Blogging Basics



Blogging has definitely matured since I have entered the Internet scene. Yes, you can use a blog for business, and/or an extension of your website. If you choose a blog for the purpose of a business, you must realize that just like a website-it requires the same amount of time and effort, as well as, opportunities for success or failure.


Blog Defined

Your blog can be anything that you want it. It can be a personal diary that goes out to millions, a soapbox (such as political, news, etc.), and it can be informational, or it can be an avenue to promoting your website or your products and services.

You can even control who can read your blog, making it a great communications tool for families or groups of people within a club or organization.


Blogger or Wordpress

Even though there are some higher end blog platforms, I will only delve into Blogger or Wordpress, because that is usually the first blogs that are mentioned when people talk about blogs. As you will see, each have their pluses and minuses-but they are still good platforms. Both blogs are free, however, Wordpress offers the option of purchasing your own domain, etc., of which Blogger does not. With that being said....



Wordpress Pluses and Minuses

There are pluses and minuses for WordPress. So to give you a sampling:

Pluses of Wordpress
1. You can have a free blog by going to Wordpress.com. And it takes only a few minutes to get started
2. paid upgrades are optional. - Purchase your own domain, get extra storage,customize css and more.
3. Integrated stats system
4. Automatic spam protection
5. Import from Blogger, Typepad, LiveJournal, etc
6. Templates available
7. Custom colors and fonts
8. Allows different categories and subcategory organization
9. Offered by many websites
10. Plug-in (some free, some have to purchase)
11. Blog by email
12. Moderation controls

Minus
1. Occasionally advertises Google Ads on your site for their profit to offset costs
2. Payment for an upgrade before they'll let you edit the CSS
3. No JavaScript allowed


Blogger Pluses and Minuses

Pluses of Blogger
1.Like Wordpress,Blogger allows you to get up and running quickly.
2. Access to Controls - Do you want all or do you want specific group of people to access your blog?
3.Ttemplates available
4. Uploads photos with button control
5. Even upload mobile photos from your cellphone camera (Blogger mobile has to be supported by your provider), or text to your blog
6. custom colors and fonts
7. Post in the future
8. Blog by email
9. Moderation controls
10. Allows Adsense Ads
11. Allows JavaScript

Minuses
1. Does not departmentalize to specific categories




Business Content Management

If you have a website and you write articles, a blog is an easy way for you to manage your content. Since blogs have an archive system-it takes the pain out of maintaining your articles from your website.


Manage Your Rss Feed

Feedburner is a free service that was taken over by Google. It helps you to promote your content, measure your audience and the end result-it will help you make money if that is your purpose.

Feedburner can be used with Blogger, Typepad, and Wordpress. It allows you to publicize your blog easily. Just sign up for the services you want to utilize. I would definitely utilize PingShot-which will notify services when you post. These services will spread your blog entry far and wide, which you want.


PingShot-What Is It?

PingShot is a free service offered through Feedburner. PingShot will notify 
aggregators, search engines, and directories about your content updates. But let's not forget about podcasting-they also have a service for that as well. It's a great way to get your content out to the masses. They call it "set and forget" -because once you set it up, PingShot will do all the work for you.

PingoMatic
For those who do not use Feedburner, look at Ping-O-Matic. Ping-o-matic is currently a service that updates different search engines that your blog has updated