There is no where we can start this series better than an introduction to a blog. I have posted about this several times in this blog, so let’s make it short.

In my opinion, the best way to “know a blog” is by actually browsing through the different types of blogs. Read the definition first. The things will reveal themselves as you visit a blog with the definitions in mind.

An old post of mine about anatomy of a business blog gives more explanations about different components of a blog.

With those said, as you entered the world of blogging, soon you will stumble upon different terms. Some of them are self-explanatory, but others worth at least some comments on them.

• Blogging - As the name implies, blogging refers to the action of posting/publishing blog entry to a blog. Composing a blog post and publishing it involve typing your thoughts and then click on the “Publish” button. It’s that simple.
• Blogger - People who post to a blog is called blogger. The word “Blogger” also refers to Google’s free blog hosting platform.
• Blogosphere - The whole blogs collectively. Blogs are somehow interconnected with each others through links. Blog search engines make the tracking of new posts and conversations possible.
• RSS/Atom feed - The file and protocol used to syndicate blog content. RSS and Atom feeds are not limited for blog content, but we could say that blogs are what make these protocols common. With a feed reader, we can track and get updates of new blog entries without having to visit the blog.

That’s it. Hope you are having a great time with blogs as much as I and others do.

Welcome to Blogging for Beginners, a series of blog posts that I planned in the following weeks that will help new bloggers to uncover some “mysteries” in busines blogging.

You know, after these years, although I have posted some entries for beginners, still they were scattered all over the place. I feel they are far from complete. This is my coordinated effort to guide beginners step-by-step to start their first blog and at least get the momentum going.

Many of the posts will be written in a few weeks, although this series will always be work in progress. I will add more entries that fit here when they are available.

As a blogger, I realize that although I know relatively much about business blogging, my knowledge is still limited and far from complete. This is when participation from you — the readers — are absolutely necessary. Contribution and collective knowledge of us should give more value as a whole.

If you enjoy these posts and want to keep getting updates from me, then make use of the RSS feed. I also publish a weekly tip newsletter on business blogging.

What is a blog? After all the publicity and buzz around blog and blogging, still many people don’t know what exactly is a blog. If you talk to people about it — even if they frequent a blog during their search for information — they may not know they are reading a blog. You might see a blank stare on their face.

In this post, I am trying to explain what a blog is. Of course, it is hard to come up with one definition that fits all. It’s like blind men describing an elephant. Unless you actually walk through a blog and see it as a whole, every definition on earth is not going to be 100% accurate.

Let’s see some definitions about a blog:

A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. –Wikipedia

Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author. –Webopedia

A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links. –MarketingTerms.com

A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings. –Answers.com

Each definition offers a different perspective about a blog. Obviously one can not explain a blog in detail in one sentence. Wikipedia, for instance, has to link to three separate pages for the terms user-generated, journal and chronological order. MarketingTerms.com immediate follows the definition with three paragraphs of additional information.

So What Really is a Blog?

A blog is a web content management software that automatically archive previous posts and display recent ones in reverse chronological order.

While not compulsory, a blog is often frequently updated. It also features comments from readers and authors.

A feature and benefit I would like to highlight is the fact that when someone blogs, they automatically enters the world of blogs, also known as “blogosphere.” Assuming that a blog is made public, in minutes since a blogger post a new entry to his/her blog, the world will know it.

How can it do that? A blog uses “pings” to notify other hosts about recent updates. Ping is a notification packet that tells the destination host about important information regarding the update. Blog search engines like Technorati then come to the blog and fetch the update, to be indexed on their site in minutes (sometimes seconds.)

This is what makes a blog different than a traditional website. Another blog author could also comment on your blog through his/her blog. This is called trackbacking. So, when you are blogging, you practically open yourself into the market. You can listen and get involved in conversations with the world.

The conversation part is the social aspect of a blog. We don’t want to get into much details about this yet. But, suffice to say that a blog does a lot of things to manage your web presence, including the interactivity not available in static websites.

When it comes to business, your prospects and customers would feel closer to you, which in turn will develop trust faster and further. I hope we agree that if used correctly, this can easily shorten sales cycle. After all, the marketplace is about conversation, isn’t it?

I have just searched for the title of this post in Google. It returned 329 results.

Some of them align partly well with what I am going to write. Others simply offer tips to do more specific things with your blog, namely increasing traffic, feed subscriptions, how to write regular content easily, and so on.

So, what makes a blog successful? Here’s my take on it from another perspective.

Just like a goal or generally life, you’ve got to have a purpose — a measurable milestone to cearly define what is success and otherwise.

Having a successful blog is no different.

As we know, there are many different uses of a blog. An individual may consider a blog successful if s/he is able to publish his/her daily public journal to the blog. In that case, a blog has been successfully established once s/he can easily make his/her thoughts available on the web.

That aside, even if we narrow the context to just small business blogging, as this blog implies, still you have to clearly define your purpose up front.

Perhaps, you want a blog to start a conversation with your prospective customers. Or, in other occasion, you may want to use a blog to generate a buzz around a product, offering tips on how to use it (customer retention tool), lead generation channel, or to answer customer questions (customer support).

This tip may be awfully simple.

In one sentence, all you have to do is define the purpose and start working toward it.

So, what makes a successful blog?

There is really no single answer to the question. I have seen popular weblogs that are nothing but inane rants and discussions. There are great blogs with a lot of interesting thoughts but almost no readership. Having a handful of loyal readers for the second blog perhaps is more satisfying than lots of traffic that won’t convert.

However, most of us would categorize successful blog as one that has constant stream of new or repeat traffic, feed readership, regular participants who contribute comments and content and other more tangible aspects.

What’s more important if you blog for your business is the impact and bottom-line the blog brings for your business.

If you haven’t got one, start owning one by writing it on a paper. In your definition, what makes a successful blog?

Don’t underestimate the power of written purpose.

If you are like most of us, chances are your blog readers and feed subscribers don’t read every post you publish.

In a normal day, I currently have a few hundreds of feeds to scan. About one hundred of them are in the “must read” list. It means that at the minimum, I must finish the feeds in those folders before my day is considered accomplished.

With this amount of information to process, I believe none of us could afford to do anything but scan.

Obviously things that interest us are different but there are things that could be done to write to your target market, and raise their curiosity to read more.

A good approach to stop scanners in their tracks is by writing blog title or headline that is simple, clear and concise. We will have some of these topics covered in future posts.

In rare circumstances, you might read all the feed content of specific bloggers or publishers. Perhaps, you like what s/he writes or you find the most value and learning experience from the feed.

While it is exceptionally nice to have loyal readers like that, never assume it to be the case. Otherwise, you may have just lost other potential readers.

Recall that a blog gets its traffic from multiple sources, including referrals, search engines, syndication and so on.

Having great title that gets read is important for say, organic search engine traffic. When a search user find your blog page in the search result, the title and/or snippet have to be strong enough to attract their attention and click for more.

How do you write such a title is beyond this post. It is different from one target market to another. If you are just starting, learn from those who have already been there and done it. Pay attention to your favorite blogs, and notice what they have done to attract your attention to read more.

General copywriting rules apply though. More to come soon.