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The Blogger's Primer
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Building For Search
Now, let's go into the more technical aspects of blogging. Here, we'll consider some of the underlying aspects of search technologies, search engines, and what I like to term "smart code", or "smart HTML." As a blogger, it pays to understand some of these concepts in at least a basic way.
There is a key difference between the visual Web that most humans see and interpret, and the semantic Web that computers interpret. Since the Googles, MSNs and Yahoo!s of the world are computers, it's a good idea for the blogger to try to see the world through their eyes.
Incidentally, this argument can easily spill into another area of Web development that's at the forefront of conversation these days: accessibility. I'll try to avoid that particular topic here, to instead focus on how blogging can be affected by poor markup, including poor linking, and poor post subject lines.
Markup
Markup is the HTML and CSS we use on Websites -- the styling behind our sites. Most blogging platforms handle most of the markup in terms of themes, stylesheets, templates, and so on, which does reduce the blogger's markup burden. However, you do control your blog entries. You decide which words will be italicized, boldface, or (God forbid) blinking.
Search engines such as Google and Yahoo! read your site from top to bottom, left to right, and ignore the things they don't understand. Some of the most important features that they do understand are:
<h1> - <h6>
These are header tags. Most blogging platforms give you space to enter a subject line, which then becomes the heading for the entry. This is pretty transparent, but some people may want to put other headings within their entry. This is perfectly fine, although certain factors should be taken into account. Search engines interpret header tags as headings (naturally) and, thus, as being very important. Headings are prioritized: <h1> is the most important and is usually reserved for page headers and titles. <h2> is less important than <h1>, but more important than <h3>, and so on. For what it is worth, the most commonly used entry header in WordPress is an <h2>; entries that use headers should use the <h3> tag and below.
The content of these titles is considered very important in search, so it should be used to effectively attract search engines. Use descriptive text for your titles and you'll achieve better search results. A subject titled "Another Day" will not be likely to receive many hits. However, a subject such as, "Microsoft has Ruined Another Day", will achieve significantly more hits (including mine!).
<a>
The anchor tag is the key ingredient in a hyperlink. Now, if you coded a link like this, <a href="http://www.espn.com">ESPN.com</a>, the link will appear as: ESPN.com. But it's important to remember that search engines look very closely at the text of links, in this case, "ESPN.com". This description tells the search engine -- and your users! -- what the linked page is all about, and serves as a keyword for searches. Use your text wisely to garner the best search results, and you'll attract a greater readership. Also, be sure to link often and to lots of places. The more you link, the more reciprocal links (links back to your site) you'll receive.
Tag Semantics
A good place to get a basic idea of standards-compliant HTML is at W3Schools.org or, if you are a glutton for technical reading, the official XHTML 1 Transitional Spec. However, some of these sites don't explain why a given tag matters more than some others. Once, if a user wanted to display font as boldface, they could simply use the <b> tag, which meant "bold." On the semantic Web, this tag is replaced by <strong>. To the human eye, they do identical things, but on the semantic Web, the difference is much more apparent.
The difference lies in the concepts of display and emphasis. "Bold" simply means "boldface the selected font." "Strong" means "put a "strong" focus on this as a point of importance." The same is true with the <i> and <em> tags. They both display as italics, but the <em> tag denotes a special emphasis.
Search engines pick up on these nuances. If the blogging software you use endeavors to maintain standards-compliance, they may provide you the tools to help you write compliant entries. WordPress, for instance, provides Quick Tags that can be used for this purpose.
Permalinks
This term is a fancy word invented by bloggers to denote the absolute URL to a single entry. It's a permanent link at which the story can be found even after six months have passed and the story has disappeared off the front page of the blog.
Some search engines don't like URLs that incorporate a lot of variables, for instance, <a href="post.php?post_author=administrator&post_id=474">Permalink</a> This link can be described as a non-search engine friendly URL: many search engines don't see anything past the ?.
MoveableType and WordPress both offer methods of creating search-engine friendly archives and URLs. But even if your software does not provide an easy method to do this, so long as the site is hosted on a non-Windows server running a mod_rewrite-enabled Apache server (which, quite honestly, describes most Web hosts), then search engine friendly URLs can be generated. It won't always be easy, but it can, and really should, be done.
