Amateur Blogs

Amateur blogs have been around since their start in the late 90s. These online platforms are a great way to express yourself and share your knowledge with the world. You can work with anything that you want. You can start a blog about your travel, your day-to-day life (like an online “open-book” diary), book reading, history, or anything that you are passionate about and want to share with the world. Amateur blogs are basically a way of sharing your love for something by posting online as a hobby and not for monetary gains. It is a way to express yourself and share your knowledge and experience about something that you like and are passionate about, without trying to monetize it.

Topics for Amateur Blogs

When it comes to the topics, the sky is the limit. There is no single topic that you can say is appropriate for blogging. You can choose anything that you like to talk about or discuss and convert it into your blogging topic. It can be anything, travel, cooking, food, history, culture, art, science, etc. Just make sure that you are writing about something that you are passionate about. If you are passionate about something, it will show in your blog. If you are starting a blog about something that you know nothing about, then it can be a problem. People can “sense” whether you are writing something from your heart or not, and that makes a lot of difference. So, when you are delving in amateur blogging, make sure you are writing about something that you know and love, and not something that is “popular these days”.

Amateur Blogging, How Can You Start?

So, the real question is how can you start blogging. Well, it is not that hard actually. Just start writing on the topics you love on paper (meaning MS Word etc.). Writing might not come that easy to you in the beginning, but you will get better over time (trust me, I used to suck at it too). The real question, though, is which platform should you choose for your amateur blogs of yours. There are two main options that you go for; free blogging platforms versus self-hosted or paid blogging platforms.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Free Blogging Platforms

Free blogging platforms are good for novice and amateur bloggers who are just beginning their blogging journey. Here we will discuss some of the pros and cons of free hosted platforms.

Advantages

• There are many platforms online to choose from (BlogSpot, Pixpa, Wix, etc.)
• You can start for absolutely free
• You can host your content for free forever
• These are very easy-to-use platforms for beginners and amateurs

Disadvantages

• Most of the platforms have very poor customization options. It means that your blog will not look very attractive, or worse might look very, very ugly.
• Monetization, if you want to go for it in the future, is very limited.
• You do not have much control over your content on some platforms as they might delete your content.
• You can face problems if you want to move your blog to a paid hosting service.

There are many more problems that you might face when you are using free services that I have not discussed here. They are good for beginners, but if you want to seriously pursue your passion, you might have to reconsider your options.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Paid Blogging Platforms

Advantages

• They are very cheap to get started.
• You have full control over the content of your blog. No one can delete it or anything.
• They have the easiest indexation for Google and Bing.
• Your blog will get a good ranking on various search engines quite easily.
• They offer a wide range of customization options. So, you can go nuts with your creativity and easily make a stunning-looking blog.
• These services offer thousands of plugins that can make your blogging experience easier.
• Monetization is very easy.

Disadvantages

• These services are not free.
• You have to own a domain name for your blog. Some services provide you with a free domain name for the first year.
• If you are facing problems, you have to solve them yourself. The support service of the hosting platform can assist you in these matters.

As you can see, paid hosting services offer you freedom in terms of control over your blog and its content. Although you have to pay for the domain names and stuff, these services offer you unlimited creative control and very good monetization options for your amateur blogs.

Tips for Running Successful Amateur Blogs

For running a successful amateur blog, you should follow the following tips.

1. Write your own posts. Do not try and hire a content writer for your blog. If you want to get your idea, your passion for the world, write it in your own words. Trust me, when you are writing with your heart, words will automatically come to your mind. I know you think it is difficult for a new writer, but you will improve with the passage of time.
2. Use attractive headlines for your blog posts. Dull and overly simplistic headlines can be detrimental, as some people might leave your blog just by looking at the headline. Add finesse to your headlines, with keywords, power words, numbers, etc. to attract more people.
3. Search Engine Optimization is the name of the game when it comes to making your blog the star of the search results. For amateur blogs, basic on-page SEO is vital if they want to attract traffic. If your SEO is not strong, you can kiss that sweet, sweet traffic goodbye.
4. Another great way to improve your blog posts is by adding images, graphics, and videos (if you have them). A dull, written article will get very low traffic as compared to a post whose attractiveness is enhanced using relevant images and graphics. So, don’t be afraid to spice things up with the help of pictures and videos for your posts, they are your friends.
5. In order to get traffic to your fledgling blog, you can also use social platforms. You can easily attract traffic to your amateur blogs manually via messages and social media posts or you can use special online tools and software that can help you in this regard.
6. Post quality content in your amateur blogs. Make sure that what you are writing in your blog is clear and well-researched. Some blogs fail just because they do not pay much attention to researching the content they are writing beforehand. Your writing should depict a clear idea of what you want to convey. Make sure to proofread your article to catch any grammar mistakes, overly complicated sentences, and other such errors before posting.
7. And last, but not least, do not stop posting even if you have to post one article per week. The more consistent you are with your blog posts, the more guaranteed your success is.

Conclusion

Amateur blogs are a great way to introduce the world to what you are passionate about. Amateur blogging is also a very powerful tool when it comes to enhancing your own creativity and strengthening your imagination. So, do not shy away from amateur blogging just because you think that you cannot write. Use this awesome tool to your advantage and enhance your creativity and share your ideas and passion with the world.