WordPress – Blogging

Exactly what is a Blog?

The term Blog is a shortened version of “Web log“. A blog is a “TYPE” of website. The essence of a blog is a regularly updated website based around a subject that the blog owner (or owners) would like to talk about. The difference between a normal website and a blog is the interactivity and social web technology that the author and visitors have available.

Anything related to blogs and blogging is part of the Blogosphere. This section helps individuals and Business learn about blogs, the different types of blogs and how to use a blog to their advantage

Blogging and Blogging Technology is Cutting Edge

A blog that uses comments (and/or Twitter) can turn an article into a conversation with the visitor and author gaining value from the experience. These comments can also provide additional interesting content for other visitors to view and join in.

A visitor can subscribe to RSS and e-mail updates which enables them to receive the latest articles without having to visit the site. Blogs can use any of the latest web technologies and do very well, some are based around videos called Vlogs, others blogs use audio (podcasts), others images, blogs are very adaptable.

Blogs can contain and use audio, music, images, text and video technologies, every part of social media can be added and blended to complement a blog and improve the user experience, help search engine ranking and promote the authors ideas.

Any subject you can think of there will probably be someone writing a blog about it Travel, Lifestyle, Sports, even the UK Television series Belle du Jour was based on a Blog.

A blog can be added to a website to complement the site or a blog can be a separate entity, a stand-alone website.

Why people use a Blog

Good way of creating awareness of and creating new links to an existing website
To share thoughts and ideas with visitors on-line
Provide information and create a community
Help to promote products, increase on line presence and gain customer feedback
Keep up with current information and trends (visitor feedback can educate the author).

Types of Blogs (WordPress .com)

This is a list of different types of blogs defined by WordPress.com (a free blogging website, technology and community).

There are many different types of blogs on WordPress.com, and they span over 100 languages. Take a look at these examples of popular blog categories:

Personal: This is the broadest category and includes blogs about personal topics like politics, music, family, travel, health, you name it.
Business: Professionals ranging from realtors to lawyers and stock brokers are using WordPress to share their expertise, and companies have discovered the power of blogs to personally engage with their customers.
Schools: WordPress is a great way for teachers and students to collaborate on classroom projects.
Non-profits: Foundations, charities, and human rights groups find our blogs to be great tools to raise awareness and money for their causes.
Politics: Members of parliament, political parties, government agencies, and activists using our blogs to connect with their constituencies.
Military: Members of the military blog to report what they see happening in various parts of the world and to stay in touch with their families.
Private: Some people make their blogs private to share photos and information within families, companies, or schools.
Sports: We’ve got teams, athletes, and fans using blogs to express and share their passion for various sports.
How-to, tips and reviews: There are lots of blogs that share tips and reviews about cooking, games, music, books, movies, and so on.

How Can I Start a Blog (A Free Blog)

If you want to dive straight into creating a blog, try WordPress.com or Blogger.com, both are free and will enable you to use their tools to set up a blog very quickly. I love WordPress and am still surprised at the amount of support, free plug-ins and user information that is available. Blogger.com is owned by Google so if you have a Google account you may wish to use this service.

If you have some technical knowledge and would like to host a blog on your own site again for free, a Content Management System is the perfect way to start and manage a professional blog. I have had experience with both WordPress (CMS) and Drupal (CMS) and whilst both are excellent systems I would recommend using WordPress if you plan on having a blog.

If you require a website (e.g. a business website) with a blog to complement the main website, I would use Drupal. Also I have found the support for WordPress is superior, Drupal is very open to adaptation and great if you are familiar with fairly complex PHP code.

Blogs are linked to and referenced a lot more than traditional websites.

By creating a blog, the content of your blog can be searched for and viewed by your target audience in many different ways, that are not always available in a traditional website. With a blog you can:

Get involved and chat to people on forums and on other blogs related to your subject, then refer them to your blog. By interacting you are beginning to build trust which will make people more comfortable when visiting your site.
Submit your blog to blog directories, people do search these to find specific blogs, blog trends and to see “what’s hot” at the moment. See Technorati, Blogcatalog, Bloglines, Sphere and Google Blog Search.
Ping your Blog – Sounds strange but this is a mechanism that sends a message to ping servers saying that you have new content on your site. Sign up to sites like pingomatic.com, feedshark.brainbliss.com. Good Blogging technologies do this automatically (e.g. WordPress).
TrackBacks. By using the trackbacks other bloggers can comment on your blog and link to their blog. More on Trackbacks.

Blogging For Business

Blogs are a very powerful marketing tool, they can be used to communicate with customers and potential customers, members of staff (even the CEO), shareholders, and journalists. Blogging is a fantastic way to brand a community and awareness around a brand and bring instant customer feedback.

Before beginning a blog, an business has to establish guidelines and a social media policy within the organisation, especially as there could be various contributors to the blog.

The company blogger duties will be:

writing REGULAR posts and articles, in a personal, entertaining and honest fashion. If the blog sounds forced and untrue, there will be a lack of trust and visitors will go elsewhere. It also needs to be updated regularly this is very important.
monitoring industry news including other blogs
replying to comments from readers
building relationships with other bloggers in the community
commenting on other blogs
related to what is happening in the blogosphere, by including the company blog to already interesting topics will help to gain a following and keep the blog interesting and is very good for Search Engine Optimisation.

Tracking Visitors to your Blog

You can measure the success of your blog in a number of ways depending on which metrics you feel are important (see examples below), using analytical tools such as Google analytics and Feedburner.com.

number of visitors
number of comments
number of visitors who subscribe to rss, email feeds
subscribers to an e-mail (personal or marketing) newsletter
number of visitors who click onto a product promotion (sales funnel)

Not Just a Blog

Regard your blog as a hub of social media services and have a more holistic view (not just one technology but lots of integrated technologies). By using as many social media services as possible e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Social Booking Marking, Video, Audio you can enhance the visitor experience, increase the amount of visitors and use more tools to track and analyse your progress. It sounds more complicated than it is, once you get the hang of a basic blog and the analytic program, you can begin to expand. WordPress, allows you to download additional technologies called plug-in’s for free and most of them do not require any coding skills.

I recommended reading Social Media Marketing to get an idea of how these technologies blend together and complement each other. Also for business and social media see Twitter for Business and Facebook for Business

Forms Of Social Media

Each form of Social Media listed below has a link explaining the method of use and how people, bloggers, and Small Business can use these technologies.