What is a Blog Used For and Why Have One

18.53 in a, and, blog, for, have, how, is, one, Paid, start, to, used, what, why

You have a website up and going. You’re generating hits and starting to have regular visitors. These regular visitors are coming back daily and looking for something new. What content you going to provide to your regular visitors? There are hundreds of different things you can provide. One of the easiest way to keep new content arriving on your website is a blog.

This Is What Its All About

A blog is an easy way to show your visitors what is going on. It could be used for something personal in your life or something that is happening around the world. It could be some type of news, sports and/or business topics. Most people use them to promote their site and giving it extra links to draw traffic in. You can promote special deals, new products, new website design or what you are planning to change in the future. A blog can hold any type of content, it is more of a digital journal.

What is a Blog Used For?

Why would you need a blog. You dont need a blog to have a successful site. Or have a site with web 2.0 features. Like mentioned before, a blog is a way to develop new content and post to your visitors. With this in mind there are sites or directories on the web that index website blogs. This could open your website advertising market. You post your blog with interesting content and have external links to your site. Now you have a big push in traffic.

More Traffic and New Content

What is better than having more traffic? There is nothing wrong with a site that has an increase of traffic. Not only are you making more entries to your site with your blog. You are also giving your search bots something else to grab a hold of. Search engine bots or spiders love new content. Blogs can give you new content and help your Search Engine Optimization or SEO of your website. If you have good meaning content, lots of visitors and relative external links, you will have a stand in SEO.

Always Think For New Ideas

Giving your site some new content, increasing your traffic, SEO, getting external linking and keeping up with Web 2.0. These are some of the reasons used when having a blog. Developers have been coding these for a couple of years now. But for some of you that dont have a strong background in web development. There are hundreds of pre-made scripts used on the web today. Blogger and WordPress are a couple of the popular ones today. Some of these scripts will install themselves on your web hosting server and have administrative functions. Try them out and see if a blog is something for you.

Top 10 Places to Get You Started

Here is a quick list of website that offer free blog setups. Just sign-up and start writing

1. WordPress.com
2. Blogger.com
3. MyPage
4. Blogsome
5. Edublogs
6. Jimdo
7. Live Journal
8. BlogSpot
9. CreateBlog
10. PageBuildr

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DIY Wallpaper Folders

00.17 in bites, diy, dust, first, folders, one, Paid, the, wallpaper

So it seems its already the start of back to school season, when all the shops are stocked up with uniforms and stationary. Though Ive got a good 4 or 5 weeks before I head back to college, I decided to get all my stuff ready way before so nothing is forgotten and also so its cleared from my mind.

Folders is one thing I hate buying because I want nice unique, quirky patterns and I dont always find ones I like in shops. When I do however, they usually are quite expensive and the plain ones just dont do it for me. So Ive resorted once again this year to covering plain, boring folders with wallpaper. Yes, once again the trusty free wallpaper samples are of use. 

This DIY is cheap, simple and because you made it yourself - unique, so you wont have t worry about matching with someone else. Also, I found that by doing this last year as well, the folders where more durable and didnt get them annoying, flappy, split corners.

You will need :

• Folder(s)
• Wallpaper sample(s)
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Something to protect your work surface - newspaper, art mat etc

1. Whilst your hot glue gun is heating up, start off by drawing around your folder. Make sure to leave enough excess room around the folder. Doing this will make it easier to place when gluing - so you arent short of paper.

2. If your wallpaper is on the thicker side, lightly score it being careful not to cut through the paper. This will make an easier, cleaner fold around the folder.

3. Now, working side by side, you can begin gluing the folder to your paper. Make sure to firmly press the folder down allowing time for the glue to set (only a few seconds).

4. Once the folder is fully stuck down, begin drawing lines on the folders creases.

5. Cut the line and cut the tab smaller. I found without doing this the paper began to crease up of peel off when in use.

6. Stick the tabs down.

7. Again draw a line and snip up it - on the edge of the folder.

8. Then proceed to stick each of them tabs down, not forgetting to firmly press them down. You should be left with something like this.

9. Oh look the ruler and pencil and returned once again. I decided to cut this part on an angle to make it look a bit neater.

