{"id":34908,"date":"2018-03-27T06:35:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T06:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.lvh.me\/blog\/2018\/03\/27\/what-is-a-blog-and-what-is-it-for\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T23:08:44","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:08:44","slug":"what-is-a-blog-and-what-is-it-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/en\/blog\/2018\/03\/27\/what-is-a-blog-and-what-is-it-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a blog and what is it for? Types, parts and examples"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A blog is a website, or a section of a website, where articles are published regularly, ordered from newest to oldest. It’s used to share knowledge or opinions, attract visits from Google and build a relationship with readers.<\/p>\n\n

Nowadays it’s very important to know what a blog is and what it’s for, because times have changed and an online presence is part of any personal or corporate strategy.<\/p>\n\n

Many companies no longer rely on a r\u00e9sum\u00e9 for information about a candidate or a new team member; instead, they go to search engines to see what they can find about them.<\/p>\n\n

And believe me, if they find our blog about the field we’re going to work in, we’ll have a much better chance of being the candidate they choose.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Plus, what better than a blog to build a personal brand, whether to look for a job, make ourselves known as professionals in our industry or simply as a hobby.<\/p>\n\n

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Tip<\/div>\n
That’s why, if you want to make yourself known online, at Mailrelay<\/a> we recommend that you learn what a blog is and what it’s for, and start working on one as soon as possible.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What is a blog?<\/h2>\n\n

First of all, I’m going to explain the definition of a blog to get you started.<\/p>\n\n

A blog<\/strong> is a web page or website for publishing content on a special page (the blog page), used to write regularly in order to achieve certain goals. This regularly published content is called “articles” or “posts”.<\/p>\n\n

\"what<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

We all more or less know what blogs are, but it should be made clear that a blog is a website for publishing, where our posts on the topics we cover are arranged in chronological order.<\/p>\n\n

These topics can be ideas, opinions, personal or professional information, experiences, etc.<\/p>\n\n

That’s why we must take very good care of our blog<\/strong>, since the image of the person or company will be defined by it, as it’s one of the ways we’ll stay in touch with our audience.<\/p>\n\n

This audience can leave comments on the post or article itself, so we’ll get feedback<\/strong> from them if we know how to use it well.<\/p>\n\n

It’s also very important to take search intent<\/strong> into account, since each URL should target one specific intent, so keywords are something we must take care of in every blog article.<\/p>\n\n

Images are another important element to consider in a post<\/strong>, because a post may be very well written and explained, but if it has no images, or they aren’t polished, it won’t convey the same thing.<\/p>\n\n

That’s why we should use photo editing software<\/a> to optimize file size (so the page doesn’t load slowly and Google indexes us faster), as well as the lighting, colors and contrast for a clean image.<\/p>\n\n

An important part of having a blog is being clear about the strategy we’ll follow<\/strong> in our articles based on the goals we set, since the blog is a channel that will make it easier to achieve them.<\/p>\n\n

Now that you know what a blog is, you should know what its author is called. The author of a blog is the blogger<\/strong>, the person in charge of managing it and publishing regularly.<\/p>\n\n

A blogger must always stay in touch with their audience, because whether it’s a company blog or a personal one, they are the website’s communicator, so they must always keep interest alive.<\/p>\n\n

They need to be clear about the blog’s goals, so they can follow a strategy focused on meeting them with their regular posts.<\/p>\n\n

That’s why the blogger must be very involved in the blog, since they play a decisive role in achieving its final goals, with plenty of consistency and discipline in their field.<\/p>\n\n

\"what<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Features and parts of a blog<\/h2>\n\n

There are many types of blogs, but almost all of them share some features: they publish regularly, sort articles by date, group them by topic and let readers take part.<\/p>\n\n

These are the parts you’ll find in almost any blog:<\/p>\n\n

Part<\/th>What it’s for<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Header<\/td>Shows the blog’s name or logo<\/td><\/tr>
Menu<\/td>Leads to the categories and main pages<\/td><\/tr>
Entries or posts<\/td>The articles, with title, date and author<\/td><\/tr>
Categories and tags<\/td>Group articles by topic<\/td><\/tr>
Sidebar<\/td>Brings together search, featured articles or subscription<\/td><\/tr>
Comments<\/td>Let readers share their opinions and ask questions<\/td><\/tr>
Subscription form<\/td>Sends an email alert for every new article<\/td><\/tr>
Footer<\/td>Includes contact details, legal notice and social networks<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n
\"Parts<\/figure>\n\n

