Under normal conditions, the content of a web page is limited to one domain, and the visitor to it. To allow the use of content on a larger number of sites, syndication is employed.

This is the time where RSS should come in your thoughts. A site owner or blogger using his site as a pulpit for any number of topics can make his content available via RSS. Once done, his comments or content will be fed to the news aggregators for syndication/delivery to anyone which is interested in such content.

What means RSS?
“RSS” stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. It is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content.

It is a simple technology for sharing and distributing content like data, news headlines and other web page content with other webmasters and users.

RSS is like email in that it is used to collect and deliver content you have opted to receive. News aggregators collect the “feeds” (syndicated content) from a blog and publish it.
If you have an RSS Reader you can subscribe to the ‘feed’ and receive current up to date content from your favorite content source - it is that easy!

Using this standard, a blog owner can provide updates, such as the latest news headlines or weblog
postings to those interested in such content.

With RSS, the blog owner could update his/her readers with new content and use RSS as a means of organizing his content into a more accessible form to the benefit of anyone wishing to use it.

I recommend to Use It, not only read it!

How can you use RSS?

Get your site listed in search engine and RSS directories.

Use RSS to update your websites with fresh, relevant content - this happens automatically - without writing a single word. You can turn RSS feeds into customized HTML and display the feed on your blog.

One of the great benefits of displaying RSS news feeds on your website is that it boosts your position in search engines.

RSS will automatically notify the search engine spiders that you’ve updated your website content.

RSS gives you a new marketing venue to display your ads, messages, and news directly onto your subscriber’s desktop!
It will also build your credibility and Brand Name online – with little effort!

If your favorite sites have RSS feeds, you can subscribe to those feeds in an RSS News Reader. The reader
will automatically check all the sites you’ve subscribed to and show you new updated content when it is added.

Potentially hundreds of other websites can publish your news and articles. This will provide free exposure and free traffic as a consequence.

A news aggregator is “software that periodically reads a set of news sources, in one of several XML-based formats, finds the new bits, and displays them in reverse-chronological order on a single page.

RSS is a document format that is XML-based.

RSS feed or news feed is essentially a file in RSS format.

XML is a programming language and stands for Extensible Markup Language derived from S.G.M.L. or Standard General Markup Language.

A Parser is a computer program

If you want to know more about blogging, feel free to use my RSS feed which you find on top of this blog.

Technorati Tags: How to use RSS for a Blog, how to use use rss as content source, latest news headlines on a blog

Why?

The answer is simple: Content. Search engines love content. The more content your blog can provide on a steady basis, the better your ability to increase traffic. Blogs are easy to start and anyone can for more effective SEO management.

Which content can you place in your blog?

You can place any useful information, ideas, thoughts or articles about your product or service. Let the readers know you have something more to offer then just a simple service. People who feel comfortable about a blog owner/author are far more likely to buy from him/her. Let your readers know who you are and what you are capable of doing for them.

Now that you have your content, you need to get it into the reader’s hands.

The advantage of using a blog is that you can syndicate your content. Rich Site Summary or RSS is a format used to syndicate your content instantly. In other words, people can have your content posted on their web site or sent to their email. Most blog sites will give you your own special URL to submit to sites that syndicate content. These sites will then contact your URL for the content. The more you update your site the more your site will be indexed or PINGED by RSS feeds. To help ensure your RSS feed is being indexed, enter the RSS tag into the of your site. Just enter your site title and the URL with your special URL for RSS. This and other tags can be used in most blogs. Take advantage of them. I strongly recommend to use WordPress,
which offers a lot of features and plugins and installs RSS feed for you automatically.

To create a blog will allow your content to be syndicated which in turn will increase traffic to your web site as well as build your link popularity through RSS and blog directories.

This will give you and your products or services recognition. The knowledge and personal insights that you share will help build your business and your customer relations. The RSS feeds, blog directories and social bookmarking sites will also help build your page rank on the search engines. Blogs have all the ingredients to be one of the best free advertising tools the Internet has to offer.

Start through !

I wish you much success and all the best, also good luck on all your ways

W.M.Heus

Technorati Tags: how to get better pr, syndicate content to your blog, why blog on a steady basis, why love search engines content

Blogs and blog posts are naturally search engine friendly because they are text-rich, link-rich, frequently-updated webpages that use stylesheets or CSS, and have very little extraneous HTML.

