Blogs are a type of website. The texts that are found on blogs are called blog posts.
There are two main types of blogs:
- personal blogs
- company or organization blogs
The motivations for having a blog vary:
- Individuals may be trying to share experiences, offer advice, provide entertainment, promote a view, or, in some cases, do whatever works for attracting a lot of visitors and ultimately make money through advertising (clicks on a link) or sponsorships.
- Company and organization blogs may be trying to develop customer loyalty and trust by providing up-to-date helpful information and advice. In such cases, the ultimate goal is still to promote the company’s or organization’s product, service, or mission.
To make a personal connection with the reader, blogs tend to use a more conversational style of writing. Use of I, you, or we is common, as are contractions (I’m, you’d, don’t, wouldn’t, and so on). Gonna and wanna are also common.
Blog posts may follow somewhat standard patterns of expository writing (introduction, body, conclusion) and they may not. As the following Google search results for "blog post types" shows, there are many:
This means that readers can't really know in advance what information to expect from a blog and how it might be organized. It might be very complete and accurate for the topic and it might not. It might follow the patterns of articles published by newspapers and magazines and it might not.
Common blog post types include these:
- How-to post
- Product and service review
- Newsjacking
- Sharing an experience
- Life advice
- Humour
- Listicle
- Cheat sheet
Useful links:
- How to write a good blog post: Kristina Adams and Dean Rieck