To blog or Not To Blog?

To Blog or Not To Blog?

To blog or not to blog? That seems to be a common question in today’s blog-crazy web design world. The word blog is a contraction of Web Log. Let’s start off by seeing what a blog really is. Think of a blog as a form of virtual diary (yep, like the one you kept as a kid – Harriet the Spy, anyone?) where posts (diary entries) are written and open for people to read.

Depending on the author, these posts can be made daily, including several times per day (depending on the subject and amount of content being put out) or they can be specifically set to be shown on a particular day of the week. The latter is much more convenient for busy bees and people who can’t really dedicate much time to blogging duties or who aren’t really interested in venturing into a full blown website design.

Blogs started out as sites for people to keep track of their daily activities and shared them with friends. Blogs have turned into full-fledged websites that fulfill the need of divulging information for big companies, newspapers, and other enterprises worldwide. Blogs are also a convenient way to manage content dynamically, cutting back drastically on the time needed to upload new content and update a website.

Whether you are just starting or have been blogging for years, remember that the fuel that keeps a blog rolling is content. Without meaningful content, a blog is nothing. No matter how good looking and fancy your web design is; the material driving the content is what will really grab people and search engine’s attentions.

So what should what type of site should you decide on? A blog, a regular website? If you plan on updating content often (daily or weekly) then you should consider a blog or blog-driven site. There are some excellent blogs available for free, with varying degrees of user-friendliness, that offer the perfect solution to this problem. Many people also use blogs as a content management system, without it exactly looking like one.

So, once you have decided what you type of content you will be handling, that will give you a clue to whether you should create a blog or use the blog back-end mechanism to create an easily updateable website or choose to have your website design created that is not linked to any blog back-end.

Here is a list of free blogs that don’t need any knowledge of web design and programming. Happy blogging!

Blogger
www.blogger.com

Blogonize
http://www.blogonize.com

TypePad
www.typepad.com

Live Journal
www.livejournal.com

Wordpress
www.wordpress.com