Choosing a blog platform can be quite tough. For starters, I would recommend using Blogger.com which is owned by google or wordpress.com. Blogger and wordpress is a basic blogging service that can be set up within minutes and start publishing. With these services they are already set up so you don't have to install anything. For the advance bloggers you can use wordpress.org which is customizable. But until you are familiar with the basics of blogs, I would stick to blogger or wordpress.com.
Five Strengths of blogger and wordpress.com.
* They are easy to use because of there pre-made templates.
* No software has to be installed.
* They are absolutely free. Which in today's economy makes this very exciting.
* Many prebuilt designs are available.
* You are not responsible for maintaining the codes that powers the blog. These updates are done automatically.
Four drawbacks of using Blogger or wordpress.
* No customization to any of these blogs. It's like having a car with the hood shut at all times.
* Do to the fact that these blogs are not part of your website, will cause the blog to be pretty week in SEO.
* Since somebody else is responsible for the coding, this can have a draw back when something goes wrong. It could take hours and even days before your blog is up and running.
Blogger and wordpress.com are great blogs to start out on. But if later down the road you decide to use blogs as your main marketing strategy. You may want to change to a more customizable platform.
Wordpress and Blogger are definitely good places to start. Something else to consider is hiring someone to design a basic Wordpress blog and then you take over posting the content. Wordpress is very intuitive and there are many YouTube videos to help you figure out how to do almost anything with your site. The bottom line: every business owner needs a site. Start with what feels comfortable and then create a bigger site.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lisa for your comment. We are always learning from everyone's input. I definately received a nugget from your comment.
ReplyDeleteHi Tim,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean by you are not able to customize on Blogger? I thought they had 'advance settings' for that.
I had considered my header on my blog customized but maybe I'm mixing up the term.
Thanks for any clarification.
Elise.
Elise, good question. I will reiterate that. Blogger.com and wordpress.com will not let you add plugins to increase your SEO. You are very limited to what you can add using there templates. If you use wordpress.org you have the options to add any plugins you want. Plugins are a great form for SEO purposes and of course a better looking blog.
ReplyDelete