Martin B
Success Coach, speaker, trainer and author. Known for his focused, rapid-results coaching.
What do you recommend for free or paid professional blog sites? Do any work better with podcast?
What do you recommend for free or paid professional blog sites? Do any work better with podcast? Are any more visible to the search engines? Any other advice on blogging for business topics?
Clarification added May 6, 2007:
What does "hosting a blog" vs not hosting blog mean?
Clarification added May 12, 2007:
Thanks to all of your help I created my 1st podcast at:
http://inquireonline.wordpress.com/
Thanks!!! Comments of improvement are welcome here! I know it is a rough draft!
Answers (27)
Well, I like blogger.com but I don't know how it works with podcasts...
Links:
Zennie A
Founder, CEO: Sports Business Simulations: Experienced online marketer,video-blogger, game programmer and SEO expert
Best Answers in: Blogging (1)
Personally, I recommend Blogger (www.blogger.com). My firm uses it extensively. Now, last year, I would have been less motivated to give such a recommendation, as Blogger had numerous problems where a post was slow to load, or photos were not installed by the system -- and all of these issues were system wide.
Fortunately, Blogger's new system "Blogger Beta" and a more concerted effort to end such crashes and problems has formed a better system. And my experience is -- and perhaps this is because it's owned by Google -- posts on Blogger show up on Google within three days, sometimes faster than that. Check out our blogs, starting with "Zennie's Zeitegeist."
Links:
David N
Technologist, Evangelist, Entrepreneur, Inventor ► Executive Consultant, CTO
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I'd recommend WordPress...
Links:
For most of our clients, we use Wordpress on their own servers. Simple PHP and MySQL that people can service themselfes.
Links:
I use and like TypePad. Wordpress does seem to be very popular and well-liked. MoveableType still seems to be very popular at the professional level. ExpressionEngine is a whole CRM and community system that also gets good reports from web designers. Blogger is nice but I'm not sure how customizable and extensible it is compared to the others.
Links:
Fred H
Former Marketing and Operations Executive Mattel for McDonald's and Burger King
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Any of the good blogging sites are excellent. The more important issues are:
1) What is the objective of your blog? An easy way to update information for current and future clients?
2) To be used as a link to http://www.coachingsupport.com/ providing more in depth information about your services?
3) A fun thing for you to do?
Give us your answers on this and we can be of assistance.
Your website is very informative. My only suggestion is you are word heavy with small font and not enough pictures of smiling successful people (actors) who are using your services.
Let me know,
Fred
I use and recommend WordPress. Is rich of any kind of plug-in for every thing you want to do... and if You are practical with php programming, is very simple to make your own plugin too. At Wordpress.com they can also host your blog.
Links:
Howard B
Speaking medicine and computing
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I'd note that more and more, I unsubscribe to professional announcement lists that are geared increasingly to webcasts and podcasts. I find that these multimedia techniques are, almost invariably, a waste of my time. Most people, I believe, can absorb the written word faster than the spoken word. I have the additional problem of a mild hearing loss.
True, I could listen to a podcast on my own schedule, where that is rarely true of webcasts. To me, webcasts and the like don't give me any sense of what the presenter would be like as a business partner. If the presenter's organization can send me well-organized papers, and respond in a prompt and focused manner to my questions, I gain confidence in their ability to tune into my needs, document decently, and potentially to work with a decentralized workforce.
I'm a decent speaker myself, but I prefer to leave both in-person and network-enabled conferencing to the cases where there will be bilateral and multilateral information exchange, not lecture. If, at some time, I buy an MP3 player or the like, I strongly suspect I will use it only for music. The one exception would be if I started long commutes again, and I could listen to well-organized lectures -- but sometimes driving time is a time where I have privacy to organize my own thinking.
Blogger offers quite a few features, and multiple blogs can be managed from a convenient dashboard screen. It's free, so it's worth signing up and taking it for a test drive. I've been podcasting with Blogger since 2005.
For podcasting, you need at the minimum a site (such as Blogger) that provides an RSS or Atom feed. Once you have your blog set up, I suggest you publish your feed with Feedburner, another free service that offers an impressive variety of feed enhancements, including making it podcast-ready.
Good luck with your blog/podcast.
Links:
Clarification added May 6, 2007:
Just wanted to address your search engine ranking question. Don't worry so much about which blog host improves your search engine rankings. I suggest you focus more on providing A-1 content and networking with other bloggers to build the number of sites linking to your blog, which is likely to have a greater effect on your rank than which site you use.
Again, good luck and happy blogging!
