Ten years ago, every business wanted a website. It was the thing to do. And over time, it’ became expected.
Nowadays, it seems like everyone wants a blog or to be involved with social media. We’re already at the point where customers expect a blog for any type of consulting business. Other types of businesses will follow.
Despite the trends and the hype, though, there’s a lot of confusion about what blogs actually are.
Here’s my take.
Unlike “set it and forget it” static websites, blogs are special kinds of websites that build communities of readers by:
- Providing new, useful content* to readers on a regular basis. Most successful business blogs post new articles every 3-4 days, but posting frequency ranges from several times a day to once every one to two weeks. The new content is what keeps readers coming back for more and keeps the blog listed highly in Google search results.
- Encouraging users to provide feedback and further discuss the content via blog comment on posts. This is an essential part of creating the two-way, interactive experience that creates fans and community members from mere readers. The two-way conversation is what makes a blog different than a newsletter or static website.
- Making new content available on the website as well as via RSS feeds. Most blog readers don’t visit each blog’s website individually each day. Instead, they use an RSS Feed Aggregator (such as Microsoft Outlook, Google FeedReader, NewsGator, Bloglines) to collect and display all the new posts in the blogs they follow. Making your content at least partially available via RSS feeds is expected and mandatory if you want to grow your readership.
Blogging software and services (WordPress, Movable Type, Blogger, Typepad) make it easy to create and maintain websites that are frequently updated. They take care of #3 (RSS feeds) for you.
But simply using a blogging service does not turn your website into a blog. Example: you can cheaply create a really beautiful static website, with no dynamic or up-to-date content, using WordPress; however, such a site is not a blog.