Why a blog means so much to your business , and how to use and track blogs

A blog (aka weblog or web log) is a Web page that is frequently updated, usually with personal insights and Web links. Each blog entry is typically short and to the point, sometimes with a link to a longer, extended entry. Blogs are great for multiple reasons, such as the ease of use for non-technical writers as well as the fact that there are many features in blogs that normal web pages are lacking, such as a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor for blog posts, an easy way to notify other bloggers that you wrote a story regarding their post.

Blogs also tend to rank well overall in the search engines due to the way they are structured. Blogs for the most part have all the content on the main page of the site, this means that the search engines really only have to visit the main page of the site in order to get all the content that they would rank you for, as compared to normal web pages that there is generally a navigation that sends visitors and search engine spiders a few levels into one’s website to find all the relevant content

How are WordPress Blogs Used?

Traditionally, blogs were used as something like an online diary. They included links that the author had found interesting that day as well as life stories. Some people used their blog to voice their opinion on social events of the day. Other people used to record the memories of the everyday struggles people face in our ever changing world. Over time, blogs turned into a powerful way of communicating with each other about anything and everything that affects mankind. Some people actually started to network out and were able to cause change just by voicing their opinions on their site. Whole movements were started over the internet as more and more people would join a blog website to see what was going on in the world from people who share the same values and aspirations. Bloggers started to make money by selling advertisements to their website. The more traffic someone had on their site, the more money you could demand from businesses.

But as blogs became more and more popular, businesses started to use them. The first industry to really embrace blogs was the news media. Journalists post their stories to the blog and readers subscribe to the blog news feeds to receive up-to-the-minute information on a variety of topics. Now, blogs are used for many different purposes.

Personal diaries

News feeds

Hourly, daily, weekly updates of Web sites

New information on a topic

Product updates: reviews, new versions, new products

This day in history

Birthdays and other special events

Almost anything you can think of

Businesses use blogs to help sell their products. A blog about your products will cause more and more people to start looking at your products. Linking your blog to your home web page gives the business more legitimate back links. Back links help rank your web site higher in Google and other search engines. For these reasons, the better the blog site, the better rank the business web site will become.

I run a business, what good is WordPress to me?

Weblogs are a great traffic generator because all content is on the first page (flat panel display). The greater amount of text on the first page; the higher your blog will rank in Search Engines. This is a useful tool for promoting your site and other sites you may be associated with by linking to this blog. The whole purpose of doing this blog is to increase traffic on your website. The more people that we can get to visit your site, the greater the chance that someone will buy something. Word of mouth or word of internet can be a powerful marketing tool when used correctly.

How do I setup and write my first post?

The first thing is to make sure you are a registered user. If you are not, go to the register button and click on it. Follow the instructions on how to register for this blog. Once you are registered, you will need to login. Click on the login button and type in your user name and password. After logging in, click on new topic to add a post. After you have made a title and a body, you will need to publish your post by clicking the publish button. You have just made your first post. Does the first post have to be an earth shattering piece of news? No, normally the first post might be an announcement that you have just started your blog site. Future customers are always looking through the internet to see something new and exciting. Hopefully your blog will start to catch their eyes and lead them to your web site.

How do I modify my post?

You will need to login and go to your post. At the bottom of the post is an edit button. Click on the edit button and make the changes. When finished, you will have to click on the submit button.

How do I make comments to a post?

Click on the words that say no comments/# comments at the bottom of your post. After writing your comments, click on the submit button and your comment will show up underneath the post you made a comment for.

Can I control the content in my blog?

Yes. As Admin you can control what users can and can’t post. After login, choose the “Option” tab; then choose “Discussion”. You can select or deselect the following options listed. Also, you can add words to the “Comment Moderation” and “Blacklist” box. The moderation box performs the following: when a comment contains any of these words in its content, name, URI, e-mail, or IP, the comment is held in moderation until you approve it to be posted. When referring to blacklisting, these are lists of words that you want completely banished from your blog. Be very careful what you add here, because if a comment matches something in the Blacklist box, it will delete the comment and there will be no notification. Remember that partial words can match, so if there is any chance something here might match, it would be better to put it in the moderation box above.

How and what is WYSIWYG?

WYSIWYG (pronounced ‘wizwig’) is a type of rich editor. When you start writing a post or a comment, this editor changes your text into a text the computer can read. So what you see is what you get allows you, the user, to write normally while the editor does all the work for you. Just like other computer programs though, limitations can cause your text and images to appear slightly different after you submit your post or comment to the blog website.

How to change right navigation links (Archives, Categories, Links, Metas).

Go into the blog website and click on Site Admin button on the right side of the page. Then you need to click onto manage near the top of the page. Right underneath this a list will show up of the different categories you can change. Select the one you want and follow the instructions.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it is a way to tell other people about your new blog entries. You post your Web log entries in the XML specification RSS. Then readers all over the world can view your blog entries on content aggregators. Or you can post content from other blogs on your site using RSS tools.

What is Trackback?

TrackBack is a tool to allow you to notify other blog authors of your blog posts. Most bloggers use it to comment on a blog post as an entry on their site, rather than as comments on the other blog. It’s similar to linking to a permalink (permananent link) but it adds the functionality where you actually tell the original blogger that you’ve linked to them. This is called “sending a ping”.

What are “No-follow” tags?

The new nofollow link tag provides webmasters with the chance to add a link to their website without leaking Page Rank to the page they are linking to. Using the nofollow tag in an outgoing link means that anyone who runs a blog or a forum on their site does not have to worry about collecting links so regularly.

You can also leave all of the posted links on your blog or forum, as they will not leak any PageRank because of the nofollow tags. If you make it clear that you are using automatic nofollow tags on your links, it also means that you will reduce the number of pointless posts (such as spam), that appear purely to try and affect the page rank of the linking site.

Anyone who can write a hyperlink in HTML should be able to add nofollow tags to their links. It only takes two or three seconds and could give your site a huge boost in PageRank by not sharing it with sites that are not willing to share theirs with you.

Adding nofollow tags is as easy as typing rel=”nofollow” when you are coding the link. A hyperlink without the new nofollow tag would normally look something like this Link Anchor Text A hyperlink with the nofollow tag is not much different, it would look something like: Link Anchor Text . This is a powerful tool when it comes to fighting spam.

Statcounter.com is a useful tool for tracking the traffic to your site.

Going to this site will allow you to keep an eye on the amount of traffic and geographic location of your traffic to better help you understand your client base. You will need to register first, and then just follow the directions to get your site up and running using their software.

We at Yooter generally recommend some sort of statistical tracking software, if it’s statcounter.com or another type of program, we feel you need to be able to measure your success and use this as a re-evaluation tool.