What is a Blog? Intro to Blogging and How it Works in 2021

Blogging has changed drastically over the last 15 years.

What once started as a way to share journal-like updates with followers has evolved into a Google-driven powerhouse of online monetization.

I launched this blog in 2019 and a side hustle while working full time. Today, it makes over $80k per month, mainly from passive income streams.

The potential in blogging is huge.

In this guide, I’m going to cover what blogging is, the history of blogging, the different types of blogs, and how to make money blogging today.

What is a Blog?

A blog is a regularly updated website or series of articles, usually run by an individual or small team, that is written in a casual and conversational style.

Initially created from the words web and log, a blog is basically logging your thoughts, ideas, experiences, and more – all in one place on the web. You can even call it your online journal.

In the old days, people used to store diaries as personal logs of their daily routines. With the advent of the Internet, they started migrating these diaries online and maintaining them digitally.

That’s how the first weblog started – around 1994. With time, people realized that these were powerful and effective communication methods that could have a strong influence over large groups of people.

People began writing about their experiences, activities, interests, questions, thoughts, hopes, dreams, and doubts. Many of them created their own websites where they could maintain a repository of all their writings. These came to be known as ‘weblogs.’

As we know them today, blogs are the short-form of ‘weblogs,’ a term coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.

While most blogs today consist of text, videos, infographics, and images arranged in chronological order, they weren’t as attractive back then.

Here’s one of the oldest bloggin

g platforms called Open Diary:

Image Source: Blogging.com

Open Diary was launched in 1998 and had a membership model. They allowed access to members who could leave comments on other people’s posts.

Even if you were unfamiliar with the term, you’ve probably stumbled across thousands of blogs.

Whenever you have a question, you probably immediately rush to search for it on Google.

For example, if you want to start an ecommerce business, the chances are that you’ll Google it first before making any plan yourself.

And here are the results you’ll get:

These are all blog posts.

The web page you’re currently on is also a blog post.

Most blogs are dedicated to niche segments and can serve as rich sources of information. These blogs are usually updated at a predetermined frequency and are maintained by individuals or a group.

Blogging saw a tremendous increase in the last couple of years. In fact, the number of active bloggers in the US saw a 12% increase in the five years from 2015 to 2020. In the US alone, there were more than 31 million bloggers as of 2020.

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