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Once you realise that visitors and search engines prefer regularly-updated content to static archives of never-updated articles, there's a simple way to make this a reality: just put your content in a weblog format. Let's take a look at some of the many advantages this approach brings.

No Need for HTML

Weblog software will give you an easy interface to upload articles you write. You don't need to put them in templates, you don't need to add HTML tags, and you don't need to use any WYSIWYG editor - all you do is paste them into the box the software gives you and press 'post'.

The advantages of this are obvious: it saves you time and trouble (especially of you don't know HTML all that well). It also tends to make it much easier to avoid layout mistakes caused by typographical errors, since the weblog software is producing the HTML for you.

No Need for a CMS

Likewise, you don't need a CMS (content management system) to keep your site's content in check: all you need to do is add tags to the content as you post it. Most weblog software will create categories for you as you go, instead of you having to categorise everything and pay attention to the way it all works. Instead of managing your content, you just throw it on there and let the software do the managing.

Since there's much more good weblog software available for free than there is CMS software, this can save you quite a lot of money. Also, although this is a subjective judgement, weblog software tends to make your site look better than CMS' templates do. People Know How Weblogs Work.

The weblog format has now become a standard, and people know what they're doing with it. Instead of having to learn yet another website format, looking around to see how you do things, they know straightaway where to look to find things. The date, the name of the author, the archives, the page about you - everything has a standard position on a weblog, and most web users have read enough weblogs to know what they are and how they work.

This becomes even more powerful when it comes to asking visitors to leave comments on articles: every non-weblog site does this wildly different, while with weblogs it's quite standardised. You just type your name, leave your comment, and it gets added to the list - no muss, no fuss.

A Little Each Day

It's a well-known fact that it's easier to do things if you chip away at them a bit at a time instead of trying to do them all at once. The same goes for websites: it's much easier to write little bits of content each day instead of trying to do it all in one go. Weblogs give you the freedom to write when you're inspired to and write as little or as much as you like, instead of having to create a structured article or set of articles.

Trackbacks

Using weblog software that supports trackbacks (most do) makes other weblogs more likely to link to you, as they know that their site will appear in your trackbacks section. These links increase your traffic and search engine rankings, especially if you get linked from a popular weblog - and if you link to others, they're more likely to link back to you.

RSS and Syndication

Putting your data in a weblog format also has the effect of letting the weblog software produce data about the latest posts using RSS (really simple syndication) format. Users can then 'subscribe' to these feeds using special software and websites, and keep track of your latest posts, clicking through to read the ones they're interested in. This is a little like turning your existing content into an email newsletter, with no extra trouble on your part - it gives people the opportunity to come back over and over again.

About the author:

Information supplied and written by Lee Asher of Eclipse Domain Services

Domain Names, Hosting, Traffic and Email Solutions.