Blogging 101: The beginning

This series has been a long time coming. It has taken me years of blogging and podcasting to develop my own ideas, methods and theories about how to develop useful, valuable content to my readers, listeners and viewers.

Blogging 101 will be an on-going series and use many different media. There will be text blog posts like this one, audio podcasting, video interviews and screencasts and any other methods that make sense and provide value.

If you have questions about the how, what, when and why of blogging, send them along. Your questions are always the best source of new material for my writing and I will gladly answer your questions or find someone who can.

Why blogging?

I get asked this question quite often and my answer is nearly always the same. Blogging is one method — a very productive method — of showing people “what you do and how well you do it!” I consider this to the main goal of anyone who is seeking a better life and/or career. When you share your knowledge and experience with others through blogging (and other methods), you directly demonstrate your expertise and value to others. Even more, when you capture this expertise and value in a blog, it is then available around the world, 24/7. It works for your regardless of what you are doing — sleeping, working, spending time with family.

When we work face-to-face, we can help and educate 1,10, 100 people at a time. When we share our expertise online we can, potentially reach thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. Capturing our knowledge makes it available to anyone who might be seeking it out through online reading, social media or search engines.

If you are not blogging yet, I hope you will start. If you are already blogging, I hope you will find ways to share more of your knowledge more frequently. This series will seek to help you on your way, support your efforts and give you ideas on how to expand your reach and influence. I’ll write about blogging philosophy, technology, tools, and ideas on what you have to share and how you can best share it.

Thanks for joining me on this journey. I look forward to hearing your questions, comments and seeing your blogs and how they grow. Be sure to send all of these along via comments here, email to douglas@welchwrite.com or via the various social media sites..

Upcoming Blogging 101 Topics:

• Any connection to your readers is worthwhile
• What do I have to share?
• What is an expert?
• Technology to tie your blog to social media sites — DLVR.it, IFTTT.com, Buffer and more!
• Cooperating with other bloggers and sites
• ..and much, much more!