Joshua Mabilia

Blogging gets its name from the term ‘blog’, itself a short form of ‘weblog’, which again is a blend of two words, ‘web’ and ‘log’. A blog is a repertoire of web publications stored in reverse chronological order, which means that a new entry comes on top of the one just preceding it. Anyone who looks after a blog, writes for and maintains it is said to be ‘blogging’. Blog-posts are articles posted on a blog by a ‘blogger’.

Since early days, blogs have focused on particular subjects, for example web development, learning craft or estuarine fishing. Blogging is like an online diary, being constantly updated, that can contain both images and texts.

A typical blog-entry or blog-post will consist of title of the post, main content of the post, the URL of the full article called ‘permalink’ (article appears in a separate page), the date when posted, the blogging category of the post, comments if made and, finally trackback URLs’ (which are URLs’ of those pages that link to the blog-post).

Should you be blogging? Why not? But remember thousands of blogs debut everyday only to die soon after. So while blogging is surely an addiction (and perhaps a necessity), it is incumbent upon a would-be blogger to prepare a fertile ground for it to succeed.

Blogging Signposts

Blogging has become popular in a relatively short time. Here is a ‘trackback’ to sequence of events that together shape up today’s blog scenario:

1. The term ‘weblog’ was first used in December, 1997 by Jorn Barger. From ‘weblog’ to ‘we blog’ to ‘blog’ - a short journey before Peter Merholz coined the term ‘blog’ in April, 1997.

2. Xanga.com, launched in 1996, is one of the earliest entrants on the blogging scene, having started with fewer than 100 online ‘diaries’. Today, Xanga’s community is populated by millions of users.

3. OpenDiary.com is another popular blogging site, having started in October, 1998. OpenDiary currently has nearly 450,000 users. Closely following OpenDiary came LiveJournal.com in March 1999, which today has over ten million users and nearly 230,000 posts everyday.

4. Blogging started gaining momentum in 1999 and in subsequent years, specially after the advent of hosted blogs.

5. Blogger.com is a notable blogging service that commenced in August, 1999. In Feb, 2003 it was acquired by and is now a part of Google.

6. Though reliable figure of total usage is not available, there is no doubt that blogging has arrived to share centerstage with other essential net activities, like emailing, chatting and surfing.

Free Blogging

To be sure, there are good numbers of free blogging tools to get going. Blogger.com from Google’s fold is an excellent start-up. Xanga.com has both free and paid blogging service. So are host of others like Wordpress, Nucleus CMS (both database driven), Blog-City, Blogsome, Blog Studio, Yahoo!’s Flickr photo blogging (free and paid account), Fotothing photo sharing and so on.

All free services require you to sign up for an account and proceed step-by-step to ultimately establish your blogging account. Blogger.com also permits hosting a blogging account on your own server. Wordpress and Nucleus are both rich in features, but database-supported (PHP, MySQL) software applications.

Parameters of successful blogging

Before you start your own blog, here is a quick checklist:

1. Do you know your blogging subject well enough?

2. How conversant are you in your subject of blogging? As a rule of thumb, expect to contribute yourself for a good length of time before others join in.

3. Look for a niche category for your blogging, subject of course to the conditions above.

4. Are you in a position to devote time to your blog? Unless there are regular updates and a genuine willingness to do so, it is difficult to succeed.

Blogging and SEO

For any website to rank high in search engine results, search engine optimization is needed. Search engines prefer lot of relevant contents that are added and updated on a regular basis. Blogging fills in that requirement effortlessly and automatically. If you are a frequent contributor to your own blog, and if your articles are keyword enriched and relevant to the subject of your blog, be assured that search engines are keeping track of that. Examples are many where in terms of search engine traffic, websites have prospered on the strength of targeted blogs. So get going, start blogging today!

About The Author

Joshua Mabilia

Article by Josh - admin @ hostingfrenzy.com

Josh is the webmaster of http://www.hostingfrenzy.com

Visit his site for a comprehensive web hosting directory, articles, tools, and much more.

Kathryn Dawson

What’s in store for us in 2006? Inspired by Google’s poor search relevancy and making friends with Wall Street rather than its users, disaffection is growing apace and surfers are switching their loyalties to Yahoo and MSN. Conspiracy theorists believe that Google influenced pay-per-click and the ranking process to crank up their share price to almost double that of January 2005.

But whatever negative sentiments are shared about Google, all of the major search engines have recognised that users are demanding far more specific search, a trend driven by localised search, personalisation and increased specialisation. These three initiatives are narrowing the scope of the current problems inherent in generic search.

Today, web users are demanding far more selection and choice, with personalised content gaining the upper hand. This has been achieved with syndication through RSS. Today, the web is no longer about surfing and passive reading; it’s about creating, sharing, socialising and collaborating. Increasingly, many new websites are disseminating news and views through blogs and articles.

