The word Blog is short for “Web Logs”. It’s an online diary
where you can create and update information easily for others to see.
Originally, blogs were used by people to easily publish
their thoughts and experiences. Due to the fact that blogs are regularly
updated with new content and they are structured well, search engines have a
preference to rank blogs high with their search results.
This is a major advantage of having a blog. If you want to
have an online presence, you need a blog. You can get information and
content out on the internet fast.
Blogs are easy to install and set up and they require
little technical knowledge to publish a post.
People from all ages and education background are
publishing blogs. The ones with interesting content are getting regular readers and
have many posts that are ranked high in the search engines for their keywords.
If you know how to use a word processor and know the basic
components of a blog, you can easily start creating a post within an hour
of setting one up.
With a blog you can create content quickly and have it
indexed (listed) in the search engines. This means that you will potentially have a
lot of content which people can find when they search on the internet.
This is much better than a traditional, static website
because it’s much harder to update new content with, since you need a programmer to
upload it for you. With a blog you can do everything yourself.
Since blogs are meant to be updated regularly, the readers
tend to visit your blog more often to see what new information you have.
Traditional websites don’t have this “sticky” factor.
1. Blog Posts – Each
content you write and publish on the blog is called a blog post. You can publish as many posts as you want.
The frequency of how much you should post depends on what
you have to say and your readers’ needs.
For example, if you’re posting to update a football match,
you’ll be posting several times within a few hours.
2. Pages – Similar
to blog posts but they are normally static. Examples of pages include Contact Us, About Us, Services section etc…
3. Tags – Tags are
the blog version of keywords. You can place several tags in your blog to tell the blog engines what your post is
about.
So if you place the tags “writing”, “articles”,
“marketing”, “affiliates”, then the blog search engines will know which words relate to
your blog post and what you want to be ranked for.
Examples of blog search engines include Technorati (http://www.technorati.com) and Wordpress
(http://www.wordpress.com/)
4. Categories – You
can place your blog posts into groups which are called Categories in a blog. It makes it easier for readers to
find your blog posts under a certain section which they’re interested in.
If you’re a dentist, you may create the category “fillings”
and have all your posts related to fillings in that category.
5. Blog Commenting –
With each of your blog posts, your readers can choose to post comments to it. This will create interaction
with your readers. You can reply to their comments and have a
discussion.
Looking at the comments, you can see what your readers are
thinking about and if they like your posts.
Since other people can comment on your blog, they are
helping you generate content which is good for the search engines to
find your blog post.
On the other hand, you can also comment on other people’s
blogs and place a link to your own blog. Doing this you can get some
traffic from the Blueprint To Blogging Profits blog you commented
on if your comments were useful and other readers are intrigued by it.
6. RSS Feeds – Every
blog has a RSS Feed which stands for Real Simple Syndication. It is a feed which contains a description of
your blog post which people can subscribe to.
After subscribing to your blog’s RSS Feed, they can use a
RSS reader which allows them see if your blog is updated with new
information without having to visit your blog.
They see the title of your blog and a short description of
the post with a link to it. If the readers are interested they can click on
the link and read your blog post.
RSS feeds are very powerful because it allows your blog’s
content to appear in a lot of places on the internet.
For example, if a person likes your blog, they can put your
RSS feed on their website which will automatically show your latest
posts when your blog is updated.
7. Plugins – These
are software code which you can add to your blog to give it a certain feature. You can add a plugin which
allows your blog to have a contact form, search engine optimization functions
and many other things.
The ability to easily install plugins to make your blog
have more advanced features is one of the main reason why blogs, especially
Wordpress are so popular.
The owner of the blog can add features they want to the
blog without paying for a developer to do it.
8. Blogroll – This
is a place where you can put links to websites which you think is useful for the readers. You may even put your own
business website or your business partner’s website in the blogroll.
If your readers are interested in reading your blog, they
will look at your blogroll to see what other interesting links you have. It
is a good way to give more information to your readers.
9. Trackbacks – This
is a way for blog owners to know if someone is linking to their blog posts. For example if someone likes a
particular post, they may place a link to the post on their website.
You will be notified
when someone does this and you can approve the trackback which will appear in your posts’ comments.
This is why you see so many blog post with trackbacks to
them which point to another website.
By using trackbacks, you can give a link to the person
writing about your blog post and return the favor by linking to them from your
comments section.
10. Themes – Your blog can look different by installing
themes which are basically skins for your blog. There are many themes for
blogs and you can install them free of charge and choose the right
appearance for your
readers.
11. Widgets – These are sections of your blog which you can
put on the side menu of your blog. There are widgets such as calendar,
search button, text and recent posts which you can place and move around
to make your blog more user friendly and provide more information.
12. Optional Excerpt – You can write one sentence in the
optional excerpt which is then shown when people read your RSS feeds. Based on this one
sentence and with your blog title, they will decide
whether or not they want to read the full blog post. Optional Excerpts
allows you to use related keywords in the description which is then updated in all the places which display your
RSS feed.
This is good for
search engines and allows you write an attractive description to convince readers to visit your blog.
Kazi Ziaul Hoque
Operational Manager
Sunflower Service & Solution Ltd.
http://www.sunflowerebusiness.com/
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