Business Website Advice

This is part one of a three part series titled Blog Basics.  Part 1 covers How Blogs Work, Part 2 How to Read Blogs, and Part 3 How to Write Blogs.

Blogs Work Like a Classroom. Think of a great classroom you have fond memories of, where you were encouraged to participate. The teacher was human and possibly a bit addicted to their subject, like me.

Ten Steps in How the Blog Process Works.  Blog lingo is written in italics. Quiz at the end, kidding.

1. I have an expertise (creating sticky websites) I want to share so I write articles, also known as posts, sometimes commenting on other experts’ ideas and even quoting their articles.  
2. I publish the articles myself using blog software known as online social networking publishing software.  I use Wordpress but many options exist which will be the subject of future posts.
3. You read my weekly articles (posts) which are like mini-lessons on a whole list of topics or categories you can see on my left sidebar, Browse Articles).
4. You can reply with a comment (ask a question, give your approval or differing opinion, elaborate by adding your experience.
5. Other people can comment on your comments too.
6. Or you can lurk. You don’t have to say a word. You can just be here, like in a classroom you can learn heaps by just watching the action, or reading, checking in now and then. You don’t have to take an active part but the deal is you can if you want to. That’s the BIG BLOG DEAL! Conversation.
7. I moderate comments in this blog like I did in my classroom. I don’t suffer bullies or rude comments, never did, but vigorous discussions are cool. Some blogs have an unmoderated comment policy but end up being targets for spam dumps(ugh).
8. You subscribe to the blog to stay tuned to new articles and discussions.  If you don’t subscribe you can easily forget to look for recent posts where as if you subscribe you get reminded when new articles are published.   Three different ways to subscribe: 1) to get email alerts, 2)to get RSS feed directly to your favourites. Easy for Outlook 2007 users, more steps for others, or 3) RSS feed to your preferred newsreader software, if you subscribe to many blogs to keep organised. More later.
9. Mine is a public blog, open to anyone who searches for it or knows the URL or uses a blog directory like Technorati to search for topics on the millions of blogs out there and numbers growing everyday.
10. I could choose to make mine a  private blog (like a private tutorial) shared only with those I give a password to (shoulder tap).  Then it’s just me and my invited closed group reading and commenting on the articles written by any number of people I’ve given authoring rights.

Cool eh?!   Blogging is huge but has a downside like everything. That’ll be discussed later.

I don’t profess to know every last bit on blogs. I’m learning alongside you. Please add your comments to expand the understanding of the blog process, big picture.

Part 2 covers the visual elements of a blog which readers new to blogs are confronted with and Part 3 covers how writers get on with blogging.

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