To optimizing a blog is in the most cases very easy to do, it only depends on the blogging service or software you use, the results may look somewhat different.

If you follow some simple rules for search engine optimization (SEO), your blog can rank much higher than any static website page - Google likes blogs and frequently updated fresh content.

Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

Use your primary keyword in your blog domain

Whether you purchase a separate domain for your blog, or host it on a blogging service or a subdomain of your own site, try to ensure that your URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for.

For example, if you want your blog to get found for the keyword “pay check” get a domain with the keyword “pay check”.

To get a domain name with your own name might make for good branding, especially if your blog is a personal blog.

But if you may create it for business and want the targeted traffic, keywords in the domain nam are the move in the right direction.

Use your primary key phrase in your blog header tags and the title of your posts

If your primary key phrase is “business blogging” make sure that the word business, or blogging, or both, appear in your blog headers (the H1 or H2 tags) as well as the title of each of your posts.

Most blogging software will take the keywords in your post title and put them into the file name of the permalink posts it creates.

With software like Wordpress  you may require the mod_rewrite command to save the title of your entries as a permalink.

Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post and pepper your blog titles or links with them appropriately.

Don’t overdo this or your posts will end up sounding unnatural and spammy to readers.

Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Keywords in links have more importance than simple text.

Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages on your main site.

Link keywords where they naturally appear in the body text, but again, don’t overdo it, or you’ll end up with spammy looking pages.

Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Set up your blog so that the side navigation bar is present on all your pages.

Make sure your archives and previous posts are accessible from all pages of your blog so they get spidered easily.

Get backlinks from other blogs or websites

Links pointing to your blog or posts are essential to build pagerank and make your blog rank higher in the search engine listings, but have a look that your links are relevant to your blog content.

I recommend that you focus your linking efforts on the methods here:

Submit your blog to Blog Search Engines and Directories:

Submitting your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories is essential for getting high-quality links back to your blog.

Trackbacks:

You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. One of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not automatically create trackback urls that others can use to link back to your posts.

But if trackbacks are an important component of your linking strategy, I would advise using another software or system that adds this feature automatically.

Comments:

You can also get back links to your blog by posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs, but take care to post on blogs with same relevant theme as your own blog!

Update your blog content frequently

There’s no better “food” for search engine spiders than fresh content.

Post and update your blog frequently using all the rules outlined above and there’s no reason why your blog will not get you top rankings in a short period of time.

Stay put

Once you create your blog, try to stick to the same domain and blog host or system for as long as you continue to publish.

You could end up losing a lot of your traffic, your readers and all your search engine listings if you decide to move.

I wish you all the best and good luck on all your ways

W.M.Heus

Technorati Tags: how to do Search Engine Optimization for a blog, optimization seo, search engine optimization for a blog, search optimization

They have evolved far beyond that initial concept. Now, blogs cover as many different topics as there are people writing them. Some blogs are highly influential and have readership which exceeds most traditional newspapers, while others are mainly intended as personal journals to be shared with only family and friends.

So, should you consider blogging?

The power of blogs is that they allow millions of people to easily publish their ideas, thoughts, experiences or what ever and millions more to comment on them. Increasingly people write, read and comment on blogs. Many people mistakenly believe that blogs are only personal diaries. More and more, blogs are being used by businesses to attract customers. Since blogs are actual in all flavors, let’s hav a look at the basics of blogging.

A blogger is someone who writes a blog.

The “Blogosphere” is a word used to describe the online community of bloggers and their writings. A blog differs from a website only because it is a website that is updated frequently, most often displaying its material in journal-like entries. An entry, a post, or a posting, are the terms often used to refer to a specific article or commentary written by the blogger on his or her blog. Many weblogs allow readers to write a reaction (comment) to what was written in the blog entry. These comments can often be found directly following the blog entry.

For a lot of people, blogging is a hobby.

For some, like journalists, writers, business leaders and political leaders, writing blogs enhances their professional careers. A blog gives the voice a broader audience and allows more direct and interactive contact with the readers. Some bloggers have readership numbers approaching that of big media and are able to earn income from their blogs. But potential profit should not be the primary motivation for blogging.

Why should a blog be part of your business marketing strategy?

