Blogging

What is a blog?

A blog is essentially a website, with a few features to set it apart. A blog lets people write content easily, and have it shared easily. Blogs make writing to the web easy, because the traditional content management system of a website, usually known only to webmasters, is replaced by a system as easy to understand as email.

Blogs are not simply online diaries or journals, although many such exist. While there are many people blogging to simply speak with friends or family, thousands of businesses have started blogging, mainstream media is blogging, and experts from all areas are sharing their knowledge online.

What is a blogger?

A blogger is someone who writes on a blog. The diversity of bloggers is tremendous. Some are hobbyists, some are journalers, others are the leading analysts and thought-leaders in their fields. One thing that connects all bloggers: they love what they do and love to write about it.

What is the blogosphere?

The blogosphere is the word used to describe the world of blogs - the blogosphere represents all blogs on the internet, and more specifically the community of bloggers working, interacting, and writing together.

What is a blog post?

A blog post is an entry, or article, written to a blog.

Some of the features setting blogs apart from other websites are structure, features, and purpose. Blogs are updated more often, given the ease of publishing vs. that of more static websites. This makes them very search engine friendly. Most blogs use a template system, stored in a database, that can be easily deployed. There are hundreds of designs available, so starting a blog does not require technical know-how.

Comments

This is one of the key features and facets of a blog, comments. Readers can, and are encouraged to, leave comments on the blog about the articles. This continues the dialog and discussion started by the article, and extends it. Comments are part of what makes a blog a community, social networking, relationship focused site. Comment areas are usually found at the bottom of a post.

At the time of this writing (late September, 2005), comment spam is reaching epic new heights, this is temporarily stifling comments. Since comments are so important to the culture of the blogosphere, solutions to this plague are being actively worked on.

Trackbacks

A trackback is a link to an article from another blog. On a blog trackbacks are shown at the bottom of an article with a link to the other blog and a short excerpt of the other article. Trackbacks, like comments, suffer from spam that is reducing the value and usefulness of trackbacks.

Permalinks

Unlike database-driven websites of the past, each blog entry has a "permalink", that is a real link or URL that can be bookmarked, linked to, and most importantly found and indexed by search engines. This link is permanent and unique giving each blog post its own unique identity on the web.

Since blogs are updated frequently, this permanent identity not only benefits search engines, but allow for readers to scan older posts no longer shown on home pages, and to link to each article - not just the blog name - in reference. This ability to interact specifically has powered much of the interaction and community development of the blogosphere.

Content Organization

When someone writes something on a blog, it is shown at the top of the page - this is known as reverse chronological order.

Each time something new is written on a blog, it is posted (meaning it appears on the blog) at the very top of the main blog page, and the pages for each category archive, pushing the previous articles down. This unique way of sharing information and thoughts, organizing them with "new" at the top sets blogs apart from websites. Just like websites, however, the content is usually organized. Each new post is assigned to one or more categories, making it easy to find later.

Tags

Tags are the latest innovation on the Blogosphere. Tags are a way for authors to to put special links within a post that categorizes the content. Blog search engines like IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com/) and Technorati use (http://www.technorati.com/) these tags to help searchers refine and find content on the topics they are most interested in quickly. Qumana has a sophisticated tagging ability that allows bloggers to describe via tags what is in the content of their blog posts and insert the tags with one click. This helps search engines and blog directories to find that content. Better tagging means better visibility on the Web.

Blog searchengines

Blog search engines have become more and more sophisticated, and nowadays you can do a blog search on a variety of topics .

What are blog posts?

Blog "posts" are the essence of the blogging phenomenon that has taken off in recent years. A "post" is basically an article, written in varying styles and lengths, usually linking to other articles or websites, with some new perspective or opinion.

What is a feed? What is RSS?

A feed is a computer generated file that is created with each and every blog post - this file is sent onto the internet and allows anyone to read it using an aggregator (see below), rather than visiting the website. This gives great power to individuals and companies to easily share (or 'syndicate') their blog posts. The feed is very much like the information inserted into a newspaper and distributed around the world - the only difference, this newspaper is online, and contains an infinite variation of personal feeds all read together.