Difference between a blog and a website<\/h2>\n\n

Every blog is a website, but not every website is a blog. The difference lies in how the content is organized and how often it changes.<\/p>\n\n

<\/th>Blog<\/th>Corporate website<\/th>Social network<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Content<\/td>New articles every so often<\/td>Fixed pages that rarely change<\/td>Short, continuous posts<\/td><\/tr>
Order<\/td>From newest to oldest<\/td>By section (company, services, contact)<\/td>Decided by the algorithm<\/td><\/tr>
Goal<\/td>Inform, attract visits and build community<\/td>Present the company and sell<\/td>Interact and gain reach<\/td><\/tr>
Ownership<\/td>Yours<\/td>Yours<\/td>The platform’s<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

Many companies combine the two: a corporate website with a blog inside it. That way the website stays alive and every article is a new way in from Google.<\/p>\n\n

What is a blogger?<\/h2>\n\n

A blogger is the person who writes and manages a blog. They’re in charge of choosing the topics, writing the articles, publishing them regularly and replying to readers.<\/p>\n\n

Not to be confused with Blogger, with a capital B. Blogger is a free Google platform for creating blogs. If this is what you want to do, here are the keys to being a good blogger<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

What is a blog for?<\/h2>\n\n

A blog is useful for many things, but it will depend on the goals we set.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

The goals you can set for your blog can differ, and they vary depending on what you’re aiming for. That’s why we need to set them before anything else, so we don’t stray from the course we’ve charted.<\/p>\n\n

Many people think having a blog is a waste of time.<\/p>\n\n

They think<\/strong>: Why should we show what we know or what we like? I don’t want to teach what I know! Nobody’s going to read us!<\/p>\n\n

But they’re wrong.<\/p>\n\n

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Tip<\/div>\n
A blog opens up many opportunities, and if there’s something you’re truly passionate about and you don’t know how to make yourself known in the world or in your industry, it’s the best way to do it.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n

That’s why I’m going to explain what a blog is for and what we can achieve with one.<\/p>\n\n

Drive traffic to your corporate or personal website and improve your SEO ranking<\/h3>\n\n

We often have our corporate or personal website up and running, but there always comes a time when we think: Why am I not getting any visits? Am I doing something wrong?<\/p>\n\n

What many companies don’t know is that a blog lets you include more keywords on the website, so Google will give that website more weight for those terms.<\/p>\n\n

But right now you’re probably thinking: It may have worked for you, but that doesn’t mean it’ll work for me.<\/p>\n\n

Well, to make it clearer, I’ll show you with numbers (numbers don’t lie).<\/p>\n\n

This is a chart of a website with an average of 250 visits a day. If we look at the number of page views for the period from March 6 to March 12 WITHOUT the blog, we can see that the peak doesn’t even reach 100.<\/p>\n\n

\"what<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

However, here we see the website as a whole, including the blog and all its articles.<\/p>\n\n

As you can see, even on the day with the fewest page views, the figure was double that of the same website without any articles or blog, reaching almost 500 pages on the days with the most traffic.<\/p>\n\n

\"what<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Google indexes pages by the keywords associated with them, so the more well-structured, previously researched keywords we have, aimed at different search intents, the more pages it will end up indexing and the more chances we’ll have to gain visibility in the search engine.<\/p>\n\n

Make money with a blog<\/h3>\n\n

Making money with a blog doesn’t happen overnight: you’ll need to be consistent and work at it to get traffic and for the techniques to deliver a significant return.<\/p>\n\n

There are different ways to make money with a blog, so I’m going to explain some that I consider very important.<\/p>\n\n

Generate sales with a product or service blog<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n

As I mentioned, the website will get more traffic (and you’ll be able to promote your offer within each article), so people will be more likely to buy your product or service.<\/p>\n\n

Another advantage is that if you ever become well known in your industry, you can even write ebooks or create courses and sell them to your users.<\/p>\n\n

It’s a fantastic way to show how good you are in your field and monetize it too.<\/p>\n\n

Here’s how Mailrelay (email marketing software<\/a>) uses banners in its articles to generate conversions while a user is reading about a specific topic.<\/p>\n\n

\"make<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Affiliate marketing<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n\n

Believe it or not, affiliate marketing is a very popular way to monetize a blog.<\/p>\n\n