The blogging movement is picking up speed, particularly for businesses. Blogging is one arena where the size of your company won’t matter. A blog is NOT the place to promote your product or company. It is a place to promote your ideas, thoughts, experience, provide tips, and express yourself in the hopes of building an audience. That audience may become customers.

There are two key concepts to keep in mind when deciding whether you will launch a blog or not:

providing quality content and blogging regularly.

These are critical to creating an audience for your blog.

A successful blog is written with a distinct audience in mind. In this way, you can provide content that is unique to your audience’s issues, needs, or desires. If you create content they like and wish to return to read, you will produce quality content. Successful bloggers have a focused topic and a unique personality.

Both your topic and unique style will cause your audience to return to your blog.

When they return, it is critical to stay true to your audience and tone of your blog. If people are reading your blog, it’s because they like your topic and tone. Try not to stray from your typical topics and style too much. This will give your readers a reason to link back to your blog on an ongoing basis. But your content and tone are just one element to consider. Also critical to your ongoing blogging success is how frequently you update your blog.

If you don’t update your blog often enough, blog readers will move on to other blogs. There are too many blogs out there competing for your reader’s attention. Blog readers will go where the content is.

Successful blogging takes a commitment of your time. When you begin blogging and wish to capture an audience, you should be prepared to blog every day. In this way, you can develop an audience who counts on you to help them begin or end their day. This means you should also try to post at the same time each day. Your readers will get accustomed to your schedule and check your blog at the appropriate time. The time of day is not as crucial as the consistency in your posting.

So, is a blog right for you?

Think good about the following:

Do you have a distinct topic in mind?

Do you have a strong opinion or passion for the topic?

Do you know what audience you are writing for?

Do you have the time to commit to regular postings on your blog?

If so, START THROUGH and I wish to see you in the blogosphere!

I wish you all the best and good luck on all your ways

W.M.Heus

Technorati Tags: how to use a blog for business, is a professional career possible with a blog, thoughts about a blog

I wish you health, good luck on all your ways for you and your family

W.M.Heus

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Even people who don’t own a computer know what blogging is.

Everyone is talking about it. Heck, even the Doonesbury comicstrip ran a few panels on the subject, also the most clebritieshave a blog for crying out loud!

But did you know that there is a secret benefit to blogging that has NOTHING to do with the subject matter?

In fact, you could blog on about the sex life of the Tasmanian fruit fly and still reap big rewards.

Yep, just like nearly everything else on the Internet, there’s money to be made with blogging IF you know the secret…

OK, OK. I’ll tell you, but first let’s take a quick ride in the wayback machine and see how blogging came to be as popular as it is today.

Back at the dawn of the World Wide Web, new web sites have been a rarity. Geekie guys and girls struggled with the new technology and the launch of a new page, A new web site was practically a media event. In the early days of the Internet, each new page was a cause for celebration.

In 1992, Tim Berners-Lee, the scientist generally credit with inventing the World Wide Web (and you thought it was Al Gore, created the first What’s New Page. Later, another Internet legend, Marc Andreesen, put up his own page. Both of these men created hot links to all of the new pages springing up on the net.

As the World Wide Web came into its own, a new breed of programmer, called a Web Master (because they had mastered the World Wide Web) created their own pages that contained suggestions on cool web sites to visit. Because they didn’t list every single new web site, just the ones that they thought were interesting, they were said to have filtered the net. In 1998, Jorn Barger, a bit of an odd duck, even by Internet pioneer standards, first used the term ‘weblog’ to describe his blog called ‘Robot Wisdom’.

As bloggers banded together to form communities, people sought easier and faster ways to create blogs. As a result, automated and easy to use blogging programs such as Blog-In-A-Box were developed so that even a half-dazed wallabie can put up a blog in between munching on stalks of grass.

But why in the world would you WANT to run a blog if you have an income-generating site?

Surely your customer isn’t interested in reading about your trials and tribulations of the daily business grind, right?
Probably not. However, if you can build a blog that catches their attention, such as where the fish are biting if you sell fishing supplies, they WILL come. And so will the surprise that I mentioned earlier.

You see, among your visitors to your blog will be a software program known as a spider. Not just any spider, mind you, but the granddaddy of all search engine spiders — the Google spider. You see, Google LOVES to index blogs. Yep, it’s true.

And that, as soon-to-be inmate Martha would say, is a good thing.

In a nutshell, Google loves pages that have links to other pages. Blogs link to all kinds of stuff. Google loves pages that are linked FROM other pages. A good blog gets lots of links to it as loyal readers tell everyone they know to put links to their favorite blog on their web site.

Finally, Google loves fresh content. An active blog’s content can change minute by minute, but at least it’s almost guaranteed to change daily.

So, if you can find a decent subject to blog about, and you can get a blog up and running quickly and easily, you just might be amazed at what happens to your site’s page rank in a few weeks or more.

Listen, with tools like Blog-In-A-Box available to get you going, there really is no reason NOT to get blogging!

Good luck!

Technorati Tags: history of blogs, The Biggest Reason To Start A Blog, why to start a blog

You have heard the term previously but you have not paid much attention? A lot of people are just to afraid to show their ignorance and ask the question, what is a blog?
Lets face it: the term blog does not conjure pleasant images.

Blogs are web logs that are updated regularly, usually on a daily basis. They contain information related to a specific topic. In some cases blogs are used as daily diaries about people’s personal lives, political views, or even as social commentaries. The truth of the matter is that blogs can be shaped into whatever you, the author, want them to be.

Where did Blogs come from?

The roots of blogging can be traced back to the mid 1990’s. Who the very first blogger actually was is unclear, as the art of blogging did not really take hold until 1999. The original “weblogs” were link-driven sites with personal commentaries. The very first blogs were human guided Internet web tours. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, blogs have evolved into the latest fresh web content.

About the Future of Blogs

A buzz word in techie circles, “blogging” is the wave of the future. Whether its a fad, or proves to be a new way to communicate with existing and potential customers it deserves at the very least a cursory look.

Why is Blogging Helpful to Businesses or Individuals?

Just as animated .gifs were once cool, blogging is the trendy thing to do. That does not mean that it is not beneficial to businesses. Webmasters struggling to keep fresh, attractive content on their websites to lure visitors back, have found blogs the answer. Content is a necessity for online businesses, both for purposes of being found by search engines but also because it gives visitors a reason to come back.

Professional business blogs allow you the opportunity to tell potential, or existing customers industry news, updates, or generally for example how a special software can be used in specific situations to alleviate problems. The bottom line is to control the content. Daily updates increases the chances that search engines will spider on a regular basis and it helps with page rank.

Blog & Business

The bottom line is you need to determine how a blog will benefit your business, determine a schedule and adhere to it. Let your readers know what to expect and when to expect it. Blogs provide great supplemental content and direct attention to areas of your business that you want to showcase; you direct the content but let your readers guide you.

How to creat a Blog?

There are lots of online tools that can be used to create a blog. I strongly recommend to use Wordpress if you plan to create and run a blog.

Further Advantages to Blogs

While you may initially create a blog for your existing customers, you may find that you can attract new customers by illustrating your expertise in a specific field. There are lots of websites that act as “blog search engines”, be sure to submit your sites to these websites to increase your exposure. This will also help with your page rank.

Another way is to create an RSS feed in order to syndicate blog content and gain additional exposure.

Technorati Tags: how to get a good ranking for a blog, what is a blog

In other words, it is a Web page that contains brief, chronologically (like a diary) arranged items of information. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the blog author.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening on a particular website and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Blogs can be used to introduce products to potential customers.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process, but I highly recommend to use WordPress.

A blog as a marketing tool:

Blogs offer huge marketing potential. They are highly strategic tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Besides, blogs can represent the real voice of the website.

A weblog can take the form of a diary, a news service, a “help center”, a collection of links to other web sites, a series of book reviews or products, reports of activity on a project, the journal of an expedition, and much, much more. Business can use a blog to effectively advertise their products or services.

One of the most interesting ways to use a weblog is by allowing it to function as a discussion forum for customers of your products or services. In this case, the webmaster can give posting rights to other people – visitors and customers, and their posts may or may not be reviewed before they are published to the Web page. Customers, in such a way can post favorable comments about the websites offerings. Some weblogs are set up in such a way that only the owner or the owner and certain other people have posting rights, but anyone else can add comments to the posts.

Weblogs when used with newsletters present immense marketing opportunities:

- Articles with newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation.

- You can offer a bidirectional forum to customers to get true, personal opinions on your products and services.

- Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum, draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts.

The beauty of this interplay is you can layer your blog with editorial controls.

How to create a Weblog?