There's a lot that can be done to create a blog that will be well-indexed, and earn a good Google PageRank and Yahoo! position. But in addition, effort will need to be made to incorporate keywords -- "buzzwords," if you will -- into your posts to ensure that you will be recognized by the search engines for making topical posts. This is by far the most critical aspect of blog growth, as far as I'm concerned. It pays to take an extra minute to make sure all your links use descriptive text, your headings aren't vague, and, perhaps, that they aren't too specific either (which can narrow your search audience)!
Blogging Platforms
What's a blog without software? Let's take a look at some of the platforms available to the blogger, and see what you can expect in the way of installation and maintenance tasks, monetary investment, and ease of use.
MoveableType, or MT as it is commonly referred to, was the de facto blogging platform used for years on many blogs. It is well-developed and has a huge user base from which plugins (small scripts that enhance the functionality of the system) and templates can be drawn.
MoveableType has recently lost a large number of users to other blogging platforms due to an alteration to the product's licensing. The 2.6.x stream makes use of some older technologies, but is freely available as a piece of software that can run multiple blogs, have multiple authors, and is free. However, with the release of the 3.x version of the software, licensing restrictions have cost MT quite a few users. The makers still provide a free version, but it's limited to a single author powering no more than three blogs.
No official support is provided for the product. MT offers supported versions starting at $69.95, depending on the scope and size of the blog. On the plus side, they have incorporated a feature that allows for the creation of dynamic pages -- a feature which significantly speeds up a blog. With the 2.6.x version, and the standard install of 3.x, pages had to go through a "Rebuild" process after every entry; this could take a long time as blogs grew and contained more entries.
MoveableType is available for install on your own hosting space, but I'm warning you right here and now… at times, it can be very difficult to have it installed. Because MT is written in Perl, it's crucial to check and make sure that every one of the necessary libraries is available on your server, and that every file has correct permissions based on its install location. Recently, I installed an MT-powered blog and spent 3 hours on the task. Unless you have time and patience, this may not be the right software for you.
TypePad is essentially a hosted version of MoveableType. A new user signs up for an account from $4.95 per month, and is supplied with a blog almost instantaneously. Features include mobile blogging, TypeList features (the ability to keep personalized lists of your choice), photo management, Trackback support, valid out-of-the-box XHTML, and more. They do offer a 30 day free trial and no setup is necessary.
Blogger is a Google-owned platform that is fantastically easy for beginners to quickly jump right into. It's free, and it takes new users only a few minutes to register and get the system up and running. There is also the added benefit that users can host their own Blogger-powered blog or allow Blogger to host it for them.
I have found a couple major issues with Blogger. Corporate networks using methods of network analysis and monitoring, such as SurfControl, like to flag most Blogger blogs as adult sites. Added to that frustration is the fact that, for readers to comment (and remember: commenting is the currency of the blogosphere), they must register an account with blogger or be satisfied commenting as 'Anonymous'. I typically recommend users avoid Blogger.
WordPress is fast becoming the most popular blogging software available. WordPress is freely available, supports unlimited users and is also available in a (misnomer here) Multiuser version, which can be used to power multiple blogs with different administrators, much like MT's multi-blog setup.
WordPress provides a huge user base with a considerable amount of support via its Forums, Codex, and plenty of user blogs all over the Internet. WordPress's plugin and theme systems are simplistic and installation can be done in the user's own Web space in as little as 2 minutes.
The downside of WordPress is (in my opinion) the disorganization of the various WordPress-sponsored mailing lists, forums, bug trackers, CVS, SVN… the list goes on. But that's the WordPress organization issue; not a problem with the software itself.
Textpattern is a maturing platform that has a slight learning curve when it comes to expandability. Some of the key features on which many bloggers rely are opposed, on principle, by the developer of this software -- particularly trackbacks. It, too, is a free software app and can be used on the blogger's own Web space.
Summary
Blogging is a learned art, but the learning curve is not steep. And quite certainly, in your blogging experience, you will pick up on things that I have not picked up in mine.
While the abundance of platforms makes getting into a blog easy, it won't make your blog successful. Before you start downloading software, think about what your blog will focus on, who you're writing for, how you'll meet their needs, and how regularly.
The blogosphere is a growing industry, with more bloggers coming out of the woodwork every day. I hope you'll be one of them!