 A blog is a journal that is available on the web, short for the word weblog

 Blogs generally represent the personality of an individual or website

 A blog is a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links

 The activity of updating a blog is “blogging,” someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger,” and all the blogs in the world represent the blogosphere

 Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog

 A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people

 People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com

 The content and purposes of blogs varies greatlyfrom links and commentary about other web sites, to news about a company/person/idea, to diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project updates, even fiction.”

Ok. Now that youre up to speed on the term, lets explore six ways to pump up your posting prowess.

TIP #1: Consistency

Technorati is THE authority on what’s going on in the world of blogs. According to their website, they currently track 20.8 million blogs. Sadly, many of them lack consistency. And too many people create a blog simply for the sake of creating a blog. In other words, theyre not updated regularly. The blogger posts a dozen or so posts initially, and then forgets all about it.

Therein lies the first key point: if youre going to blog, blog often. After all, it IS a marketing tool. You wouldnt run one newspaper ad on a random Tuesday and never advertise again. Youd do it consistently. So at the least, post more than twice a week.

TIP #2: Audience

If you post on a blog, you must talk directly to the reader. Keep it personal. Ask questions. Write conversationally. And dont be afraid to change your writing style to a more informal nature. Your readers will feel more comfortable posting their own comments after each of your posts. After all, thats the whole point of a blog: to create community. To create fans. And if you want to do that effectively, you must do so on a one-on-one basis.

TIP #3: Theme

All posts on your blog need to maintain consistency with your theme. So, before you even begin a blog, ask yourself the following question: If everybody who read my blog did exactly what I said, what would their world look like? Once youve answered that question, youll have a foundation a school of thought to which all of your future blog posts will adhere.

Most blogs will have sections in which you can both name and explain what your blog is about. So, once youve uncovered your theme, you can easily come up with a pithy title and concise explanation. This will assure that every person who comes to your blog will know exactly what its about as soon as they arrive.

TIP #4: Resource

Blogs arent just for ranting, complaining, telling stores, asking questions and facilitating discussion. Theyre also resources. And each of your posts should contain at least one link to another blog or website that connects with your idea. This not only gives value to the reader, but creates internetworking opportunities as well. Because every time you connect your blog with someone elses, its an opportunity to meet a fellow blogger with whom you can develop a mutually valuable relationship.

TIP #5: Visual

We live in a visual culture. People need stimulation. And when it comes to blogs, readers expect to see pictures, graphics, diagrams and other visuals to help accentuate your points. Use pictures from your own library, download free images that connect with your post, or even use picture links from other blogs. Whatever you do, just be sure to have something visual other than your words. After all, newspapers wouldnt sell very well without images, would they?

TIP #6: Sales

Many bloggers use their posts to help drive sales for their products or services which are consistent with the theme of the blog. The key to doing so successfully is accessibility and subtlety. So, make your products visible to your readers at all times. Scroll images of your items down one side of the page with links to your website. But keep the selling to a minimum. Readers of your blog dont want to be bombarded with ads. The average person already is exposed to 3000 ads a day, according to a 2003 UCLA study! So dont worry informational, interesting and creative posts will do the selling for you.

With these six tips, you should have no trouble pumping up your posting prowess. So, start a blog today. And start reading other blogs today too. Because bloggers didnt get voted Time Magazines People of the Year 2004 for nothing!

Author: Scott Ginsberg
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: US Dollar credit card

What is Blog?

Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. They are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

Why Blog?

As its definition it helps to publish news updates, to promote new products & services as well as different opinion from various experts who participates in blogs. Many companies today open a blog section to sell products, for customer care and after sales support. Business blogs are the fast track to increasing a website’s link popularity and Google PageRank.The regularly updated keyword rich content offered by blogs score high rankings in the search engines as a direct result of their link drawing power.

Link exchanges between themes related blogs are frequent and not at all difficult. Note that bloggers mainly exchange links for visitor traffic purposes, and not for search engine optimization. Link exchanges should generally be approached from the shared traffic perspective.

Blogs also provide an exclusive list of high PageRank blog directories. While maintaining their exclusivity in the blog only Internet directories, blogs are welcomed in the mainstream Internet directories. In that sense, blogs receive the best of both worlds.

Website owners, who are serious about improving not only their quantity of incoming links, but their theme relevant quality as well, should seriously consider adding a business blog component to their website.

Blog Setup on blogger.com

Blogs can be created from bloggers’ site as well as from own FTP (websites). People who don’t have any website, they can create a blog directly from the bloggers’ site. But who have own site, they can also create blogs from own FTP with the help of blogger.com.

Blogger.com is the most popular blogger creater in the world of blogs. Although hundreds of site provide free blogs, but blogger.com is most popular due to its features and functions. Create a blog from own FTP using Blogger.com is somewhat technical and for the first time, it takes some time & try and error to upload to blogs from own FTP.

From this article, I would like to define step by step procedures with examples that help you to create blogs in few easy steps at less time.

URL to create free blog on your own FTP: http://www.blogger.com/

Steps to setup blogs on own FTP:

1. Create a new account

2. Choose a template

3. Redesign existing template

4. FTP setup

5. Post message

6. Published blogs

(1) Few steps to create a new blog as followed:
Click on the button “Create a New Blog Now”

Create an account

Give blog title like “PPC Articles”

Give blog address like ppcarticles.blogspot.com (Must be unique)

Choose the template & continue from the bottom click button

Get message “Your blog is created” & Start posting

Get Blogger editor to write the message

Give the title

Write the message

From the bottom click on the “Publish Post” button

(2) Customized Template Design:

After creating a blog as mentioned above steps,

First create own template. To do that, click on the “Dashboard” which will bring to the main page of our account.