The majority of weblogs are now created using software or services designed specifically for this purpose. Some of the software is free - and some of the organizations that provide weblog software will also provide free server space to host a weblog so that it is publicly accessible on the Internet.

There are also commercial versions of some of the free software; these commercial versions often provide more features. Some weblog software is available only as commercial software. Alternatively, bloggers can create and maintain their weblog using free software or a free weblog service, but use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to load the resulting weblog to their own Website.

There are many blogging softwares available easily on the Internet.

Feel free to start your own blog - it is much more easy as it seems.

I wish you all the best and good luck on all your ways

Technorati Tags: a blog as a marketing tool, why a blog can have a huge marketing potential

Maybe for the purpose of compensating hosting and domain registrar cost, passive income, or blogging as a full time job. When it comes to the topic, “make money blogging”, it doesn’t matter what is your purpose. Just apply the methods or programs that make money with your blog.

I found many posts on the web talking about the ways to make money with blogging, but the following article is worth to read.

• How to Make Money with Your Blog: This post gives you clear overview of how to monetize from your blog.

As Elise Bauer clearly categorized the methods in his “How to Make Money with Your Blog”, the ways to make money blogging are:

• placing Google Adsense
• placing affiliate program links
• placing advertisements
• placing Paypal Tip Jar for donation

To make a long story short, the ways of making money with blogging can be understood with two streams:

• pay-per-click scheme
• pay-per-performance scheme

Pay-per-click means that you earn commission whenever your reader click a link you provided. Google Adsense is the best example of this scheme.

Pay-per-performance means that you’ll not earn any commissions just by click. You can get commission only when your reader purchase something from the web site that you provided by means of a link. Most of affiliate programs, for example amazon associate program are in this scheme.

While pay-per-click scheme seems easier to perform than pay-per-performance, the latter has sound reason you may have to consider:that is, the amount of commission is much higher than that of the former. In the most cases joining an affiliate program is free, so no risk! But certainly you have to put more effort than you do with Google Adsense.

The bottom line is always to consider running Google Adsense on your blog and if you are looking more income, consider joining some affiliate programs and placing affiliate links on your blog. If you want know more about affiliate programs (how it works, how to optimize, etc), visit simply CLICK HERE.

When you choose an affiliate program, the most important thing you have to keep in mind is that that affiliate program must be related to your blog topic. For example, when you’re talking about “car”, an affiliate program about “how to make a good breakfast” does not make sense and won’t generate any click through.

As a final word, it can not be overemphasized the importance of your blog content and traffic. Why I suddenly raise these two subject while I’m talking about how to make money blogging? Because…

• it is or must be the content that finally lead your readers to click the links.
• the more traffic, the more chance you get clicks.

To sum up, always provide quality blog with your reader, then add Google Adsense on your blog, join a few affiliate programs and provide those affiliate link on your blog. And the key of choosing an affiliate program is the relevancy to your blog topic.

Technorati Tags: blogging for money, how to become a passive income from a blog, how to blog for money, ways of making money by blogging

Custom blogs are a great way to learn about the web technologies and create something from ground up.

With a little bit of tech savvy anyone can create their own custom blog. When choosing blog software or a blog service consider the following:

Is there Support?

Implementing new software will create a lot of questions:

Does the software have a support site and/or a forum?

How large is the user community?

Is the user community helpful?

Is it for Free?

There really is no need to pay a lot of money for either the software or a service. Free doesn’t mean cheap. There is a lot of free quality software available.

Is there Easy Customizatio?

Is the software flexible enough to allow for customization?

Can the colors be changed?

Can style sheets be used?

Offers this software also widgets?

Are there custom plugins available that are developed by the user community?

Is there a robust set of functions that can be employed to accomplish simple tasks?

For example, some software offers one simple function that will produce a long list of links. This saves on the need for a lot of coding.

Is it PHP based?

Don’t worry, it is not that scary. The combination of HTML and PHP can create a highly customized blog. Especially for those who like to dig around in the code, PHP driven software can provide a valuable learning experience.

Are Links possible to insert?

Is the software able to manage links?

Maintaining links manually in HTML is a tedious task. Any software that makes this easier is at a definite advantage.

What about Posts and Pages?

If you are familiar with blogs, you know that an entry in a blog is commonly known as a post. Can regular pages be created from the software as well? This allows for ultimate flexibility.

