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Blogs at a glance

Site Genre: Pattern Group a

magnify image Figure A11.1 Blogs can be a powerful medium for getting your message out. Richard Marcello, a senior vice president at HP, uses his blog to communicate with employees, customers, and industry analysts. The XML FEEDS button underneath the calendar also lets readers subscribe to Marcello’s blog via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or even syndicate the content for reproduction on their own site.

Background

Web logs (blogs) can be a popular and simple way of communicating with people, as well as an important part of a VALUABLE COMPANY SITE (A7), a STIMULATING ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT (A9) site, a NEWS MOSAIC (A2) site, an ENABLING INTRANET (A11), or a GRASSROOTS INFORMATION SITE (A6). Depending on how they’re used, blogs can also be the basis of a COMMUNITY CONFERENCE (A3) site.

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PROBLEM

Blogs cannot be an effective medium of communication if they don’t attract a regular readership.

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SOLUTION

magnify image FigureA11.3 Good blogs are a combination of credibility, unique content, compelling writing style, and a strong community of readers.

Establish credibility and a strong community of readers through a combination of unique and fresh content, passion, and responsiveness to community members. Determine what blog genre you want, how the blog will be run (by individuals, small groups, or an entire community), and whether you will allow comments. Finally, write your content so that it will be easy to find on search engines.

Other Patterns to Consider

Establish credibility by having an ABOUT US (E5) page that contains relevant background information about yourself. If you’re blogging for a company, consider ways of leveraging the company’s SITE BRANDING (E1). Most blogs support MESSAGE BOARDS (D5), but if you have one on your blog, be prepared for tough criticism and occasional spammers and trolls (people who like to cause grief). The tips in COMMUNITY CONFERENCE (A3) can help you deal with these issues. Be sure to WRITE FOR SEARCH ENGINES (D6), using a combination of DISTINCTIVE HTML TITLES (D9), a simple writing style, and clean layout [see Pattern Group I (Designing Effective Page Layouts)] that’s easy for search engine crawlers to understand.

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