If you are researching blogging as a means of presenting text content online, then you have probably heard something about the convenience of using blogs for web publishing. If you had a chance to dig deeper into the topic, you might have also heard about the ease of getting high ranks for blog pages on different search engines. So, what is a blog? And why would you want to pick blogs for publishing and maintaining your content on the web?

Blog is…

For many of us a blog is a website or a part of a website that contains pages listed in the order they were published, i.e. chronologically. A blog’s page can be accessed sequentially through the neighboring pages, the ones with dates immediate to this given post, or through the index pages. An index page is a page that contains a date-ordered list of post titles and excerpts linked to the posts themselves. This is a simple look at the front of a blog.

The back part of a blog or the admin panel of a blog is a simple CMS (Content Management System) with tools for creating and modifying pages within website’s content. It may also be equipped with a means of separating posts into categories that groups related articles for easy navigation.

To blog …

As we covered the basic features of a blog, we can step back and try to see the big picture behind the linking structure and content presentation in a blog. If we strip it down to a schematic plan, then we will see that what we have is a front page (most common setup) with ever changing content – the titles of posts and excerpts linked to the originals (perhaps all on the same subject, with related keywords).

What we have in common among all the blogs is fresh content. Apparently this is a big plus for ranking on the search engines. Content does not only changes on a regular basis, but, as a rule, it is also quite unique. Which is another step towards the growing friendship of your site and the search engines.

… or not to blog?

You don not need to use blogging software products to achieve same results (frequent and unique updates on the site), but they make it so much easier. Then why would anyone try to reinvent something that is already out there ready to be used? Well, one possible reason for it is to have a better control over the site’s structure. Chronological order is not always the best way for content presentation. However a lot of blogging solutions come with a feature for creating and managing stand-alone pages outside of the chronological line or loop. You can link them whichever way you think is best for your site. If you reverse your understanding of a blog with static pages to static pages with a blog, then you have a CMS with a convenient tool for announcements or news that will be published to the front page. So, unless you know why you should not use a blog. We tell you that you have all the reasons to use one.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS