This is the first in a series of articles to encourage you to start blogging. You really want to take advantage of this awesome opportunity to improve your English and make new friends with native speakers.

Why? Good Question!
You are unique and have knowledge and experiences that only you have, this is something special about all people. Every day new situations and opportunities present themselves, and whether you recognize it or not you are already blogging and have been for most of your life.

Okay, I know what some of you are probably thinking. What do I mean by "you are already blogging" I don’t even have a blog! Yes, you do!

The fact of the matter is we all have a blog; we just haven’t all posted it. You see, we all have an internal dialog going on inside our heads. Our thoughts, our dreams and goals, the opinions we hold, the things that cross our mind when we’re walking down the street. Our hobbies, our jobs, families, schooling and passions…these are things that great blogs are made of.

So, if you want to make lots of English speaking friends and even earn some extra cash to pay for your education through blogging, (yeah you can earn money by blogging) then creating a popular blog is the key to success. If your blog receives very little traffic, you will not have much success making friends or monetizing it. No matter which method you use to make friends and/or money from your blog, you will find the most success if you have a large readership. Because of this, making your blog popular and growing readership should be your primary concern.

Okay, before any fears start to rise up in you about your English let’s be clear here. You are learning English and have nothing to be embarrassed about. One of the great things about blogging is that you do not have to be a professional writer to have a popular blog. You do have to obey common grammatical rules and at least be able to put together coherent sentences, but you do not have to be a highly skilled writer or a native speaker to have an English language blog.

There are many ways to make your blog more popular. The first thing you should consider is who your audience is and who you are writing for. You should always write about something that interests you, and that will interest others. Now, you may think that your new kitten is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but there are probably not very many other people who want to read a blog about the day to day life of your kitten. It is best to find a niche audience that is large enough to support a wide readership but not to vague. 

It’s okay for the general topic to fairly broad, I mean you are an ESL student but that’s not all you are. You are much more than that and those are the things to write about. You may want to share your knowledge and love of Manga or cooking, whatever it is, chances are some native speaker out there shares your passion or would like to.

Blog readers are looking for interesting, relevant topics to read, not the next work of Shakespeare. I’ll say it again, the great thing about blogging is that you do not have to be a professional writer to have a popular blog.

Just make sure what you write is interesting, funny, informative, or even controversial. Popular blogs are never boring and add value to reader’s lives either through information or entertainment. Make sure your blog adds something of value to your reader’s life otherwise you will not develop a large fan base.

Well, that's it for today,

See you soon, Mr.D