Blog

The term blog is used to describe a virtual diary on the Internet. The author of a blogger can publish articles on any topic in these articles. The articles are usually presented chronologically. The writing style of a blog is usually informal and it is written in the first person. However, other styles are also possible, for example in the case of Internet newspapers, where the focus is more on objective reporting.

General information

Blogs, weblogs or virtual diaries are a relatively new phenomenon on the Internet that developed parallel to the World Wide Web. There are different views on which websites can be considered as the first blogs. Websites such as http://info.cern.ch/ or Mosaics What's New are likely to be shortlisted. The number of blogs increased exponentially from the beginning of the nineties to the turn of the millennium. Important impulses for this were political events, which were discussed differently in the mass media than in the private blogosphere.

This is where discussions took place that were not held in the mass media. For example, after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001, or after the Iraq war in 2003, blogs are now used as Internet newspapers, private diaries, information and discussion platforms, or as literary tools for reflection and exchange with readers.

Different functions

Blogs can be distinguished according to content and type of author.

Private blogs

Here, private authors report on a variety of topics – generally anything that interests them. There is a correspondingly wide range of topics, ranging from shopping and politics to exotic hobbies. Anyone can set up a private blog and simply write what they like.

Niche blogs

Niche blogs usually deal with specific topics such as economics, politics or technology. If a blogger is particularly well versed in a certain area, they can share their expert perspective with others via such a blog. Many journalists run niche blogs where they discuss their favorite topics. Representatives from business and commerce also run such blogs. However, niche blogs can also be described according to which medium is the main component of the blog: There are video blogs, podcast blogs, tumble blogs or link blogs.

Corporate blogs

Corporate blogs are weblogs managed by companies or corporations. These serve to improve communication with customers, disseminate information about news, or for marketing purposes. Corporate blogs are usually written by employees, while blogs written by corporations such as newspapers can also be written by freelancers.

Practical use

As a rule, every internet user can create a blog without much effort and programming knowledge. This is ensured by the so-called blogging systems (also weblog software or weblog publishing systems). This is a content management system where bloggers can edit and publish texts.

Thanks to preconfigured templates, the blog author can choose a graphical interface for his or her weblog. Comment functions and chronological order of contributions are also available. Software solutions from Blogsysteme are available both web-based and for installation on your own server. Well-known representatives are Drupal, WordPress, Movable Type or Blogger. com. Depending on the software chosen, bloggers will then have extensive functions to create posts, threads, permalinks or track and pingbacks, for example.

Feeds for users that present thematically related blogs can also be used. Since blogs are ultimately nothing more than websites, bloggers must abide by the Telemedia Act. If the blog is considered' businesslike', it must contain an imprint.

Significance for SEO

Blogs have also become increasingly relevant for search engine optimization due to their distribution around the globe. They are essentially websites that provide information and links, even if the CMS behind it has been simplified for users. Threforem guest articles on blogs became popular to place links in an editorial environment.

Product presentations on private blogs in a niche area were also often used to link to a website. In many blog systems there is the possibility to add a trackback to a blog post if it contains content from another blog. The trackback informs the author of the other blog by sending a ping to the linked resource.

Blogs were also increasingly used as satellite sites to change the number of links to a web project. In all these measures, however, it is extremely important that they appear natural or indeed are, because Google and Co. consider some of these measures as manual intervention in the positioning of the search engines. Blogs that are used specifically to increase the number of links may have a negative effect on a web project. However, this does not mean that natural measures such as guest articles with multi-value content, product recommendations, or links from blogs are generally to be regarded as negative, because the quality of the content and the trust of the resource that links to it can certainly cast a positive light on a web project.