alex cristache - corporate blogging guide (ebook)

CorporateBloggingGuide

Alex CristacheBlogsessive.com QBKL.net

(Blog)(Design Studio)

http://qbkl.net

About the author

Blogsessive.com’s Corporate Blogging Guide (by Alex Cristache)

- Blogsessive.com QBKL Media

1

This is me I guess, Alex Cristache, a 29 year old fellow with more than 10 years of online

experience gathered working for top Romanian web design, development and consultancy

companies or as a freelancer, currently being the Managing Partner of the

design studio.

Looking back into my past, I’ve started as a junior web designer and worked my way up in

ranks through senior web, print & logo designer, occasional copywriter, web & SEO

consultant and project manager. While my main job was focused on design, I couldn't stay

away from web development, and so, I’ve started working with PHP & MySQL.

When WordPress was first released, I’ve instantly connected with this application, amazed

with what can be accomplished by using it, how customizable it can get and the ease of use.

So, here I am, a few years later, sharing my thoughts, experience and findings with you,

friends and readers of my blog: .

Special thanks...

Go to Alina Popescu for her invaluable help with the translation and editing of this eBook.

You can follow her PR blog over at or check out the

website of her PR & Marketing agency: .

I would also like to thank Blogsessive’s readers who by supporting me in my blogging

adventure made the publishing of this eBook possible.

Last but not least, I thank you - the one who reads this guide - for your interest in learning,

evolving and thus making the blogosphere a much more interesting place for all of us.

QBKL Media

Blogsessive.com

http://WordsofaBrokenMirror.com

Mirror Communications

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http://WordsofaBrokenMirror.com

http://mirror-communications.com

Contents

Blogsessive.com’s Corporate Blogging Guide (by Alex Cristache) 2

1. Introduction to Blogging

1.1. Blog, Blogging, Blogosphere

1.2. Corporate Blogging

2. Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog

2.1. Is the blog a necessity or just a whim?

2.2. Do you have the needed resources to launch and maintain a blog?

2.3 How does the online audience feel about your company?

2.3.1. Reactions in the blogosphere: Technorati

2.3.2. Reactions in the blogosphere: Google Blog Search

2.3.3. Reactions in the online press from your field

2.3.4. Quantifying the risk factor

2.4. Interpreting the answers

3. Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning

4. Types of Corporate Blogs

4.1. CEO blog

4.2. Entrepreneur blog

4.3. Multi-author company blog

4.4. Department blog

4.5. Employee’s blog

4.6. Product/Service blog

4.7. Human Resources blogs

5. Blog Editors & Editorial Policy

5.1. Criteria to help build the editorial team

5.2. PR department involvement

5.3. The blog’s tone

5.4. Content generation

6. Blogging Tips to Get You Started

7. Blog Performance Tracking Tools

8. Technical Aspects and Words of Advice

8.1. Choosing the blogging platform

8.2. Words of Advice

4 - 5

7 - 9

11

13 - 14

16 - 17

19 - 20

22 - 23

25 - 27



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“With the abundance of information

hitting our brains each minute, we

have to filter everything right from the

first contact. The first impression is

vital. Take your time to rethink and

possibly rewrite your headlines,

maybe even reconsider your blog’s

design & structure, the placement of

different sections that could generate

further traffic and more reading time.”

Excerpt from “How to Improve Your Readers’ Perception”


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Blogsessive.com QBKL Media

http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/how-to-improve-your-readers-perception/


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1. Introduction to Blogging


When starting out, new bloggers often do one of these two major mistakes: they either

consider blogging too easy and mostly an automated process, or think of it as a burden that

most times doesn’t pay off. Well, my dear friends, blogging is neither too hard, nor too easy.

Blogging is an exercise of your skills and talents, a process of constant learning and

improvement. It may seem a tough process at first, but with dedicated attention it will

become easier with each post you publish and promote.

That being said, I offer you this guide to help you start your new blogging adventure with an

ace in your sleeve. Let’s take it back to the basics!

1.1 Blog, Blogging, Blogosphere

The term blog, contracted form of weblog, defines a certain type of website where texts,

photos, audio or video content are published in chronological order, much like an online

diary.

The first blogs date back to 1993 when the term was first introduced, but they only started

to be used more frequently in 1998 when the first blog community, , appeared.

The true hit of the online mainstream happened around 2002-2003, when the first blog

reactions regarding the Iraq war were published and when acquired the

platform, which allows any person with Internet access to create and maintain their own

blog.

