A Blog can be part of your business strategy, it could be your take on the world, life, tech or it could be a random collection of ramblings.

But that's the beauty of the Blog, it's yours, you decide the how, the what, the when and probably the why. Where, well that too.

• Know your topic

• Just do it

• Care about your content

• Care about your audience

• If you have nothing to say, say nothing

Before you consider Blogging, there are a few things you need to ask yourself:

1. Why should I blog?
2. Where should I blog?
3. What should I write about?
4. What makes my idea great?
5. Who's my audience?
6. Am I trying to make money?

Note than a blog is like an online magazine where you can write everything you think, the ideas you have, your points of view and everything that you want people to read. The blogs are not all equal, everyone has its own styles, its formats, some characteristics that makes it unique (at least, the blogs of success!). Many sites offer you the opportunity to open a blog, one of the most famous is WordPress (which personally, I highly recommend).Let's begin!

You need to come up with a name for your blog, try to keep it simple and related with what you're going to write about on your blog. Note that no one is going to remember 'StoriesofmeandmydogspotwhenwewenttoParis.com'. Try short things like 'ParisTrip.com', or 'SpotandMe.com.

Part 'n Parcel with the URL is how this blog is going to be hosted. If you join a blogging service like WordPress.com, you're url will likely look like this, 'www.ParisTrip.wordpress.com', the payoff is that it's a free service. The negative side is that you cannot use 'some' plugins nor Google's AdSense to make some money without upgrading.

If you do choose to purchase your own hosting, then I would recommend HostMonster.com, I have setup about 8 blogs through them so far and they implementation is seamless. They are also very, very cheap.

Either way, the below steps will revolve around Blogging, not installing a blog. If you need that type of info, watch the embedded video below or read also How to Set Up a Blog for Beginners.

Whatever your cause, be it a daily diary or professional ramblings, stick to it. Most blogs fail within the first 3 months because the author of the blogs gets sidetracked. Everyone have jobs (be it at the office or a stay at home mom), distractions, friends, family that we need to deal with. This is just part of life. What draws people to a blog is the 'regular' input from the blogger to the audience. If the content wains, so will the Interest.

How to avoid this?

1.Setup a routine:

Everyday at the same time, stop what your doing, sit down and write a few lines. Some days nothing will come to you, other days you'll find yourself writing out a diary. In those instances, instead of writing out 6 pages of text, seperate the content into multiple Blogs and use the Blogging software's capability to Pre-publish. What this means is that you write the post now, but you can tell the application to only Publish it tomorrow. It does it all for you, all you need to do is choose date.

2.Stick to your content:

If your blog is about your dog, don't ramble on for four pages about your co-worker who gave the whole office their cold. The people who will follow your blog follow it for a reason. They either have some interest in you, your life, your topic or just what you have to say specifically. If you stray too far, too often, they'll go looking elsewhere.

If you're a computer salesman, don't blog about Paris Hilton just because she's in the news right now. If you know a lot about her, then by all means, but there needs to be a very specific reason WHY people read what you have to say.

Make it worth their time to come to your page and spend a few minutes listening to what you have to say.

Think about that for a second... while it takes some dedication on your part to put out content on a regular (not necessarily daily) basis, you need to GAIN the dedication of those who may come to your blog and spend their precious time reading what you've written.

One of the first steps to do in order to attract more readers is pay a lot of attention to the content. So begin with writing good posts about your blog's main topic and always return with updates and new posts.

It is also very important not to simply "copy & paste" a post from another source. Visitors or possibly the content's author could notice this, and the search engines WILL notice and will penalize your blog through rankings or blacklisting it. Other traffic sources could be affected as well.

If you do not know what to write about within your topic it can be helpful to visit similarly themed websites and blogs, or news sites. This can give you inspiration for a topic to discuss or something valuable which you can use to express your opinion.

Yes this one of the latest step in blogging... Why? Because one of the most important part is the content and usually if your content is a bomb other bloggers will speak about it and you.
So, write good content then promote it!

To understand better this step I suggest you to first read How to Seo your Website.

You could base your blog's promotion on a lot of ways, let's shortly discover some of the most important.

Links..
-Exchange links with other blogs.
I suggest you to use links in this form:
<a> href="POST URL" title="SHORT SIGNIFICANT POST TITLE">SHORT TITLE</a>
-Use BlogRush.
-Add your blog to popular blog directories.
-Comment on dofollow blogs.

Relationships and Community...
-Pay attention to readers answering their comments/questions
-Send emails to other similar blogers trying to open a discussion on your blog's topic..
-Link others blogs.
-Participate at least at MyBlogLog, Bumpzee and Blog Catalog.

Social Media
-Publish your new post's links on the most popular social media sites.
-Become a part of the community, comment on others' links and make friends.
-It can be helpful to choose one social network and become a regular contributor there.

Participate on.. the most popular forums like:
-AuthorityBlogger
-Bloggeries
-SitePoint
-Blogger Forum
-BloggerTalk
...adding your blog's link in your forum post's footer.

..on popular online groups like:
-Yahoo Groups
-Google Groups
-Msn Groups

Write on popular Article Marketing sites like:
-Ezine Articles
-Go Articles
-Article Dashboard
-ArticleHub
-Jogena
-Marketing Seek
-Alumbo
-Article Avenue
...adding your blog's link at the end of your articles.

Participation on popular classifieds sites,popular images sharing sites,bloggers interviews and website awards could be also very useful.