Operating a blog is not a very hard task to do, especially once all the setting up has been done. The hardest part for many blog owners and operators is the creation of a new blog, i.e. what to include in it, the design, and the font for use in the page, the background color and many other features. The best thing to note when creating a blog is how the writer(s) of the page will be able to share information with its readers or viewers.
One very important element to have in a blog is the archive. Every now and then, the author of a blog or authors (if they are more than one) will put up a new update. If this goes on for some time, then the readers will soon find that they get confused and are not able to find the one article that they really would want to read. Sometimes also, after a few posts have been put up, the readers will find it rather difficult to search for some of the stories to read or videos to watch.
To help readers find their way within a blog page, designers brought in the archive, a feature whose main intention is to organize the information on the page for easy use. It keeps track of all postings on the page in a variety of ways. The stories can be archived on a yearly basis or on a monthly basis. It can also be done through the available posting categories, which can be done on the basis of topics. Another way in which archiving is done is through alphabetical order or according to the name of its author. Without the archiving feature, blogging for web user would become a very difficult exercise. As a matter of fact, this tool has made blogging so popular to millions of people.
Another blogging tool of great importance is ‘The Feed.’ This is a very special tool that allows blog users to access more than one blog almost simultaneously. This is done by allowing Feedreaders access sites automatically when they are searching for some new data to post on other sites. Feeds therefore enable blog users be able to get all the newest information. Some options for feeds have included RSS, RDF and Atom files.
A Blogroll is another feature that has done a lot in popularizing the blog. This is a small feature that is found in a bar on the side of the screen. A blogroll can be defined as a type of list that includes links to other websites or pages that the author of a specific blog could find interesting or worth a read. The links that are given by blogrolls often lead to other sites that have information that is similar in taste.
A syndication feed is a feature that helps a blog author track down new posts in the blogs that he or she could be following. Through syndication feeds, blog authors are able to automatically discover new information from other sites and post it on their blogs. Feedreaders can continue checking blogs and when they come by something new, they display it as well as a link to it. Some of the syndication tools bring an excerpt of the post.
Comments are very important for any type of interactive web page. The comment section is often one of the most interesting parts of a blog, often allowing users to make their comments about some postings on the page or even recommend them to others. Sometimes, these features can also be called pingbacks and trackbacks.
A trackback is a feature that was designed to enable websites share notifications. It allows an author of one blog to first post a comment on another person’s blog, and secondly to ‘borrow’ the post. When author ‘B’ responds to a post by author ‘A’, the comment appears on Author A’s page, but with a link back to his or her blog page.