The Blogosphere comprises all public blogs and is defined as a community based on the

theory that all existing blogs are somehow interconnected, often through blogrolls or links

inserted in their content.

A blogroll is a list of links, commonly displayed in a blog’s sidebar. The links usually point

to blogs the author deems relevant to the content of their own blog or simply wants to

recommend to their readers. Therefore, through blogrolls, it is believed that any two blogs

can be connected through one or more intermediary links.

Blogs allow publishing content in a wide range of types and formats, and these types of

content lead to a first classification of blogs:

a. Classic blog – text content

b. Photoblog – publishes photo content

c. Videoblog – publishes video content

d. Audioblog (podcast) – publishes audio content

Open Diary

Google Blogger.com



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http://www.opendiary.com

www.google.com

http://www.blogger.com


Microblogs and tumbleblogs, both defined as blogs with extremely short entries, are two

other blog formats gaining more and more popularity in the past few years.

Regardless of information format, the online publishing of content through blog platforms is

called blogging, and the author of a blog is called blogger.

1.2 Corporate blogging

Once they have hit the spotlights, the blogs’ potential to communicate effectively was

immediately noticed by companies.

Initially seen as a mere tool to promote products and services, blogs gradually became part

of a company’s brand. Aside from placing a name and a logo on them, blogs granted

companies a persona they could be associated with. In short, they made them human. The

corporate blog managed to break the barrier between the “inaccessible company” and its

customers.

The true value of a company is undoubtedly fueled by its employees’ individual values. But

how exactly can these values be expressed? How can they be best presented to the world?

Blogs allow companies to position their employees as industry leaders through the opinions

they publish, through the breakthroughs shared on the blog, all in a human, personal form

that eases communication with customers.

A few companies that have successfully adopted the concept of blogs are:

Adobe –

Microsoft – and

Google –

The benefits of a well crafted and maintained blog are plenty, but is it the right tool for

companies? Find out in the next chapters.

http://blogs.adobe.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/ http://blogs.msdn.com/

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/



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http://blogs.adobe.com/

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/

http://blogs.msdn.com/


“Many bloggers fail when it comes to

building a better blog. Making your

blog stand out of the crowd requires a

strategy, just like a business. Even if

you’re not part of an affiliate program

of selling your own products through

your blog, think of it this way: You’re

selling yourself, your knowledge, your

writings.”

Excerpt from “My blog, my business”


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http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/my-blog-my-business/


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2. Critical Questions BeforeLaunching a Corporate Blog


Not all promoting and marketing techniques yield results in any given situation and likewise

blogs aren’t always the best solution. In certain cases, a blog can become a useless

investment, or worse, a way to boost the already negative view the audience has on a

company. Before launching a blog, each company needs to ask the following questions:

2.1. Is the blog a necessity or just a whim?

A company’s decision to launch a blog may be based on obvious advantages generated by

the freedom of communication and by its being given a human touch. Considering these

advantages or failing to do so, we still run into situations where a company chooses to

launch a blog because of reasons such as:

a. Our competitor X has launched a blog;

b. It’s trendy, any teen has one. Why can’t we have one?

c. We want to look high-tech / tech savvy.

In theory, none of the reasons above is a real obstacle, given it’s associated with and

supported by other factors such as having the necessary resources to create and maintain a

blog or a positive or neutral image in the market.

2.2 Do you have the needed resources to launch and maintain a blog?

Unlike classic company websites, blogs keep consuming resources.

Blogs imply costs. Be it the technical side – design, development, hosting, be it hiring an

experienced blogger to maintain it and publish fresh content, a blog needs financial

resources.

Blogs take time. It takes time to create and publish content; it takes time to research, write

posts, update them and maintain the blog. And for any company with a sense of business,

time always means money.

Blogs need dedicated personnel. While there are quite a few tools to render content

publishing automatic, the best results in corporate blogging are harvested by those

publishing customized content, created by their own people. Are there people in your team

who can maintain the blog? If not, do you have enough resources to bring in someone new?

Blogs require information. And information is either created or needs to be searched for,

analyzed and filtered. These steps also take time and need to be carried out by people who

need to be effective and thorough in research, data filtering and content creation.



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2.3 How does the online audience feel about your company?

We are talking about the online world, where the fastest and most relevant reactions are

being published. How do we track them?