Here, you find the “blogname” under “Blogs” category.

Click on any created blog that you want to edit with your own template.

Click on “PPC articles”

Here, you will find four main categories from the top navigation.

They are, Posing, Setting, Template, View Blog

Click on the “Template” which will bring you to the present template code.

Here, you can edit your template as per your site design.

You may create customized template using this html code-editing wizard.

Note: While designing the customized template, it is mandatory to place all “blog tags” in between &

tags.

After, designing a new template click on the “Save Template Changes”.

After clicking, you get a message – “Settings Were Saved Successfully”

Below the message “Settings Were Saved Successfully” message, you will find two buttons “Republish” (to publish entire blog) and “Republish Index” (to republish only index page)

Click on the “Republish” button.

After clicking, you will get the “Publishing is in progress”.

After few seconds you will get the new message on the same page, “Your blog published successfully”.

Note: If you get an error, check the “details” after the message “blog could not published”.

(3) FTP Setup

Click on the “Settings” button from the top navigation of a page.

Here, you will find sub navigation under the “Settings” like, Basic, Publishing, Formatting, Comments, Archiving, Site Feed, Email, Members

Click on the “Publishing”.

Here, you will find two options like SFTP or blogspot.com

Again click on the SFTP, which will bring you on the page, where you can give your FTP server details.

Fill the complete wizard as mentioned below. This wizard appears on selecting the “SFTP” option.

Setup details to publish the content in a new folder named “blogger” under the root folder on the FTP of the website.

FTP Server: yourdomain.com

Note: Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.

Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/blogger/

Note: The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://

FTP Path: blogger/
Note: This path must already exist on your server.

Blog Filename: semarticles.html

Note: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.

FTP Username: abcd

FTP Password: *********

Working URL Like: http://www.yourdomain.com/blogger/ppcarticles.html (From the blogger folder of the FTP server)

Setup details to place the content directly in the root folder & publish it.

FTP Server: yourdomain.com Note: Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.

Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/ogger/ (Remove folder name “blogger” from this URL) Note: The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://

FTP Path: blogger/ (Keep this field empty) Note: This path must already exist on your server.

Blog Filename: ppcarticles.html

Note: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.

FTP Username abcd

FTP Password *********

Working URL Like: http://www.yourdomain.com/ppcarticles.html (From the root of the FTP server)

Setup details to place the content in an existing folder & publish it.

FTP Server: yourdomain.com Note: Do not include http:// or ftp:// in the server address.

Blog URL: http://www.yourdomain.com/general/ (Place the name of an existing folder here)

Note: The web address where this blog is viewable. This should include http://.

FTP Path: general/ (Place the name of an existing folder here)

Note: This path must already exist on your server.

Blog Filename: ppcarticles.html Note: If this file already exists on your server in the path entered above, it will be OVERWRITTEN. Be sure to back it up.

FTP Username abcd

FTP Password *********

Working URL Like: http://www.yourdomain.com/general/ppcarticles.html (From any existing folder of the FTP server)

After giving a username and password of the FTP server, click on the “Save Settings” from the bottom of the page.

After clicking, it will give you a message – “Settings Were Saved Successfully”.

Below the message “Settings Were Saved Successfully” message, you will find two buttons “Republish” (to publish entire blog) and “Republish Index”(to republish only index page).

Click on the “Republish” button.

After clicking, you will get the “Publishing is in progress”.

After few seconds you will get the new message on the same page, “Your blog published successfully”.

Note: If you get an error, check the “details” after the message “blog could not published”.

(4) Shift Blog from one FTP to another FTP

To shift existing blogs from one FTP to another FTP, one requires changing only the FTP details in the admin panel of “blogger”.
For that,

Login into the same blogger’ account from where you have already published the blogs.

Click on the “Settings” button from the top navigation of a page.

Here, you will find sub navigation under the “Settings” like, Basic, Publishing, Formatting, Comments, Archiving, Site Feed, Email, Members

Now click on the “Publishing”.

Here, you will find two options like SFTP or blogspot.com

Again click on the SFTP, which will bring you on the page, where you can give your FTP server details.

Follow the steps mentioned in point no. 3 above, for changing the FTP details of the blog.

Replace existing FTP server details with new FTP details. This new FTP server details will create new URL to view the blogs.

For example,
[http://www.yourdomain1.com/blogger/ppcarticles.html] (URL after shifting to a new FTP)

[http://www.yourdomain1.com/ppcarticles.html] (URL after shifting to a new FTP)

Above exampled URLs replace the following URLs

http://www.yourdomain.com/blogger/ppcarticles.html (URL before shifting a new FTP)

http://www.yourdomain.com/ppcarticles.html (URL before shifting a new FTP)

After giving a username and password of the new FTP server, click on the “Save Settings” from the bottom of the page.

After clicking, it will give you a message – “Settings Were Saved Successfully”.

Below the message “Settings Were Saved Successfully” message, you will find two buttons “Republish” (to publish entire blog) and “Republish Index” (to republish only index page).

Click on the “Republish” button.

After clicking, you will get the “Publishing is in progress” message.

After few seconds you will get the new message on the same page, “Your blog published successfully”.

Any changes or post updates will directly reflect on URLs.

Author: Harekrishna Patel
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Programmable pressure cooker