I have used blogger and wordpress.. I am presently using wordpress and it is awesome if you host it. There are a lot of great plugins for it.
Ray V
Social Media Strategist, Speaker, Corporate Community expert
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Open Networkers:
http://opennetworkers.ning.com
because it is not important how many people are connected to you, but how much you know of each other...
Links:
I join the Wordpress crowd. Its excellent and the fact that it is based on an open platform makes it very flexible as people continue to develop plugins and themes. Sometimes it takes a while to find the right plugins for your site, but usually its out there, someone is working on it or you can tweak it to fit your needs.
I use it myself www.abemad.dk (in danish).
Wordpress Podcast Plugins::
http://garrickvanburen.com/wordpress-plugins/wpipodcatter
http://www.digitalpodcast.com/podcastnews/2006/03/02/podpress_a_podcasting_plugin_for_wordpre/
Another piece of sotfware that might be of interest if you are thinking about video podcast as well is Broadcast Machine I stumbled across it yesterday, so I haven't had time to check it out, but it looks promising. And again it is open.
http://www.getdemocracy.com/broadcast/
Links:
- http://www.abemad.dk
- http://www.digitalpodcast.com/podcastnews/2006/03/02/podpress_a_podcasting_...
- http://garrickvanburen.com/wordpress-plugins/wpipodcatter
Clarification added May 8, 2007:
About Hosting:
Some blog services like blogger og wordpress.com take care of the hosting. That way you don't need to buy a domain name and pay a fee to a host / web hotel.
Others like wordpress.org provides you with a blog engine that you can install at your host.
You should consider if you want your own domain-name like www.martin.brossman.com. If that is the case you need to buy a domain name and get a webhost. (Usually the webhost sells you a package with both included)
If you don't need full control over the address you can let Wordpress, Blogger or Typepad take care of the hosting but then the address to the blog will be something like: www.martin.brossman.wordpress.com/
First option is free but limited. Second will cost a little but in return you gain complete control over your site.
I would recommend using wordpress.com
Danny D
Communications 3.0 specialist. Mobile Warrior. Director @ Porter Novelli . Owner of Heliade Consulting.
Best Answers in: Ethics (1), Wireless (1)
http://www.heliade.net/?p=53
I would like to suggest our product http://cyn.in
cyn.in (pronounced: 'sign-in') is an enterprise bliki service that allows teams, companies or communities to create, manage, organize, store, version, search through, collaborate & discuss upon, share and publish any kind of information or data.
cyn.in can manage all your rich content, audio, video, images, documents, presentations, spreadsheets, drawings, archives and any type of files.
cyn.in is delivered on software as a service model (SaaS)
cyn.in available in 2 flavors
cyn.in professional - free
cyn.in business - paid
Links:
1. I recommend a service called Authority Site Center. They use a souped up version of Wordpress and give you the marketing and technical support that you need to get your blog hosted and launched. They have successfully helped many people launch very successful business blogs. The free report in the 2nd link below provides tons of free information about blogs and promoting blogs. You can podcast using a podcasting service (which is ideal for search engine rankings) that allows you to post audio on your site
2. Hosting a blog means that you have the blog software installed and run on your web site hosting account. Your team is responsible for the upgrades, performance etc. Not hosting a blog - or a hosted blog service is a 3rd party service like Blogger.com or Moveable Type hosted services where you sign up for an account on their site, pay a monthly fee and maintain your blog strictly from a content management standpoint.
Links:
Wordpress.
Or Blogger. Or something else. After selecting which one to use, then make a non-default layout, and then what matters is content. Content is the number one that matters, secondarily that the blog is updated in relatively regular intervals and with always good content. Not once in a month, and not 50 times a day either.
Podcast? They are not searchable. Unless your blog consists of novels or something that is intended to be listened to and not read, then better just html and no podcasts. Most people's voices and recording skills are not good enough for making a podcast enjoyable. There are very few topics that I consider better in audio than in html, and even for those it would be polite to provide at least a rough html sketch of what is in the episode.
People also usually spend very little time on blogs. If you have say 10 or 30 blogs that you have a look a few times a week, there isn't enough time to be wasted on podcasts. I don't even get the ones of my favorite author out there on the occasions he has linked some audio content of his interviews or lectures out there.
Jason M
Client services at Autonomy-Optimost
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Neither. Brand your own domain, get your own domain listed in search engines, it will be much better in the long run. I use Drupal at www.Drupal.org. My blog is at www.jamzmgmt.com/blog. It gets a fair amount of traffic.
Links:
Biana B
I can help YOU get more clients and make more money online.
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I use and recommend hosting a WordPress blog on your own server.