With this technique, an affiliate promotes an advertiser’s product or service and earns a commission for each conversion generated through their blog.<\/p>\n\n

So the affiliate gives their users a link to the landing page or sales page, and if a user converts there, the blogger receives money or whatever was agreed in the prior contract.<\/p>\n\n

Advertising and ads on your blog<\/span><\/h4>\n\n

There are different advertising routes: it can be through direct partnerships with the advertiser, or through a system called Google AdSense, where you get paid based on the clicks on the banner or ad.<\/p>\n\n

You’ve often landed on a website or blog and, in the top or side bars, noticed products from stores you’ve seen or visited recently.<\/p>\n\n

If you click on one of these ads, the blogger or website owner gets paid an amount for every click you make.<\/p>\n\n

\"Illustration<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

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Turn your readers into subscribers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Add a Mailrelay form to your blog and send a newsletter with your new articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Create a free account<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

Get leads<\/h3>\n\n

When we land on a website, they can ask for our phone number, email, name or whatever they like, but in most cases, if we don’t get something in return, we’ll probably end up leaving the site without giving them what they ask for.<\/p>\n\n

Well, with a blog it’s much easier. What if we write an article about something we’re good at and give them some templates in return?<\/p>\n\n

Don’t you think we’ll get more data or leads that way?<\/p>\n\n

With a blog it will be much easier to get them, because we can also send emails with valuable content straight to their inbox using email marketing service<\/a> platforms like Mailrelay.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

If we only send corporate or sales content, they’ll probably end up unsubscribing from our lists.<\/p>\n\n

And that’s not what we want, is it?<\/p>\n\n

Personal branding with a blog<\/h3>\n\n

If you want to show the world what you know and prove you’re a true professional, it’s going to be very hard to do with a website that never changes.<\/p>\n\n

If we have a blog where we show the knowledge we have and can apply for other people or companies, we’ll be building trust in our work so we can be recognized as a professional through and through.<\/p>\n\n

Users will start to see you differently and recognize you as an expert on the subject.<\/p>\n\n

If you don’t show it, nobody will know what you really know.<\/p>\n\n

Find a job with a blog<\/h3>\n\n

I think this is one of the most important points. I know many people looking for Community Manager or Social Media jobs who spend all day sending out r\u00e9sum\u00e9s.<\/p>\n\n

A company that knows the online world will start by searching for that person on Google, and what will happen? They won’t be there.<\/p>\n\n

What if they search for us and find us as the top result, with a Community Management blog? Don’t you think that would increase our chances of getting the job we want?<\/p>\n\n

The company’s HR person will probably keep that candidate in mind for their next interview.<\/p>\n\n

\"what<\/figure>\n\n

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Does it still make sense to start a blog? The answer is: it depends. If you only want it to drive traffic, that’s probably hard today, because AI answers have reduced the visits that reach websites and, by extension, blogs. However, it does help you explain your product or service, have content for your social networks and your newsletter, and strengthen your brand. Besides, even if AI reduces traffic, it has to get its information about you from somewhere, and ideally that should be first-hand: from your blog and your website. So write what only you can tell, like your experience, your data or your real cases, and make the most of every visit to get readers to subscribe to your newsletter. That way you’ll depend less on Google and AI.<\/p>\nJose Argudo<\/strong>, CMO at Mailrelay<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n

What types of blogs are there?<\/h2>\n\n

As we know, you can find all kinds of content on the internet. Everything has already been done, and this is where the personal touch you give your posts or articles comes in.<\/p>\n\n

There are different types of blogs, which can help us learn, stay informed, have fun, get help, etc.<\/p>\n\n

First of all, we can divide blogs according to what we want to cover or achieve, which gives us different types of blogs.<\/p>\n\n

Personal or opinion blog<\/h3>\n\n

If you don’t know what a personal blog is, I’ll explain it to you.<\/p>\n\n

A personal blog is a type of blog in which the owner writes about real experiences from their day-to-day life, as well as ideas and opinions they have on various topics.<\/p>\n\n

They’re usually lifestyle blogs where people put their ideas into articles to reach their users and win their loyalty through understanding.<\/p>\n\n

Also, depending on the format, there are different styles: it can be a video blog, photo blog, audio blog or podcast, etc.<\/p>\n\n

For all these types of blogs, we’ll need video editing software<\/a>, because, as we well know, video is the future, so we must take good care of our image on the blog, and especially on a video blog.<\/p>\n\n

