March 26, 2007 16:28
Category: Blogging
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To define what is blog, let us first consider how the term came into being. Blog or weblog is a joint of two words, web and log. Blog refers to online journaling of any event - mainly in texts and images - in reverse chronological order.
A blog records activities, thoughts or beliefs of an individual or group of individuals for public consumption. Yet another way to describe what is blog is to bring out the main distinction between blog and diary-writing. Thus while blog essentially exists in public domain, a diary remains private.
This article proceeds with the assumption that readers are already conversant with basic ideas with respect to what is blog, how blogging is done and the key blog-related terms like title, post, permalink, body, postdate, comments, categories, trackback/pingback, etc. We will focus on how you can make your blog a success and using blog for search engine optimization.
But before that we'll take a quick look at important blog signposts and free blogging tools to get started.
Blog Signposts
Blogging has become popular in a short time. Though the concept took awhile to catch on, there's no stopping now its feverish spread like wildfire. Here is a sequence of major events that together make up today's big 'what is blog' scenario:
- One of the earliest entrants on the blog-scene, Xanga.com debuted in 1996 with just about 100 participants. Today, Xanga is used by millions of users.
- Following Xanga came OpenDiary.com in October 1998 & LiveJournal.com in March 1999. Presently, OpenDiary has nearly 450,000 users, while LiveJournal boasts of ten million users and more than 230,000 posts everyday.
- In 1999, 'hosted' blogs made appearance. Thereafter, blogging took off like a blazing rocket.
- August 1999 is when Blogger.com commenced its journey, to be acquired by Google in February 2003.
Though dependable total usage figures are still not available, what is clear is that blogging has firmly graduated from yesteryears' innocent 'what is blog' concept to share place of prominence with other popular net activities like emailing, chatting and surfing. For more information, click 'what is blog'.
Free Blogging Tools
Free blogging comes in two flavors. Hosted service and database-supported application software. Xanga's hosted service offers both free and paid accounts. So too Yahoo!'s Flickr photo-blogging.
On the other hand, Blogger.com from Google's fold is an excellent free start-up. It also permits hosting your blog-pages in your own server. Other hosted service includes Blog-City, Blogsome, Blog Studio, Fotothing photo sharing and so on.
The two most notable database-supported open-source blog software are Nucleus CMS and WordPress. Both are versatile in their own ways and very popular. As a general rule, for all blogging services, you have to sign up for an account. Once approved, you will be able to proceed step-by-step to found your very own blog.
Are You Game?
Purists will prefer starting from beginning. "Tell me what is blog", they'd insist. But perhaps it is not necessary. Just as you wouldn't care what a car is before learning to drive, similarly you may not bother to know what is blog in order to get going. That said, there are a few points for you to be aware of if you want your blog to succeed. Here they are:
- Like any other popular media, blogging is an increasingly crowded place. Your blog must therefore focus on a niche subject. To give an example, if cooking is your forte, focus on particular preparations (like chocolate pastries or picnic foods) than trying a wide gamut.
- Are you conversant enough on your chosen subject? Remember, people love hearing from horse's mouth. If you really know your subject, it will reflect in your writings.
- Can you write in a flowing language? Nothing is more important than knowing to write, and write well. You have to captivate your readers so they come again and again. Difficult? Not really. When you write, just pay a little more attention to your style (which has to be consistent) and of course the grammar of your writing.
- How patient are you? Rather, are you passionate with your blog? Well, the truth is for a long long time the only author to your blog will be you. Before others join in. So expect to contribute to your blog 'regularly'. Watch the emphasis on 'regularly'. It means you must maintain a regular flow, say three or four times a week, if not daily.
- This brings us to the last point which is a near-offshoot of the above one. You need to devote time. Not only for writing, but also for studying other blogs and indeed your subject of blogging. If it is easy to start a blog, it is equally difficult to sustain it. If you are able to put in that extra bit, your blog will surely succeed.
Blogging & Search Engine Optimization
As in case of any web content, it is always a good idea to optimize your blog-posts for search engines. How to do that? Well, the concept is same as you do for your regular web contents.
Do keyword research relevant to your blog-topic and unearth targeted keyword phrases that relate to the subject of your blog. Write keyword-focused blog articles and post them on your blog.
Since search engines as a rule prefer lots of relevant texts that are added and updated regularly, your blog will meet that requirement with relative ease. If you contribute frequently to your blog and if your posts are keyword-targeted, be assured that search engines are keeping track of that.
Many websites are known to have prospered on the back of targeted blogs. Why shouldn't yours?
Hope we could give you a fair account of 'what is blog'. Happy blogging!
