Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
7
ADDING FEATURES TO YOUR
BLOG
Making Your Blog Better
The core of blogging is that it's an ongoing conversation between your-
self and the people who visit your blog. Some of those people are blog-
gers themselves, some are visitors who comment, and the vast majority
are
lurkers
—people who read your posts, but rarely or never comment
themselves.
You can think of your blog as being like a tree, with a core approach
that reflects a certain set of interests and beliefs as the trunk. You can,
in effect, make the tree bigger by adding static pages. Static pages,
which visitors can refer to again and again, add to the base of your blog.
The major categories for your posts—whether you do a careful job of
specifying them explicitly, or whether they're implicit—are the branches,
and the posts themselves are the leaves or needles. As you add more
posts, you build up the tree.
You can build up the tree faster, and in directions you wouldn't have
anticipated yourself, if you add other users and administrators to your
blog.
Many WordPress features are like ornaments on the tree. They draw
attention to the tree as a whole, and perhaps to certain parts of it.
Comments are the best ornaments of all. They increase the value of your
posts by adding new perspective and new information. They show
comeone cares.
Pings are like comments, but hosted on another blog, and can expose
your blog to people who would never see it otherwise. WordPress noti-
fies you of comments and pings.
