Understanding Blogs

Blogs, or Web logs, are hot these days — among journalists, citizens, even CEOs. News organizations and freelance journalists are finding blogs to be a great way to encourage interaction with readers and to elicit immediate comments on the day’s news.

What's a Blog?

Just what makes the blog format so effective on the Web? For starters, blogs feed Web surfers’ appetites for constant information while inviting their involvement by commenting.

A blog is much like a traditional journal: Content is organized chronologically and usually dated (sometimes down to the minute and hour of publication). A typical blog has a series of frequently updated, short posts. The most recent post appears at the top of the blog home page; earlier posts are accessed by scrolling down the page. Posts can be archived by date, by category or both. A blogger — the person writing the blog — may post several times a day or a couple times a week.

Each blog post gives the blog’s readers the opportunity to comment. It's the combination of frequent updates with real-time comments that has made blogs so exciting.

Most blogs are written quite informally, even conversationally. This is true for both major news organization blogs and for individuals who blog from home. A blog’s punchy style is ideal for giving columnists and analysts an added venue and for keeping tabs on an event, industry, or trend.  Blogs can be used to:

• Track developments in a complicated news event, such as a trial.
• Float new details right to the top in a breaking news situation, such as a disaster.
• Give a voice to a columnist’s thoughts and opinions that aren't ideal subjects for an entire column.
• Follow important people or news in a particular business field.

Most blogs are written by a single blogger, but collaborative blogs written by a group of individuals are growing more common.

Group blogs are increasingly in news organizations.

Benefits of a Blog

In addition their informality and immediacy, blogs have some added benefits. They are commonly regarded as traffic magnets. Because blogs are updated often, readers return frequently to read the latest posts. But they aren't alone; search engine spiders that catalog and index Web sites visit your blog more frequently, too. More updates mean better listing in search engines — and that's nothing to scoff at.

A big part of the blogging culture involves linking to other Web sites and blogs so you may also boost the number of links to your Web site by creating an interesting blog that others link to.

The traffic boost from a blog is a result of so-called permalinks. Essentially, every blog post, no matter how short, gets its own Web page. This page is called a permalink, or permanent link, because it is the page someone uses to link to your post. Because a new permalink page is created for every post, a blog that is updated frequently grows in size very quickly. Simple arithmetic tells you that the more pages you have on your Web site, the more chances there are that others will link to a page or that one of your pages will come up in a search engine. Essentially, the more you write, the more you create linking opportunities. All those extra pages mean more traffic, more links and, ultimately, higher rankings in most search engines.

Getting Started

Blogs come with a built-in culture so it pays to observe how things are done unless you want to attract the attention of self-appointed policemen with strong ideas about how blogs should be used.

Begin by reading other blogs. Identify some successful bloggers — those who post often and get lots of comments. Pay attention to what is making them successful. Check out their competition as well.

Pay special attention to when, and how, a blogger opts to link to something. Many blogs refer to posts on other blogs; note how they credit sources for ideas and content. Note what posts get a lot of responses and try to figure out just what it is makes the blog successful at generating comments.

Don't get fooled by the informality of the blog style. Planning and strategy are just as important for a starting a blog as for starting a new section of a newspaper or a community Web site.

• Know why you are blogging. Write a mission statement about what you expect to accomplish with your blog. Set goals — perhaps for the number of comments or page views — that you can review later.
• Know your audience. A blog without readers or comments isn't much of a blog. Think about who your audience is. Tailor topics to your audience. Think about whether your potential readers have the time to consume 14 posts a day or a few postings a week.
• Set comment policies. Publish guidelines on the sort of language you will accept and when you will reject a posting.
• Assess whether you’re meeting your goals and adjust accordingly. Take advantage of this flexible medium by writing shorter or longer, by altering topics or the way you talk about them. Figure out what works and don't worry that the blog doesn't look the same from day to day.