Personal brand blog<\/h3>\n\n

This type of blog differs from the previous one in that its aim is to gain public recognition for something you’re good at and to build prestige or a brand.<\/p>\n\n

For example, a personal brand blog would be one where I know I’m good at marketing and want to share all my experience in this industry so others can see I’m an expert.<\/p>\n\n

And you’ll ask: what for?<\/p>\n\n

Very simple: we create a personal brand blog to turn users into customers, or to attract professionals or companies that need what that brand offers.<\/p>\n\n

\"Illustration<\/figure>\n\n

<\/p>\n\n

Corporate blog<\/h3>\n\n

A corporate blog is run by a company with the aim of building trust with customers and establishing other kinds of relationships, whether by sharing information about the company itself or by passing on useful knowledge to its target audience.<\/p>\n\n

So, depending on the type of article, it could be either a promotional blog (promoting products or services) or a brand or branding blog (information about the company).<\/p>\n\n

General-topic blog<\/h3>\n\n

This is a blog that aims to rank for a general topic of interest to many users, such as marketing.<\/p>\n\n

The blog covers industry topics, split into different categories, which, following the same example, could be SEO, content marketing, advertising, etc.<\/p>\n\n

It’s a good option for making yourself known in your industry, whether you’re a person who wants to build a personal brand and turn it into this kind of blog, or a company that wants to win customers by showing its knowledge of the subject.<\/p>\n\n

Niche blog<\/h3>\n\n

We all know there are many niches or micro-niches waiting to be tapped, where you can make a lot of money.<\/p>\n\n

That’s why many people start by launching a blog on a very specific topic, such as scooters, to try to rank on Google quickly and effectively.<\/p>\n\n

Advantages and disadvantages of having a blog<\/h2>\n\n

A blog opens up many opportunities, but it also takes time. Before you start, it’s worth being clear about both sides.<\/p>\n\n

Pros<\/th>Cons<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Attracts visits from Google without paying for ads<\/td>Results take months to arrive<\/td><\/tr>
Builds your personal or company brand<\/td>Takes consistency to publish regularly<\/td><\/tr>
Lets you capture subscribers and customers<\/td>You have to maintain the website and its security<\/td><\/tr>
The content is yours and doesn’t depend on an algorithm<\/td>You need to write well or invest in copywriting<\/td><\/tr>
You can monetize it with products, affiliate marketing or advertising<\/td>Competition is high on many topics<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

What strategy can we follow to create a blog?<\/h2>\n\n

Like everything in online marketing, I believe a blog needs a strategy we can stick to and a course of action.<\/p>\n\n

Before talking about strategy, let me briefly remind you that there are different ways and different platforms<\/strong> to create a blog, such as WordPress, Blogger, Wix, etc.<\/p>\n\n

Of all of them, the most widely used (and in many ways the best) is WordPress<\/strong>: according to W3Techs, 40.2% of all websites in the world run on it (October 2026).<\/p>\n\n

There are two ways to work with WordPress:<\/p>\n\n

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  1. WordPress.com<\/strong>: here you use WordPress as a cloud service. You create an account on the wordpress.com website (similar to how you’d set up a webmail account) and start working. They offer a free plan (very limited) and several paid plans.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. WordPress.org<\/strong>: the other option is to download the WordPress source code from the wordpress.org website and install it on your own web server (which you can get from a hosting<\/strong> provider). This option is more professional and removes all of WordPress.com’s limitations.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n

    As for which one to use, it’s a nuanced question, but generally speaking the free WordPress.com plan (as on other platforms) is so limited (for example, you can’t use your own domain) that it’s only good for “tinkering” and not much else.<\/p>\n\n

    As soon as you move to the paid plans, even the most basic one costs about as much as good hosting, and you still have major limitations you don’t have on a hosted WordPress site.<\/p>\n\n

    That’s why, if “you’re serious”<\/em>, I recommend getting a hosting plan<\/strong>; plus, there are lots of discounts<\/strong> available.<\/p>\n\n

    With the Webempresa discount coupon<\/strong>, for example, you can get 25%<\/strong> off (or more at times like Black Friday), and with the Raiola Networks discount coupon<\/strong>, 20%<\/strong> off. These are two of the best Spanish-language hosting providers on the market.<\/p>\n\n

    Now that we’ve covered the practical side of creating a blog, let’s look at the strategic side as well.<\/p>\n\n

    In the following video we suggest a strategy similar to developing a product:<\/p>\n\n