2.3.1 Reactions in the blogosphere: Technorati

is at the same time a blog search engine and a blog content aggregation

service. According to the latest data, Technorati indexes and analyzes the activity of about

110 million blogs from around the world.

Through a system reviewing both post tags and inter-blog links, Technorati returns relevant

search result in a reverse-chronological order, the most recent ones being displayed first.

2.3.2 Reactions in the blogosphere: Google Blog Search

The world famous Google has a search engine entirely dedicated to blogs. Using the

traditional search algorithms it’s already known for, allows you to filter

results based on multiple search parameters as well as on the date when the blog articles

and reactions have been published.

Running a search for your company’s name will most likely return relevant results which

are usually very personal, as they are reactions from within the blogosphere. If your brand

mainly targets domestic customers, the wisest choice is to use the local version of the blog

search engine.

And of course, running the search directly on the main can return

similarly relevant results.

2.3.3 Reactions in the online press from your field

Although it is not always the most relevant source, as it is often affiliated to certain trade

groups or biased by advertising constraints, the online press covering your field can be an

effective indicator for your company’s image by taking into account what their experts and

analysts have to say about you.

2.3.4. Quantifying the risk factor

Based on the results obtained after analyzing all these online reactions, one can quite

accurately quantify the risk factor their company is exposed to by publishing a blog,

especially if it is a blog that allows comments to be posted.

A negative online image can lead to a virtually unlimited series of negative comments which

rarely have to do with the actual content published on the blog. Visitors would have thus

found a way to express all their frustration caused by real or imaginary flaws they see in the

company’s products and services.

Technorati.com

Google Blog Search

Google search engine



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http://Technorati.com

http://blogsearch.google.com

http://www.google.com


2.4 Interpreting the answers

It hardly takes a genius to determine if the blog is just a whim with a short life span and

inexistent success in communicating with customers.

Also, it is obvious that without the necessary resources, a blog cannot be launched or it will

be launched while lacking any real possibility of it being maintained in the future.

And who would ever want to help spread an already bad image through exposing themselves

to ever present negative comments, especially in their own “online home”?



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“Spend some time learning more

about your audience. Read the

comments, visit their blogs, and ask

questions. By getting to know your

readers, you will find it easier to talk

to them as they would expect you to.”

Excerpt from “Effective Communication: Know Your Audience”


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http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/effective-communication/


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3. Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning


So, did you ask yourself if a blog is the right thing for your company? Is it a solution that

will boost your business instead of being a resource consumer? If so, it’s time to find out

what options are there in terms of positioning a corporate blog.

Each company has its specific communication needs. Based on said needs and other

established targets, a newly launched company blog can help achieve specific goals, such

as:

- Becoming an alternative, and dynamic method to publish content;

- Positioning employees as thought leaders and experts in their respective fields;

- Building a community around a company, product or service;

- Boosting sales;

- Encouraging customers to send their feedback;

- Speeding up customer service;

- Gaining you exposure through both new and traditional (print press, radio, TV) media;

- Positioning you as a trendy company that keeps up with new technologies;

- Becoming and effective channel for crisis communication;

- Supporting your HR efforts by offering an “alternative” look at your team and thus

attracting new job applications;

- Helping your company rank higher for specific search phrases and attracting new

backlinks.

It’s highly recommended to establish a set of complementary goals. If a company manages to

focus on and reach its main goals, the adjacent targets will also be achieved at the same

time.

Here are a couple of examples of complementary goal sets:

- Building a community + boosting sales + attracting feedback

- Positioning yourself as a thought leader + building a community + gaining media

exposure



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“A king without a kingdom cannot

exists, so take your time to build your

blog from the most basic item that

you can work on to improve. Only by

having a rock solid foundation you

can make a true king out of your

content, and YES, content is king!”

Excerpt from “Is Content really the King?”


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http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/content-is-king/


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4. Types of Corporate Blogs


So, you think you are ready to launch a corporate blog for your company? Based on

previously set goals for your blog and the available resources, the most common types of

corporate blogs from which you can choose are:

4.1. CEO blog

The CEO blog is the blog authored by someone from the company’s top management. The

general trend for such blogs is to publish analyses of the main events in a certain filed,

forecasts and statistics, this content pattern thus positioning the author as a thought

leader. Often times this type of blog will be strongly related to the company brand, its

products and services.