RSS really did make headway last year - and expect even greater take-up this. Instead of the web browser, users are increasingly looking for content via news feeds. This allows them to see at a glance what sites have added new content on any of the topics they select as being of interest. This means less time is wasted on checking to see whether or not a site’s content has changed. It also ensures a more efficient delivery platform.

But it’s not just news sites that have converted to RSS feeds, companies are increasingly offering information via news feeds using WordPress as a seamless and integral part of their website. This method of information delivery helps users evaluate new content and, as a bonus, categorised sections of WordPress blog are being indexed from the home page. This in turn increases the volume of data on the site, thus boosting PR ranking, and broadens keyword exposure.

Also, professional blogging has a very bright future. Internet search now finds many blog sites on first-page returns. Many professionals are also using external blogs, such as blogger.com. When these keyword-rich blogs are linked to the main site, it helps the site to grow. However, the blog should be fresh, as it would be foolish to merely duplicate content and get the main site blacklisted.

The third aspect of the paradigm is article writing. The aim here is to provide interesting articles that, even though they have limited time exposure on the engines, do find themselves float to the top very quickly.

So the professional blogger has a lot to look forward to in 2006. And as business blogs start to take hold as the new standard for marketing, public relations and SEO, 2006 should witness a huge increase in demand for their services.

About the author:

Kathryn Dawson, BSc (Hons), MBA, is the general manager of Strategy Consulting (http://www.strategyconsultinglimited.co.uk). She is an experienced consultant, former head of Strategic Business Analysis and International Client Administration with multinational corporations in both the UK and US, and is responsible for client, supplier and associate relationships, delivering effective search engine optimisation solutions to her clients.

Manny Leger

Blogging- What Is It?

Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called “blogging”. This ability to organize and present articles in a composed fashion is much of what makes blogging a popular personal publishing tool. Typically, blog authors compose their articles in a web-based interface, such as the ones provided by Blogger.com, Blog-City.com, Wordpress.org, etc. (you can find plenty of other free blog providers using your favorite search engine).

Blogs might be maintained from personal computers, or they might be updated using moblogging technology - web-enabled mobile phones or hand-held devices. However, the blogging community is vibrant and not restricted to technical elite. Where the Internet is about availability of information, blogging is about making information creation available to anyone.

Creating Your Own Free Blog Is Easy

For most free blogging providers, you simply create an account, then fill in a title and description for your blogging Web page. Once your blog has been setup, you’re ready to start blogging!

Blogging Software

In early 1999, blogging software entered the scene, enabling anybody to place a blog on their existing website or simply have a blog hosted under their own domain. Any tech-savvy user can download and install blogging software themselves. Most blogging software doesn’t require an extensive infrastructure. And because most of it is open-sourced, developers can extend it to work with other software or additional blogging tools.

Blogging Tips

1. Blogging completely anonymously is not a good idea, because people reading your blog will feel disconnected from you and your writings- and with all of the bogus information on the internet today, gaining trust from you audience is a must if you want them to keep coming back. If privacy is a concern, consider blogging under only your first name, or for even more privacy, a pseudonym.

2. Update your blog often- posting new content regularly attracts readers and search engine spiders. If your blog contains fresh content on a regular basis, your readers will visit often. Search engines will visit and index a website or blog more often when it is updated constantly.

3. Allow and respond to comments. Allowing your readers to interact with your blog will boost it’s popularity. Yes, there are spammers out there who are ready to pounce on your blog and post a spammy comment with a link to their website. But closing the comments can be equally as hurtful to your blog, and if you moderate your comments you can keep the trash outside, where it belongs.

4. Link building (trading links with other blogs with similar themes) is a pertinent factor in getting your blog seen. Search engines rank websites and blogs according to how many links there are pointing to them. Be sure you set up a link building program with each blog you maintain.

If you do these things, your odds of creating a successful blog will increase significantly. A good rule of thumb is to evaluate your blog from time to time, and ask yourself, “If I were browsing and came across this blog, would I want to read it or tell my friends about it?”

The Future Of Blogging

Blogging is growing as a national (dare I say “Worldwide”?) hobby for the younger generation. New blogging technology, such as videoblogging, creates new communities that continue to develop tons of tools for the techno-blogger.

Expressing onesself has become the “thing to do”. Weblogging extends this trend of self-expression to a dynamic, vibrant and energetic form of communication. The importance of the blogging community (and its relationship to larger society) has gained rapidly increasing importance. Anthologies of blog pieces reached print, and blogging personalities have begun appearing on radio and television.

The synopsis- Thanks to the creation of the weblog, as long as there are people with ideas and opinions, and a desire to tell everyone they can all about them, there will always be a medium in which they are able to do so freely

About The Author

Manny Leger is a die-hard blogger and the founder of www.flookie.net, a family friendly blog directory