Blog Hosts: Free vs. Subscription
January 15, 2008
Every blog ‘exists’ somewhere. It may be on a server dedicated to nothing but blogs or it may be on privately-leased space a half a world away from the blogger. But in either case, the blogger needs to create his Blog Empire somewhere, and that somewhere will have implications for your blog as it grows into a household name.
Blog Learning Center recommends that you own your own domain name and use a paid webhost service to ensure that you:
- Have complete control over your content.
- Have a credible and professional image for branding.
Copyright
January 13, 2008
You’ll take a lot more from the Old Media than just lessons on consistency, however. If you have a news blog, you’ll take parts of stories that will set up your own commentary. A technology blog may quote articles and experts speaking in interviews you did not give. In other words, unless you’ll be presenting completely original work on your blog, you’ll have to deal with basic issues of copyright.
This is not a legal guide, and we recommend you familiarize yourself with the basic issues of copyright before you copy another’s material - there are some very good blogs which cover the issue – but there are a few principles that can help you lay the foundations of a safe and legal Blog Empire.
Consistency
January 13, 2008
Because your blog shares many attributes of your local newspaper, think for a moment about what the newspaper look like. It has a masthead, headings, and stories. It has a certain number of columns, fonts of a certain size and type, and stories categorized within sections. It looks that way every day. It is consistent.
On the other hand, imagine what you’d think of a newspaper that placed random obituaries in the sports section, put the top story of the day in the classifieds section, or used random fonts and character sizes across an ever-changing number of columns.
Blog Entries, Content, and Commentary
January 13, 2008
What stories are to a city newspaper, blog entries are to your Blog Empire. And while your layout is important, readers will not return again and again to admire your layout or ruminate over your clever title. They’ll return again and again to read your writing or view your artwork or check the links that you provide. In other words, while they may read because of your layout, they will return because of your entries.
Links, Layouts, and Objects
January 13, 2008
Using Your Links Wisely
The vast majority of blogs feature a section or two that contains nothing but links. They may be links to the bloggers’ other blogs or to related sites; they may even be links to every syndicated columnist online - such a scheme makes up a good portion of the Drudge Report, Matt Drudge’s headline news portal.
If you feature links, you’ll be following the grand tradition of successful bloggers and doing your readers a service. We’ll talk later about using your links as an assets to increase traffic, but for now we’ll just talk about how they are laid out, and in layout, there are two rules to follow: use your links purposely and organize them effectively.