A few famous examples of CEO blogs:

1. (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)

2. (CEO, Craig’s List)

3. (CEO, Weblogs)

4.2. Entrepreneur blog

Similar to the CEO blog in what the editorial style is concerned, the entrepreneur blog is set

apart by a significantly larger volume of information relevant to the author’s field of

expertise and by diary-type entries describing the ongoing projects the entrepreneur is

focusing on at the time.

A couple of examples of entrepreneur blogs:

1.

2.

3.

4.3. Multi-author company blog

Several authors – company employees from different departments – publish content on this

type of blog, each of them writing articles that cover their area of expertise. Often times

these types of blogs turn into blog communities aggregating content published by individual,

single-author blogs.

Example:

Jonathan Schwartz

Craig Newmark

Jason Calacanis

Guy Kawasaki

Jeff Pulver

Kevin Rose

Google Blog



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http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/

http://cnewmark.com/

http://calacanis.com/

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

http://jeffpulver.com/

http://kevinrose.com/



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4.4. Department blog

This type of blog is almost exclusively authored by leaders in certain company department

and it is focused on the activity and expertise of said department.

Example: – Chief Software Architect at Adobe Systems

4.5. Employee’s blog

This is the semi-professional blog of one of the company’s employees and it will use the

company’s brand and image to promote the author as a guru of his field. The content of

such a blog focuses almost entirely on job related topics.

Example: – Adobe Systems

4.6. Product/Service blog

This type of blog is dedicated to a certain product or service provided by a company, and it’s

meant to help promote it, create a community around it and obtain feedback from the

customers.

Example: – Automattic’s corporate blog dedicated entirely to the Wordpress

blogging platform

4.7. Human Resources blogs

Although not a very common type in the corporate blogging world, the HR blog is

characterized by its efforts to present a company’s team and the events they attend as

casually as possible, thus opening the company up to potential employees who might be

attracted by what they are being offered and the light atmosphere in the office.

Example:

Kevin Lynch

Lori DeFurio

WordPress Blog

Astraware Team Blog

Choose wisely and make sure that the blog type you choose

matches your goals and the resources you have!


http://www.klynch.com/

http://blogs.adobe.com/loridefurio/

http://wordpress.org/development/

http://www.astraware.com/company/blog.php


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“Having a poor homepage structure

combined with the lack of relevant

information or ways to find it will

definitely push visitors away from

your blog, while a clean, intuitive

homepage will most likely become a

decisive factor when it comes to

turning visitors into readers.”

Excerpt from “Your Blog Homepage is a Conversion Tool. Use it!”


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http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/blog-homepage/


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5. Blog Editors & Editorial Policy


Depending on the type of corporate blog you’re targeting, you can then put together an

editorial team. To make sure you correctly appoint those in charge of content generation

and blog management, you need to consider the following criteria:

5.1. Criteria to help build the editorial team

The future bloggers needs to be/have:

1. Experts in the filed they are going to cover;

2. A good communicator, able to manage potential communication crises arising from

dialogues and feedback generated by the blog;

3. Concise, clear and explicit when they express themselves, as they will not target only

those who are in their turn experts and are acquainted to the field’s jargon;

4. Believable and genuine in what the provided information is concerned;

5. A human touch and a pleasant manner of writing;

6. Ready to face a reduced level of privacy in their lives, at least in what the online world is

concerned.

5.2. PR department involvement

Most communications through the corporate blog usually abide by the general public

relations policies within the company, thus it is strongly recommended that your blogger(s)

work together with your PR department. Their collaboration helps:

1. abide by the general communication tone imposed by company standards;

2. prevent or, if needed, manage possible communication crises;

3. develop the bloggers’ communication skills and ability to generate valuable content.

5.3. The blog’s tone

Depending on the type of blog and target audience, the tone and style of the blogger may

vary. Usually, a relaxed, human voice and an openness to communicate and interact with

all those providing feedback or reactions within the comments section or on other blogs

guarantees your blog’s success.

Staying clear from “corporate speeches”, what is communicated through the blog should

have an equivalent in day to day life, such as:

1. A relaxed conversation with one or more friends;



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2. A conversation with in a larger group comprising both good friends and recent

acquaintances;

3. A first meeting with one or more persons that you have never interacted with.

To find the right tone or voice, the term “conversational” should always be your reference.

Using words such as “I”, “you”, “us” adds more personality and openness and, thus being

highly recommended.

