the same importance for the blogger; these could be seen as a mark of the quality of it. Anyway, nothing is more important than the feeling of having something to say in a big world.

3. A blog is a great source of promoting

   There are a lot of people that became online celebrities due to their blogs. In the domain of web design it is almost a rule for every company in the field to have a website where they present an impressive portfolio, contact, testimonials, but also a blog. This importance of the blog is maybe the same as the portfolio; a potential client could make a first opinion about your services when he reads some titles from your blog. Another great advantage of having a serious blog in your website is that the traffic obtained from it could be directed to the portfolio or contact and that means an improvement of the chances of being hired.

Disadvantages

1. There are so many blogs that it is impossible to be remarked or to get traffic.

   The number of blogs is constantly growing, but the number of surfers is truly increasing, yet not as rapidly as the number of blogs. Nowadays, is very difficult to make a profitable blog, because all the potential subjects are fully covered; at the first sight it seems a dangerous problem, but surely a creative mind will find something that isn’t treated so intensively.

2. The work invested is not rewarded with great amounts of money
   Unfortunately this is a very common situation; only the blogs having a lot of readers are a profitable business. Having and keeping a great number of readers is the result of a continuum hard work, a good strategy of advertising and a lot of patience. In these conditions anyone that wants to build a blog should think twice about all these disadvantages.

Mental abilities

1. Patience

   It is a “too meet” requirement, maybe it is the key of success in life, but here it is really a must. At the beginning it could be very sad: you try to post all of your best articles and as a result you have one retweet and no comment. Having patience and working hard even if the readers aren’t numerous, surely this is the key of getting more traffic. Keep in mind, the traffic usually increases in an exponential manner and the time seems to be a good evaluator of the quality of blogs.

2. Good skills in your field of activity

   If you start writing a blog about something then the primordial condition is to have something to say in a domain, else quit the idea of having success. For example, if you start a blog that covers the subjects of web design and you are a novice, then it is highly recommended to wait for some months/years till you have solid skills and acknowledgement in the field.

3. Good luck!

   It is required everywhere…

Material requirements

1. An office or a work room

   It is recommended to have an office or barely a room that could inspire you and that could assure the quietness and inspiration so much needed when you write. A very good piece of advice that should be always respected is: the small changes in the work room (as having a new mouse, new wallpaper on your desktop) are good sources of inspiration (I really tried this and the results are sometimes fabulous).

2. A blogging platform

   There are many possibilities to make a blog…but everything depends on the preferences of the blogger. The statistics revealed that the WordPress.org, WordPress.com and BlogSpot are the most met while surfing the web. As a personal opinion, I am a lover of Word Press of any domain…I have more than ten accounts on multiple blogs and I have never problems with. In this case there is no general solution, depends on the topics tackled by the blog (for example a blog that is about Joomla should be build with it, else probably nobody will be interested in reading your blog).

3. A partner or somebody that could check your posts

   All of us are human and that implies that we can’t be perfect. As a result any blogger surely will make some errors in his/her blog and respecting the law of Murphy these are situated at the opening of the text. At the beginning it is very difficult to hire somebody to check the posts, but if the blog is growing this is eventually required. A respectful blog/website presenting grammar mistakes in the posts could be in a dangerous situation (it is sure that if a reader notices some errors, in his comments these will be highlighted).

Problems of the bloggers

1. The lack of readers

   The majority of the bloggers quit their work due to the fact that the number of readers is not as high as they expected before. The great problem of the bloggers is the fact that they don’t have a coherent policy in the expansion of the blog. It is sad, but posting only high quality is not enough; a blog should have a strong campaign of promotion and SEO. It is highly important to start with the idea that only after a year length the result could come and that requires a long time strategy. Don’t forget, nobody was born a blogger!

2. The boredom and negative thoughts

   It is quite easy to say that a blogger should wait a year to see some results, but practically it is very hard to realize. It narrows itself to a strong will to write and write, again and again, but nobody to remark you. Even if you as a new blogger are very optimistic and positive about your blog, it still is a difficult task to overcome the bad moments when the imp says: “Quit your hard work…go to sleep, life is short”. Don’t listen to him! My personal advice: open up your player and listen to your favorite songs…it works with me.

3. Having a blog is equivalent with a loss of time

   All bloggers have families that always need attention, but unfortunately in many cases the family is neglected in the favor of the blog. It is not easy to give up at some hours every day posting articles and maintaining the blog than playing with your children. On the Internet are very many successful bloggers, look at their blogs and get some inspiration:

   1. http://techcrunch.com/

   2.  http://mashable.com/

   3. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

   4. http://speckyboy.com/

   5. http://www.problogger.net/

   6. http://www.copyblogger.com/

   7. http://www.gomediazine.com/

This article has been written by Daniel Pintilie a freelance writer working for for Go-gulf.com, a kuwait web design company that provides web design solution in Bahrain, Sharjah and Middle East.