I’m guessing that since you are visiting this blog, a blog about blogging, then obviously you either:

1. A blogger

2. Looking at getting into blogging

I can’t believe how popular blogging has got recently. The latest statistics I can find show that Technorati is tracking over Techi Buck 112million blogs and supposedly there are also over 72million Chinese blogs, which I am guessing are not being counted by technorati.

That is close to 200million blogs! I guess a fair few of these are probably inactive, but even so that is still a massive market.

I Wonder How Many Are Performing The Roll Blogs Were Created For!

Have you ever thought about what the purpose of blogs actually are? I mean there are so many types of blogs out there, is there one correct way to blog?

I decided to have a think about why blogs even exist. I mean, we have news papers, online news websites, we have portals like yahoo and niche information websites. If we wanted to find something out we could. Right?

So Why Blogs?

I have thought of 3 reasons that blogs exist. I am sure there are more, but the chances are they will fall under one of these categories.

1. To Educate

Since new ideas and information is being created daily, if we are not constantly learning we are not even just staying at the same level – we are actually knowing less. Blogs are an excellent way to provide education for people in whatever niche you select. Why?

* You are posting daily – it’s not just a one off thing, but continual learning

* Your blog gives you a platform to reach a larger audience with your expertise

* With RSS feeds you are able to remind your ‘students’ about their next lesson

I consider this blog to be an education blog as the purpose of it is to train and inspire bloggers to take their blogging to the next level.

Here are a few great examples of education blogs:

* Problogger.net

* CourtneyTuttle.com

* BloggingTips.com

With education blogs the main priority is the content, then the delivery.

2. To Inform

Information blogs are more commonly known as news blogs. Their focus is on letting you know about products and services that is of interest to their readers. The benefit that a news blog has over an online news website is its ability to be more personal. Because there is no shareholders and the like to keep happy, news bloggers are able to freely give their opinions (their honest opinions). I think this is something that draws a lot of people to news blogs and you will see that they can be very popular!

Here are a few great examples of information (news) blogs:

* TechChrunch.com (785k subscribers)

* ReadWriteWeb.com (212k subscribers)

* SmashingMagazine.com (66k subscribers)

The key to creating and sustaining a successful information/news blog is speed and currency. People don’t want to read old news, they are always wanting the latest news and if you can be one of the first to give it to them, consistently, then you will have a growing blog in no time!

3. To Entertain

Not all blogs have to be serious. Then again even the education or information blogs should be easy for their subscribers to read, but there is a huge niche ripe for the picking if you can provide enjoyment to your visitors. There are a whole heap of different ways that you can entertain your readers. Like:

* Humour

* Gossip

* Being completely random

People love to be entertained constantly, and you will notice that blogs in the entertainment niche are having posts added multiple times through the day.

Here are a few examples of great entertainment blogs:

* ICanHazCheezBurger.com

* PerezHilton.com

I think those three categories cover the majority of blogs, if I have forgotten something let me know!

However there are a few things that I believe blogs were not created for:

* To create ‘just for adsense’ blogs

* So that you can make money off paid reviews

* To rehash what everyone else is already saying

I guess what I am trying to say is that your blog should provide a service to your visitors. Whether it be education, information, entertainment or anything else, AND THEN you can start adding monetization. And one final thing. BE UNIQUE. There are so many bloggers that are just writing what others are talking about because they think that is what people want to hear. I personally believe, who cares what other people are writing about, if you can do at least one of the the three things I have mentioned above, then you won’t need to copy anyone because you will have a unique services of your own.