Further reading recommendation:

5.4. Content generation

Generating content for a blog is an activity that uses up a lot of resources, from time to

information. The most common sources used to generate new debate topics in your articles

are:

- your own area of expertise;

- news and events related to your company;

- the evolution of your products and services;

- industry events;

- industry press releases;

- debating your own opinions with other industry representatives;

- the analysis of industry statistics and forecasts;

- analyzing pieces of news published by the media;

- attending fairs;

- guides to success – tips & tricks;

- lists of preferences and recommendations, etc.

Mashable.com has published a comprehensive article providing over 40 sources you can

use to generate content:

Finding Your Reader-friendly Blogging Tone

http://mashable.com/2008/08/11/topics-for-corporate-bloggers/


http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/your-blogging-tone/

http://mashable.com/2008/08/11/topics-for-corporate-bloggers/


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“Listening can create an emotional

bridge between you and your

audience. Showing interest in what

other people have to say qualifies you

as a caring person, and for a blogger

that wants to be helpful that is a big

plus.”

Excerpt from “The Better Blogger, The Good Listener”


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http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/good-listener/


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6. Blogging Tips to Get You Started


Regardless of the blog type you choose, be it personal or corporate, the following pieces of

advice are meant to guide your steps in your future blogging activity. These are the most

important blog tips you’ll need to follow when starting a new blogging adventure!

6.1. Look for ideas at any time and in any place

A conversation in the subway, a debate or piece of news heard on the car radio, anything

can turn into a new topic for your blog. Keep your mind open and tune your hearing,

combine them with good analysis skills and you will have some killer weapons in your

arsenal.

6.2. Raise and maintain interest

An attractive first paragraph is not enough to maintain the reader’s interest throughout

your blog post. “Start big, finish bigger”. Provide new hooks in small doses to keep your

readers interest throughout the article.

6.3. Generate the conversation and take part in it

Often times, bloggers are compared to journalists, and their blogs to newspapers (usually

tabloids, not broadsheets). Yet blogs and online newspapers differ exactly where they are

also alike – the comments section. Newspapers use the comments section to allow users to

express their frustrations and almost never moderate them. The classic journalistic style

rarely requires an answer or any feedback, usually being limited to presenting the facts or

expressing an opinion.

The main ace bloggers play is their power to start conversations and to keep them going by

being part of them.

6.4. Make sure you provide quality information

If your new blog post is based on personal opinions, make sure they have the required

features to become points of reference. If you’ve used other sources for it, make sure you

check their credibility and quality first.

6.5. Never promise more than you can give

Failing to deliver everything you have promised will lead to a significant decrease in a blog’s

credibility and popularity. Teasers do work, but only if what you were teasing readers with

becomes reality.



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6.6. Offer help

Nothing pleases blog followers more than getting help from a field expert. Whenever you

have a spare moment, help those in need of your professional help. Make sure to reply their

comments and their emails.

6.7. Links are sacred

Are you quoting a source? Then link to it! Are you publishing survey results or statistics?

Link to those who have created them. Are you expressing your opinion regarding something

that has been published on another blog or online outlet? Link to the initial article. Why?

1. Because it helps prove the quality of the provided information and places them in a

broader context;

2. Because it is a nice way to thank those who have inspired you to find a new topic for

your blog.

If you have already discussed a certain topic in previous posts, link to them at the end of

the current article. This helps those interested in the topic to get more details on it.

Additionally, a solid inbound and outbound linking policy will help your blog rank better in

search engines.

6.8. Never, ever...

Do any of the following:

1. Attack someone else’s stand on an issue if you are not 100% sure of your own. Make

sure to provide arguments to sustain it;

2. Publish someone else’s content without having their permission to do so.

3. Start open conflicts with your blog commentators. Keep your cool!

4. Allow the needs vs. solutions balance incline towards the former in your posts. Provide

more solutions than debates over what’s needed.

5. Shy away from commenting on similar or competing blogs. As long as you don’t do it to

shamelessly plug your blog or attach the author, your contributions will be valued and will

direct more readers towards your own posts.

6. Take all blogging advice as laws. They are only pieces of advice. Experiment with them

and see which work better in your case.

7. Fill your blog up with plugins, widgets and other useless elements. We are ultimately

talking about a corporate blog. You really do not want to compete in MTV’s “Pimp my blog”

competition!

8. Postpone for too long your blogging platform and plugins update. Don’t be the first to

do it either, to make sure bugs are found and solved, but don’t be the last one either!

