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Web logs, or Blogs, are becoming an increasingly popular form of online communication.  So much so that Yahoo! News is even showing listings of blogs when you do a news search.

In order to take advantage of this trend some people are now realizing that they need to integrate blogs into their sites, yet they do not know how to make this happen.  In other words, they understand they need to do something but are unsure what exactly that is.

In this article we look at what a blog is, what a feed is and how you can use them to help you promote your site.

I started my first blog a couple years ago.  It wasn’t much and it was really only for fun.  I had heard about this new thing called blogging so I thought I’d give it a try.

Blogging, or as it was then referred to Web Logging, is a way to share yourself with the rest of the world.  It provides a relatively easy point-and-click method of posting your thoughts, feelings, ideas or opinions online.

Today however, blogging is big business.  So much so that bloggers who started in the early days are selling their web properties to big companies like AOL for tens of millions of dollars.  Now you are probably thinking how does a blog sell to a company like AOL for $25 million?  Well, they offer relevant timely information to their users.  As such they’ve developed a loyal customer base and impressive search engine rankings.

Sounds like a regular website huh?

The truth is a blog is just like a regular website.  The only difference is that the publishing platform is generally designed to be easily installed and the pages are easy to add and update.

How Blog Software Works

There are many different types of blog software – from open source freely available products like B2Evolution to more commercially available products like Movable Type.  In fact, there are almost as many different blog packages out there as there are bloggers.  But in this article I’ll keep the focus narrow and only discuss a few of the more popular ones.

In general a blog software package is designed to easily manage your posts.  When you publish a new page (post a new article) the software generally stores the page content in a database and then publishes a static version of the page, changing the navigation and updating internal hyperlinks as needed to ensure that the page can be found in many areas.

Generally you can define categories for your articles and then assign them to the categories when you write them.  This way when you publish, a new article goes into the “current” section of the site as well as the category it belongs to.

Some blog software, like those mentioned above, can be hosted as part of your own site.  In other words you need hosting in order to run them, while others, such as Blogger.com offer a free, hosted solution.  It is really up to you to decide what works best for you.

The nice thing with a site like Blogger.com is that you can transfer your files via FTP to your own site should you wish to, rather than having a yoursite.blogger.com subdomain.  Even with the use of a system like Blogger.com (which is owned by Google) you can still categorize and publish pages the same as a non-hosted system (such as B2evo and Movable Type).

How to Syndicate your Content

To syndicate your content means to share your content with the rest of the world and there is two ways to do this.

Generally, blogs work different than “traditional” websites.  Sure search engines will crawl and index the pages, but blogs have one advantage over other websites.  As a blogger you can inform special services of an update to your site.  In doing so your new content gets added to their index within minutes of an update!

That’s right – once you notify these services they will send a crawler to revisit your site and update fresh content. 

Further, most blog software packages include an automatic feed generator.  If you’ve heard of XML or RSS then you may be already somewhat familiar with feeds.

Feeds are XML formated files which allow you to share your content (via the feed) with others.  This way they don’t need to visit your site on a daily basis, they merely have to reload the feed to see if there are any changes.

How to notify others of an update

As I mentioned above, you can notify special services of an update to your site.  This is done by issuing a “ping” to them.

When you issue a ping to them you are telling them that your site has a new posting.  What a ping is is a way of sending your site information to them which they can then use to find your new updates.

There are literally dozens of sites to ping, notifying them of an update to your site.  One I like to use is a kind of ping aggregator.  It’s called pingomatic (www.pingomatic.com) that will actually ping on your behalf.

How to Enter the Exciting World of Blogs

Now that I’ve given you a brief rundown on blogs and how they work it’s time to get set up.

The first thing you need to decide is what service to use.

If you are new, I recommend simply signing up for a Blogger.com account to get your feet wet.  They offer a few different templates to get you started blogging.  Once you are feeling comfortable you can stick with Blogger and set up your own template and even FTP your posts to your site, or you can move onto a blogging package you can install yourself.

Personally, I wouldn’t use Blogger.com for too long, mainly because it’s pretty limited in what you can do especially when compared with a stand alone package like Movable Type.  Therefore I’d recommend graduating to an installable software package as soon as your comfortable with the basics.

Installing most blogs software is pretty easy.  Most packages offer easy to follow step-by-step instructions and if you get hung up somewhere there’s usually tons of support via forums and search engines. I can’t tell you how many problems I’ve solved merely searching for the error message in Google.

Once you’ve set up your blog and have the template look you like it’s time to start blogging!

Blogging for Fun and Profit

When I first started blogging it was for fun.  However I soon found that I could make money at it too.

A few days ago I wrote a post on how to monetize your site using AdSense.  AdSense is an advertising program which Google has that allows you to post Google AdWords ads on your site and when a visitor clicks on an ad you get paid.

It’s not usually much – only a few cents per click.  But it can add up to a substantial amount.

Do you remember the company I mentioned at the beginning of this article?  They have forecasted that at their current rate, they will make about $1 million in AdSense revenue.  I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to display ads on your site.

I was also recently approached by a vendor who wished to place banner ads on my site.  In exchange for premium placement I would get a share in his sales.  So of course I said yes.  These are just a few of the ways to make money on blogs.

What not to do with blogs

A warning about the blogging community.  They are able to spot a fake blog a mile away.  By “fake” I mean a blog that has been created to explicitly promote a product or service.  It’s the type of blog whose authors remain anonymous and likely doesn’t allow comments to be posted.

Generally these types of blogs are frowned upon and will usually generate lots of negative publicity for the owner.

Therefore your blog must be above board.  It has to be factual and non-biased.  If you are blogging as part of a commercial website that is fine, but be sure to be objective.  You can use it to promote your product or service, but try not to be too promotional and sales-y.

In other words, try and keep that objective feel throughout your posts.  Keeping to the facts when blogging is the best way to build your online reputation.

Who knows, over time if your blog is informational enough it may start to gain reputation through links from other bloggers which can in turn help promote your website, increasing sales and making you money.