Every time a blogger posts new content, the file is updated that gets sent out to the Internet, can be searched, and can be read by other bloggers in Aggregators or even delivered as email.

Two common formats of feeds are RSS and Atom.

There are three facets of blogging that remain constant:

Linking

Commenting

Relationships (between bloggers)

Linking

Linking to other blogs (via your blogroll or your posts) is the hallmark of blogging. It is this network, this mesh of thoughts and ideas, that makes blogging what it is. Linking is also what makes blogs search engine magnets - each link you get is a 'vote' for your blog in search engines, making it more powerful. Linking then flows into the next facet of blogging, comments.

Commenting

When I'm asked about what makes a blog so different than a "regular" website, comments comes to the top of my mind. Most blog posts allow comments from readers - each post has the ability to allow people to comment - leaving name, website, and dialogue right at your post. This continues the discussion presented. The ideas can shift and gain depth. And as people leave comments, bloggers find other people to link to, which leads to more linking and comments and finally to: relationships.

Relationships

Blogging is truly a global social network. Thousands of friendships are made every day. The process of reading other people's blogs, leaving comments, linking to them, inevitability starts the process of forming friendships and relationships. Of course, there are spats and squabbles, and even cliques, but by and large it is these relationships that make blogging what it is.

Markets are Conversations

These relationships have an interesting facet when it comes to business. Markets are conversations in the truest sense in the blogosphere - employees, customers, investors all talk and participate in the blogosphere. Most likely, your company has been talked about by someone - customers are taking a more active role now than ever in actively participating in buying decisions and company feedback. Businesses now have a unique opportunity to get in, listen, and react to this commentary, and to take lead on their own blog if they so wish. This conversation, this dialogue, is emerging as an important shift to business communications.

Number of blogs

As of November, 21.2 million blogs are being tracked by Technorati, the largest blog search engine. This is growing at a rate of 1 blog per second - with over half of those blogs continuing to be active, written chronicles by bloggers around the world.

Make money blogging

• Getting started

You can make money from advertisements, affiliate programs and pay-per-post programs. Before you sign up for any of these, get your blog up and going.

Pick a topic about which you are passionate. Otherwise, you'll quickly run out of steam — and readers. You can sign up for a free blog with Blogger, WordPress or LiveJournal.com. Or, put the blog on your own site.

Revenue programs will want to see your work before you join. Some only need to read a couple posts. Others want to see a few months' work. Most advertisers will reject certain types of sites. Hate speech, porn and promotion of illegal activities are no-nos.

• Text ads

Google's AdSense places targeted text ads in small boxes on Web pages. These ads are ubiquitous on the Internet.

Google provides you with code that you place on your blog. The ads displayed are based on the contents of the page. These ads work best on specialized pages.

The look of Google's ads is customizable. You control the color scheme and placement. You can also block ads from certain sites.

Your profit may be based on page views. The more people that see your page, the more you make. But most advertisers pay based on clicks. When someone clicks an ad, you earn a certain amount.

• Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs are perfect for blogs. When you mention a product, you can link to it on a shopping site. If your visitors buy the product through your site, you earn commissions.

Affiliate payouts generally offer higher payouts than other programs. At the high end, you can earn 10% or more of sales.

Affiliate programs let you customize the ads. You can list popular products or use search boxes. You can also place links directly in your site content.

Commission Junction and LinkShare handle many websites' affiliate programs.

• Pay-per-post opportunities

Some advertisers offer pay-per-post opportunities. You may receive, say, $10 to review a product on your blog.

Generally, your blog must be several months old with a readership to qualify. Also, your site may need to be about a certain topic.

The post must stay up on your site for 30 days or so. The advertiser checks to make sure you fulfill the requirements before you're paid.

ReviewMe, PayPerPost and Blogitive.com are three sites that offer these opportunities. Some have disclosure requirements.