Is there a Content Management?

Can the software control elements for most or all of the website?

Now, most blog software is not meant to accomplish this task. Search around and see if the blog software can be used to be a basic content management system. Some software is incredibly flexible and can accomplish this task.

I strongly recommend to use Wordpress.
It is said that a new blog is being created every second.

Why not take the time to investigate blog software that will enable a blog to stand out from the crowd?

Technorati Tags: how to choose the right

Offering the opportunity for anyone to create their own free Web site, encouraging opinions and interaction, blogs provide forums for individuals to create their own highly personal presentations to the Web audience, and for consortia of all types to experience the sort of online community feeling that was pioneered by early newsgroups and by the phenomenal success of AOL in the 1990s.

Blogs have reached into the corporate and government sectors as well.

A prominent federal magazine suggests that some company employees spend more time blogging than on personal e-mail, an average of over an hour a day. What has started as an outlet for teenage expression and grassroots journalism has turned into a lucrative communications tool for small and large businesses.

General Motors’ Vice Chairman, Bob Lutz, turned to the company’s blog when rumors surfaced about the discontinuation of the Pontiac and Buick brands. It became a means for a direct response, a way to talk to their consumers unfiltered.

Other companies such as Sun Microsystems and Microsoft are also recognizing the impact of blogging in their relationships with their customers and employees. In an article dated June 5, 2005, The Washington Post proposed that there were more than 100 official corporate blogs in existence, with hundreds more on the horizon.

Although the a major newspaper called blogging “ephemeral, fast-paced and scathingly opinionated,” blogs continue to grow steadily in the corporate world and companies are realizing their value.

Corporate Blogging

Internal Communication

Corporate Blogging refers to a company producing or supporting a blog that it uses to accomplish business objectives. A blog can serve many purposes in a corporate setting. Internally, a blog can be a forum for discussion about work-related issues. The informal atmosphere is encouraging to internal corporate communication. From small-scale discussions to virtual “town meetings,” in which employees at all levels feel that they can be heard, blogs promote collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Blogging can help establish a company or employee as an expert in their field. By posting information about a certain topic, a person exhibits their knowledge of the subject matter, setting himself up as an authority. People will come to equate the site and the author with that topic. This reputation for subject mastery and expertise can boost your sales and consumer opinion.

A blog can be an interactive addition to an intranet or e-mail newsletters. Since automatic update notification is possible on blogs, people are more likely to stay on top of the latest postings.

Public Communication

Blogs can be used to communicate to prospects, clients, employees and the media. Press releases and project updates can be posted, as well as job opportunities or information that the company wants to distribute outside of the normal news channels.

A blog can strengthen the bonds between the company and its customers. When a company presents itself honestly and transparently, it not only builds trust, but instills loyalty as well. Customers are more likely to work with a company they feel they know better than another. Blogs allow for that informal communication. They create good word-of-mouth among customers who don’t read the trade magazines or business pages. The nature of a blog fosters that image of transparency and openness for a company. Most people prefer companies who are honest in their dealings and frank about their issues. As seen in the media with the Dan Rather case, a blog can illuminate the truth through encouraging people to share what they know.

Blogging also reflects forward thinking. By staying current with the technological trends, you give your company a fresh image.

A blog can serve as a recruiting method. Interested job seekers can examine the company by reading its blog.

When testing a new product or service, a blog is an excellent place to give more detailed instructions or receive feedback.

Although, comments can be negative. Not everyone will agree with what is said on a blog. Instead of preventing them, welcome the constructive criticism and edit comments only to remove profanity and personal attacks.

The Down Side

There are some drawbacks to blogging. It is not a magic solution to your business needs. Many people feel that blogging popularity is much like the Internet in the 90’s, a promise of money, but not necessarily delivery.

Blogging can lead to legal issues as well. Companies have real concerns about liability, exclusions and limitations, and indemnity. Although there are laws that protect against libel, misappropriations and other injuries suffered as a result of posts on the Web, companies can be held vicariously responsible for statements made by employees that are harmful to others.

In any medium where an employee is sharing information, there is the possibility of leaking trade secrets or financial information. Former Google employee Mark Jen was famously fired for gabbing about life at the company on his personal blog, not sanctioned by Google.