There are lots of pro's for doing this:
- WordPress software is free, and all you need to install it is PHP/MySQL. The installation is very easy.
- It is extremely easy to use once it is installed - my very non-technical clients have no problems using WordPress
- You have all the control over branding and marketing of your own blog.
- The web site address for your blog is based on your own URL, thus helping you with branding.
- All the search engine results and links belong to your domain, and not to someone else's domain.
You can check out my blog for an example of a WordPress blog.
Biana Babinsky
Links:
Olga K
Research Professional, Translator, Citizen of the World
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blogger.com
free and easy
Kelly R
Health and Human Services Professional
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Ditto on Blogger, but this is primarily because I am just starting to gather my thoughts and ideas on a specific topic. Blogger is fast, free, convenient. I've owned my own domains and published myself and I admit, I liked the control and different creative options of self-publishing on my own site. But, while I'm working out the kinks and just throwing around ideas for fun, Blogger is working fine. Maybe it would be different if I were looking to hit the big time someday, but for just sorting out my own ideas and play around a bit, Blogger is sufficient.
Links:
Laura S
Paranormal Erotica Novelist (Witches, Shapeshifters, Vampires)
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I love Blogger! I have a blog I have used as my primary website for several years now, and have never had any problem with it. I sell lots of product from it and added Adsense this year with no problem. Blogger makes it so easy if you aren't a tech person (which I am not, so I need this stuff to be as simple as possible).
Don't know about Podcasts. Much like my niche market, I'm more of a written word person and not really into all the new stuff out there like podcasts and video sales.
Laura Stamps
Occult Novels for Women
http://www.KittyfeatherPress.blogspot.com
Kathie M. T
Author, Blogger, Founder of Virtual Assistant Industry in Australia, Speaker, VA Coach
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If you have access to hosting a blog on your own web server, then Wordpress is definitely the way to go. Very flexible and able to be easily modified, thousands of free templates available which you can change or there are heaps of web developers around who can create a template for you. Just register a domain and point to your blog and there you have a blog with your own domain.
This way the blog is not free hosted (like blogger.com or wordpress.com) and you have more control - make sure whomever hosts it for you has regular (daily) backups because as your blog grows there will be a lot of material there which needs to be saved.
It really depends on what the focus of your blog is and the content as to whether podcasting is the way to go. I can see it working for public speakers, trainers and coaches but not for everyone but since you're in that category, then should work well for you.
Make sure you register with blog submission sites to ensure you start getting traffic and use Technorati tags for each of your posts which will assist.
Links:
> What does "hosting a blog" vs not hosting blog mean?
There are hosted blog services (TypePad, Wordpress.com, Blogger) and blogging software that you install on your own web hosting account or server (WordPress.org, ExpressionEngine, Serendipity).
Now that you're set up on WordPress.com, may I recommend getting a domain name and having a professional designer develop a theme? You can still use WordPress.com to host it, but your domain will redirect there (much like http://webworkerdaily.com/).
It's a better way to brand yourself, plus if you get too big for WordPress.com's britches, you can take the domain name to a new hosting account.
We use TypePad for our business blogs - it was the best solution for us with multiple bloggers and a high degree of flexibility with our image hosting. We customized our blog to match our webdesign to keep consistent branding across all of our media.
From a business blogging standpoint, one of my biggest marketing challenges is keeping content interesting. In one of our industry groups, blogs are our outreach to our end-user consumers (not necessarily our "customers" who would be our wholesale accounts) so we use the blogs to share projects and company news with the consumers and help them feel a brand-loyalty to our products. Conversely, we find that our actual customers (retail storefronts) still prefer emailed or mailed newsletters and other items they can file and quickly reference - so we have had to incorporate both into our media strategy.
One way we try to keep our blog fresh is by having many users in the company write for the blog. We have it set up so we can maintain some editorial control over content (such as approval before items are posted for public view) but they are otherwise encouraged to write about a variety of topics that might appeal to our readers. This gives us a great selection of content and also strengthens the chance that the end-reader will find a connection with one of our voices.
Links:
H.Dean H
Founder & Chief Web Evangelist of Sachi Studio
Best Answers in: Non-profit Fundraising (1), Professional Networking (1)
Free or professional? It really depends on what your goal is. If you want to run a business, then definitely go for paid. I notice that you hosted yours on wordpress.com but I don't really recommend that. Especially since your url is hard to remember.
Here is also a list of resources that does a comparison of the major blogging platforms out there along with their strengths and weaknesses at the url below. I hope it helps
Links:
James M
Experienced Technology Executive and Innovator
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Stick with blogger...
