Blogs For You

A blog (a contraction of the term “web log”) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.  (As defined by WIKI)

There are a million different reasons to start your own blog just as there are a million different blogs out there to read and enjoy.  Having your own domain name personalizes the blog to reflect who you are and what you are trying to communicate to your readers.  One of the main reasons for creating a blog is to open a continuous dialogue between you and your readers.

There are no hard or fast rules about choosing between a “website” and a “blog”.  The main consideration is whether or not you will be posting information on a regular basis to your site as opposed to only occasionally making changes to the site.  Blogs are, generally, updated every day, week or month with a 200 to 300 word essay about whatever is being discussed on that day.  They can also have what is called “static” pages or pages of information that does not change but once a year or so such as the CONTACT or PRIVACY POLICY pages.   But the main or home page is the blog postings themselves.  In order to maintain the integrity of the blog and to keep your daily, weekly, etc postings search ready a blog must be connected to a database of some kind.

The plain website has mostly static pages where the information contained on each is rather updated once it has been posted or created.  A website can have a “BLOG” or update page to it but that is not the “HOME” or main page.  A website’s only requirement is that it have an HTML page named ‘index”.  You can create an index page using notepad (if you know what codes to use) or a word-processing program such as Microsoft’s WORD that will allow you to “save-as” html or webpage and it will put in the basic codes for you.  These codes hidden within the document allow an internet browser to see the page.

If some of these codes are unfamiliar it might be wise to take a beginning computer class and beginner internet class at your local college or community school program.  There are probably even classes available at your local library or church as well.

That’s all for now!

Cheers

webmistress