Like all essentially unfiltered communication, blogs can get personal. Many bloggers feel the need to discuss their personal lives as well as their professional ones. Companies must be careful not to stifle communications by keeping personal lives out of the workplace. By doing this, they risk closing down the lines of communication entirely.

Inevitably, a disgruntled employee may use this as an opportunity to badmouth the company. This is not limited to blogs, since an unhappy employee has a variety of mediums through which to vent his disapproval. Blogs just make it easy.

The content may not have enough substance to warrant or hold an audience. Some companies fill their blog with marketing fluff. People can see right through this and will most likely ignore the site. Blogs should be used for transparency, not shameless self-promotion.

Best Practices

Fine Print. Since there are so many legal issues surrounding blogs, it is imperative that the site has some sort of disclaimer and limitation of liability.

Know What You’re Doing. Senior management should be educated by the corporate communications and legal department about what blogs are and how they might affect business.

Create blogging policies. A company should have a list of policies regarding blogging to ensure that trade secrets are kept secret and personal lives do not become public. Policies may include keeping financial information from being posted, as well as severe consequences for anyone using the blog for negative publicity.

Avoid the Marketing Blog. Making your blog into a blatant marketing campaign is a bad idea. Customers are looking for real answers and honest opinions. They will pick up on insincerity instantly.

Keep It Fresh. Make content relevant and timely. Update the blog as often as possible with the most worthwhile news. This will encourage people to come back.

Reinforce the company’s core values. Then, make sure the content fits these values and supports the business strategy.

Encourage employees to use it, but remind them of the ramifications of their actions.

Free versus Paid Products

When creating a blog, there are hundreds of services and software from which to choose. The first decision to make is whether to go with a free service or pay for one.

For paid services, the cost varies depending on the features used. The basic hosting fee for a domain is anywhere from $5 to $15 a month. The domain name will need to be registered yearly, which can cost $5 to $35. This does not include the software, which may also have to be purchased.

While free services offer the basic necessities of blogging, paid services are usually more desirable since they have more to offer.

With a free service, the company offers a free site, but it may contain advertisements to offset the cost of maintenance. A paid site will not have any advertisements.

Most free services have a variety of templates to choose from for the look of the site, but paid services offer highly customizable designs.

In addition to the basic functions, paid blogs offer the ability to upload photos and images and tailor links on the site. They also offer better security and allow the creator to censor or control comments. Paid sites normally lead to a higher search engine ranking. They enable the creator to configure search output and there are fewer restrictions placed on paid sites.

Paid news aggregators will often keep a list of recently updated blogs and will rank them, showing new sites and newly added photo albums.

For a simple blog, any free service will do, but to get a truly customized and highly functioning product, it will take paying something for it.

RSS Feeds

With the rising popularity of blogs, it has become increasingly time-consuming to keep track of ones that are of interest. No one has time to check each and every favorite blog every day to search for new content. RSS feeds have become the solution.

RSS feeds are small XML files that contain a headline, date/time and description and link to information published on a blog. When used along with a feed reader, or news aggregator, they give an update on the newest content that has been added to a blogging site to a subscribed user.

RSS was developed in several different versions, each with a different meaning. RSS can stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary, depending on the version used. All versions do the same thing, though. They provide a summary of information. They send a blog’s highlights to subscribers instantly upon publication. RSS feeds save the user from having to visit the site for updates.

To receive RSS feed, a user must have a feed reader, also commonly referred to as a news aggregator. This can be software, a Web-based service, extension or built into a browser. It essentially takes the XML code and translates it into readable information. When the “update” button on the feed reader is clicked, it searches all of the subscribed sites’ RSS feed for new information.

Having a RSS feed greatly increases the traffic to a blogging site because it provides an easy way to keep an audience abreast of the latest developments. Once someone is a subscriber, he will continue to be involved in the site. RSS also makes it easier for someone to add a site as a link onto their own site.

Blogging inherently encourages communication and the transfer of ideas. Blogging lets businesses extend their reach and strengthen consumer loyalty, as well as get people talking about their product. It’s a matter of perception, encouraging integrity and strengthing relationships in the corporate world. Blogging has become the trademark of forward thinking companies, willing to suffer a few stings in order to get to the benefits it has to offer.

About the author:

Karoline White is a Content Developer at Brook Group, a Web site design firm near Washington, DC. For more articles, visit http://www.usabilityandbranding.com. For more information about the author, visit http://www.brookgroup.com.

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