I decided the type of website that
my topic will be based on this assignment is blogs. Blogs serve many flexible
and variety of functions and purposes, usually in either providing information
or content of some sort. Not only can a blog provide support for other content
or websites, but can also stand alone as its own platform. To me, blogging is
specific content and information condensed to and for a specific audience and
readers. The word “blog” is a shortened term for web log. The purpose of a blog
varies from user to user, but each are accessible to anyone with internet
access and has become a commonly used medium in today’s internet and business
and marketing world since it’s rise from the early to mid 2000’s. Blog are also
users by many different people of all types of backgrounds, professions, and
walks of life, which is one of the many advantages provided by blogs, in that
it allows personal interaction with the blogger and the readers/visitors, who
may also share their thoughts by commenting.
One of the advantages of blogs is
its versatility as a medium. Blogs have become integrated in almost every type
of content and service available through the internet. Blogging can be based
around social media and networking, photo sharing, information providing,
specific content related, marketing strategy, and of course personal use. A log
would be very advantageous for a content creator, such as a comic book artist.
For example, if I were a comic book artist, I could use a blog not only for
personal use, but to also provide information and updates regarding my comic
book. I could also release illustrations of my content through a blog, as a way
of providing free and extra content to supporters of my comic book. It would
also be a good way to connect to supporters of my content. Another advantage is
that setting up a blog is easy and costs nothing.
One of the disadvantages of
blogging is time, due to blogging being such a time consuming activity in
itself. Amanda Webb, author at spiderworking.com, states that “Blogging is
time-consuming, my first post was under 100 words and took me half a day to
construct and publish.” (Webb, “8 Disadvantages of blogging for business that you
need to know about before you start”, spiderworking.com). Much of this is due
to editing, re-reading and proof-reading. Another disadvantage is inconsistency,
or rather remaining consistant. Webb states that, “A dead blog is worse than no
blog at all”, and that it is crucial and best to have a regular posting
schedule. Overall however, the advantages of blogging can outweigh the
disadvantages, and can be a very good support for content, information, and
anything business or market related, and can even earn income for the blogger.
Setting up a blog is easy, and best
of all, it is free to anyone and for anyone to use. No coding methods is used or required by the
blogger. First, you will need to choose a blogging platform, many choose
wordpress, which has over 72 million active users. Although one might think to
use a platform that is free, there are advantages in using a platform that cost
a little bit of money. Platforms that charge a little bit of money every month
usually come with better customization options, features, more secure, and are
known as self-hosting blogs. A self-hosted blog is one that resides on your own
server. Self-hosted blogs are considered more professional and have shorter
domain names than free blogs. For a self hosted blog, you will need two things,
a domain name and web host, which is the home of your blog address. Since a
self0hosted blog is much more customizable than a free one, the blogger can
create as many pages and links necessary to provide content, however, free
blogs normally only have links dating back to older posts or pages to go back
to past and older posts.
Maintenance for a blog is normally
easy. Hosts, such as WordPress will conduct their own maintenance to keep it’s
server secure, however there are also little things that a blogger can do
themselves in order to maintain their blog. One of the things is backing up the blog, the
other tasks are optimizing the images, and building the internal links. Some of
these tasks can be done using software or apps such as as plug-in to do. An
example of this would be the plug-in known as BackUpBuddy, which can backup your
blog and can restore or migrate the blog if needed. Optimizing images can be
done by using high-quality and efficient image hosting sites such as iStock
photos. Blogger, Ileane, of Basicblogtips.com, states that “When I first
started this blog I was using Blue Host at the time, and my blog was really
slow and and as a result, Blue Host would “throttle cpu usage” (Ileane, 03/11/2012,
My Routine for Blog Maintenance on Basic Blog Tips, basicblogtips.com). With
b7uilding internal links, you can decide what anchor texts you want to link to,
which help determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines.
There are blogging software, such
as platforms like WordPress which requires a web host to install and run on, that
can be installed after you’ve set up a hosting server and domain name. After
the software installation, you should be able to login and customize your blog.
WordPress is software and a blog script that will allow you develop your blog
with many features that are designed to increase your experience as a blogger. There
is also software that can be used outside of the platform provided software
such as BackUpBuddy, as stated before, which can perform certain tasks or
functions if the blogger is not comfortable with the provided features of the
platform.
Many types of customers, clients,
individuals, and companies use blogs, either for information gathering or
sharing, promoting or reviewing of a product, sharing insight or personal
experiences that may relate to a specific topic. Blogging has even been
credited for the help of the overall growth of the web, as many people now either
write blogs read them. As the internet and business has become more interwoven
over the years and created what is called e-commerce, blogging has also found
it’s place in this mix as becoming an integral marketing tool for all types of
businesses today. In-depth customer reviews have become common not only among
customers, but enthusiasts of all different backgrounds and fields, offering rich
and diverse insight expertise to all sorts of products and handlings of a
company or business. Topics vary greatly from blogger to blogger, as people
offer not just insight into products or things related to business, but things
in life in general. The types of businesses that use or utilize blogs also vary
greatly as well, as nowadays almost every type of business makes use of online
shopping or e-commerce. One of the reasons many businesses has shifted to
utilizing blogs is that blogs have been proven to be reliable, and have with
stood the test of time by staying relevant today where snapchat and Instagram have
become very successful.
Many major companies and businesses
use blogs for varying purposes, such as Coca Cola (titled Coca Cola Unbottled),
WalMart, Allstate, Whole Foods, Disney, Home Depot, General Electric,
Caterpillar, Celanese, ADP and many more. These blogs contain images, personal stories
of employees, customer reviews on products and services, and company history, to
provide motivation and standards of the company as well as to display the
connection we all share with each other as human beings. Many companies also
connect and cooperate with each other through blogs by publicizing partnerships.
Partnerships may also include clients from varying businesses and countries all
over the world. Customers will also utilize company blogs in order to keep up
to date with company products or to learn about the company as a whole and
their objectives. Individuals can use blogs to look for specific topics and
insight that is hard to find in more commercial or general websites.
Blogs seem to generally be viewed
as dynamic websites, however, software such as WordPress sort of bridges the
gap between dynamic and static due to its layout customization features. Lisa
Irby, Author at 2createawebsite.com, states that “Blogs are dynamic, because
the posts and categories automatically display the content in reverse
chronological order.” (Lisa Irby, “Blogs & Static Websites - What's the
Difference?”, 2createawebsite.com). Other website that interested me were
ecommerce and business related, as well as content and information providing websites.
However, the versatility of the type of support that a blog can bring for any
type of field is just too great to not write about. If blogs have proven one thing,
it is that they are here to stay for now, and are not in danger of more modern
platforms such as Instagram or snapchat. I think out of those three platforms, blogs
seem to be used in a more productive way.
REFERENCES
Amanda Webb
8 Disadvantages Of Blogging For Business That You Need To
Know About Before You Start – Blogcentric #32
June 23, 2016
spiderworking.com
https://spiderworking.com/blog/2016/06/23/disadvantages-of-blogging/
Ileane
My Routine for Blog Maintenance on Basic Blog Tips
03/11/2012
http://basicblogtips.com/
Lisa Irby
Blogs & Static Websites - What's the Difference?
2createawebsite.com
http://www.2createawebsite.com/prebuild/blog-or-website.html
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