We are aware that Blogs are hitting the World Wide Web, blog is just a simple journal about you and ‘what you love to do', simple as that which makes it simple for us to understand that you gain traffic base from people who are searching for something about things they wanted to know. furthermore, if you have plenty of articles about the things they love to do then you got followers, followers means constant traffic, constant traffic are good.

Simple isn't it? however, that doesn't end there; you need to constantly feed your readers, fulfill their needs for news and information, "oh come on!! What are you taking about? You want us to give free info? teach them something for free... no way!! I won't do that."

And that's the reason you should ‘learn how' to start a blog and not just start a blog.

Before everything else I want to remind everyone that if you are going to blog about yourself similar to a personal journal or a diary then this is not for you. You can start making your diary by signing up on to your favorite networking site like facebook, multiply, myspace and friendster, you can also sign up on some free journal services at xanga, blogdrive, bravejournal, diaryland and wordpress.com.

Ok let's start, the things you need to know before starting a blog and thing you need to do while blogging.

1. Decide if you're going to host or not.

Look at the photo, that's how free blogging services works, they are a container with sub container, and each sub container are given to those who want to start a blog, and you are the one who will fill it with contents. if you decided to migrate and host on your own you can not bring with you your current page rank, it means you're going to start all over again. But the good news is some are offering custom domain for 10 bucks. But still it locks freedom in terms of technicality.

This kind of free services are common for those who don't have a lot of knowledge on web design and SEO. If you don't mind studying SEO then I advice you sign-up for these services, coz you are sharing the same domain that will help your contents reach on top of where the spider crawls. Especially blogger.com which is also known as blogspot.com.

If you decide to host on your own then I'll advice you to check out some free hosting services where you can start blogging, most of them offers fantastico the one click install. Use 000webhost in combination of a free domain name at co.cc. you can upgrade your account to a paid hosting anytime you feel like you need an upgrade, and pay for your .com domain.

2. Write as much as you want

If you love writing and have your own fashion then everything will be just fine for you, but if you don't then read the rest.

Think of what you wanted to share, speak your mind, write like you are talking to someone and not to narrate them.

Be sure your articles are 100% original, unique and interesting, amazing and inspiring never bluff unless it was April fools day lol. never use copyrighted materials like those photos and images you found on google search. Copyrights are simple as ‘rights to copy' if you don't have that rights towards an image then don't do it. There are lots of free stock photo sites on the internet find them and use them with care.

You can also use other photo's that has creative commons license such as those figures I used in this article; they came from flickr.com with CC license..

3. Submit your blog

This is required, you must submit your blog on directories such as google, luckily there are directories who are feeding those big search engines, And they call themselves dmoz.org they are an open directory project who organize those submitted sites and manually check their content if it is under their policy.

You can also add your blog in here.
google and yahoo.

But be patient, it would take time for them to add your blog on their list, but it doesn't mean that you will seat and wait until your blog was listed.

4. Submit your links and articles.

Never trust at those statements that blogging is great, ‘you just write once and leave it there.'

Submitting your articles are important especially for those who has not been added on search directories, this will help you accumulate more visitors on to your blog. There are plenty of article submissions on the internet, I myself do have 29 quality tutorial directories and 12 blog directories for none tutorial related.

You can start at designfloat.com; find other article submissions through search engine. I can't make a list here coz it will be an off topic to our main subject.

5. Socialize and establish connections

No man is an island, and therefore no blog is an island either, you need connections, you need links, you need to be heard, and that's the purpose of socializing, allowing someone to add comment is one way, leaving a comment with a link back to your site is another thing, I'm not telling everyone to leave a comment at every single article you have read but at least leave a link for some of your helpful comments that you will be creating.

Ask for a link exchange, put a link at your favorite social networking site, claim your blog on blog community such as technorati.com and create a signature with a link back to your blog.

Remember that they came on to your blog with something in common, and they do love to know you more.

6. Analyze your statistics

Apply for google analytic and web masters tools. This will help you in a lot of ways and learn about how far have you been, and the great thing here is they are totally free, you just need to register.

7. RSS feeds

Last but not least is no other than RSS feeds, let your visitors have the options to subscribe for your latest post by RSS or by email, if your readers loves your post I'm sure they wanted to hear a lot from you, RSS will help you tell them "hey I have a new post".

And that's the basics on how to start blogging. remember to set some goals and not just set a goal, and never set the 'earn money' goal at your first list coz I'm certain you won't achive it in a month or two not even a year I think.

The next steps will be about technical SEO and how to earn money through blogging.