10. Voilá, its complete! If you arent happy with how the inside looks here are some ideas you could glue down to cover it:

• A thin whiteboard (or make your own by laminating some paper)
• Left over wallpaper or other decorative paper
• Paper Folder (to store loose sheets)

We are all creative. Creativity is the hallmark human capacity that has allowed us to survive thus far. Our brains are wired to be creative, and the only thing stopping you from expressing the creativity that is your birthright is your belief that there are creative people and uncreative people and that you fall in that second category. - Shelley Carson

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What are blogs used for

09.17 in a, and, are, blog, blogs, for, have, is, one, Paid, used, what, why

Blogs are like mini websites. They are free, easy to use, update automatically and can be shared with others by simply providing the blog address.
The majority of Blog sites offer a variety of page styles to fit almost any user theme (or profile). All you need to start a blog is an verifiable email address.
You can read the information posted and learn things you didnt know. Corporate blogs let you know more about what is happening behind the scenes of a product or company.
Blogs or "weblogs" are online journals that allow other people to read your thoughts and reply to them. Because blogs are not private, they are not a place to put personal private thoughts but a place to talk about ideas you want to share with the rest of the world.

Some examples:

• Tell people about your trip around the world or what its like to live in a different country

• Share some your ideas about a topic like politics or religion.

• Talk about your hobby and share some tips

• Put art, music, or video on your blog to share your creations or interests.

• Link to other interesting sites on the Internet and discuss them.

• Promote and sell something you created or sell as part of your job

• Write stories or poems

• You can Talk about celebs and Talk about your day it is so much fun

From a business perspective, blogs are great for many things.

1. Demonstrate Your Expertise - They really show potential clients who visit your site that indeed you know what you are talking about.
2. Search Engine Visibility - Because blogs are updated frequently (or at least should be), they help raise your sites visibility in search engines. Fresh content is one of the key components considered when ranking sites. Be sure your blog sits on your sites server and not blogger or Wordpress to reap this benefit.
3. Shows Your Personality - Blogs are great at giving people a sense of your personality. Write conversationally and for folks in relationship businesses, like realtors, this may help a person who visits your site determine if it would be a fit.

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The First One Bites The Dust

04.45 in bites, dust, first, kind, one, Paid, the, words

Its a loving evening so I thought Id write a blog post, sat outside in the shade of my garden. Seeing as my room feels the same temperature as a greenhouse during this part of the day. But now instead Im being attacked by flies, why can you never escape them during summer!

So Im currently one week into my summer holidays. I feel so lost. Its not that I never had free time while at college, I just dont know how to fill my time! During term time when I get bored of procrastinating on the internet I can turn to doing work or something else that should be my main priority. Because of this Ive actually made a start on completing my summer bucket list and already managed to cross one thing off. Ive actually surprised myself as I thought Id be cramming and crossing within the last week!

Let me tell you that not going swimming in 7 years really takes its toll on your swimming abilities. Not to mention the fact I through my goggles away a fair bit ago. At least I only went in the shallow side of the pool, right? Nope. I was wrong. I decided to start off with breast stroke, as I thought it would be easier to do without goggles than front crawl, not even half a length in and I had to stop. Panting, gasping for air, water in my eyes and up my nose - I looked like an idiot! And of course people noticed. Great.

There was one man who stopped next to me and started to make the okay hand signal, after saying I was fine, he then pointed to his ears and stated he was deaf. Now, I know some deaf people dont speak either and instead just mime. It was just my luck this guy was one of them. I honestly wouldnt have minded if I was wearing my glasses. But because I dont own contact lenses, not being able to clearly see 30cm in front of you really sucks, and I couldnt read his lips. I had no clue what he was saying to me and I felt so rude. Besides, I couldnt exactly go face to face with this stranger. So I just kind of signalled okay and swam off (well attempted too).

What happened next? Well I felt like the lifeguards where maybe concerned about me as one came and sat around the shallow side of the pool. But, of course, I couldnt see if they where watching me look like a drowning dog or not because every time I glanced at them they where just a blurry peachy blob (short-sighted problems). Any fellow glasses wearers out there, is it just me who feels naked when Im not wearing them?

I have managed to go for a second time today - with goggles. Let me tell you they make a huge difference. Wow. However, my stamina, yeah thats still rock bottom.

Have any of you managed to cross things off your summer bucket lists?

Practice doesnt make perfect. Practice reduces imperfection. - Toba Beta

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