6.9. And the most important piece of advice…

... I’m ever going to give you is to never be afraid of EXPERIMENTING. Experiment with

different tones, new post types, new topic approaches.



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“Leaving a comment is not a thing you

should do to get or expect something

in return. Still, constantly posting

interesting comments will help build

up your reputation with certain

communities in your niche.

Reputation generates interest.”

Excerpt from “How to Make Your Comments Stand Out”


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7. Blog Performance Tracking Tools


A blog’s success is measured through both its number of active readers or of RSS

subscribers and its performance in traffic: number of page views, of unique visitors,

popularity, page rank and many others.

There are a few methods to obtain the needed statistics to track and measure such

indicators.

7.1. Access and traffic statistics

Google, the most powerful and popular search engine in the world, provides bloggers with

traffic statistics though its free service.

By choosing a free Google Analytics account, you can view stats regarding your blog’s page

views, number of unique or returning visitors, keywords used to reach your blog, the most

visited pages you have posted, geographical tracking of your visitors and much more.

Google Analytics is currently considered to be a very accurate and relevant tool. Other

services you might consider are or with its live tracking and analytics

features.

7.2. Indexing statistics

The number of pages indexed by a search engine and their position in search tops reflect the

indexing rank of a site.

Do you want to find what your indexing results are for two of the most important search

engines are? Google and Yahoo offer you two critical tools for any website administrator:

1. ( )

2.

You can check the number pages from your website indexed by Google by typing the

following in the search box:

You can also check the number of outside links your website’s pages receive by typing the

following:

Google Analytics

StatCounter Woopra

Google Webmaster Tools XML Sitemaps

Yahoo! Site Explorer

site:www.domainname.com

link:www.domainname.com


http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/


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http://www.google.com/analytics/

http://www.statcounter.com

http://www.woopra.com

http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/google-xml-sitemaps/

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/


7.3. Popularity statistics

Traffic, accessibility, search engine exposure levels as well as content relevancy and its

focus on certain niches all contribute to your blog’s popularity.

The popularity is statistically tracked by a range of online services, of which the most

relevant are:

1.

2.

3.

4. (Blog dedicated service)

7.4. Statistics’ relevance

A thorough analysis of your blog’s stats will help you identify its strong spots and the type of

content best suited for its audience. It will also help you determine its weak spots or to

improve your content and focus more on covering certain areas of interest.

Alexa

Compete

Quantcast

Technorati

Make sure you never forget that blogs are maintained through

relevant, interesting and fresh content, not statistics!


http://www.alexa.com

http://compete.com

http://quantcast.com

http://technorati.com


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“There’s no golden rule about the

perfect blog post length. It’s all about

your topic(s) and the best way to

present your information without

cluttering the content or filling it with

unnecessary stuff.”

Excerpt from “Deciding Between Short and Long Blog Posts”



http://blogsessive.com/blogging-tips/short-or-long-blog-posts/


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8. Technical Aspects


A blog’s maintenance is not limited to creating and publishing new content. The blog’s

success is also powered by technical factors, such as the chosen blogging platform, search

engine optimization or how one interprets traffic and popularity statistics. The top bloggers,

also called A-list bloggers, have learned to tackle these technical aspects, even if they

initially were not experts in this area.

Here are a few details that will help you launch and maintain a successful blog and that will

also help you better communicate with the agency of freelancer in charge of creating and

developing your company’s blog.

8.1. What to consider when choosing a blog platform

When choosing a blog platform, you need to consider a series of aspects, each of equal

importance. The main factors that need to be analyzed are:

a. The skills & expertise of the agency or freelancer that will be handling the project;

b. The possibility of running the blogging platform on your own domain and server. A

major flaw a business would make is to opt for free hosting and have a web address that

would look like: http://company-name.blogspot.com;

c. The blog appearance customizing options;

d. The support provided by platform developers;

e. Ease of content updates;

f. The users’ community built around the platform. The bigger it is, the easier it will

be for you to get help and support from community members;

g. Application costs, from buying the license to customization fees and what you

spend on hosting.

Right now, the strongest and most popular blogging platforms are:

a. WordPress –

b. MovableType – and

c. Expression Engine –

8.1.1. The “Versus” factor

There are similarities and differences between these three platforms which can turn any of

them into your tool of choice. Both WordPress and ExpressionEngine are developed using

PHP, a fairly common language among web developers. It will obviously make it a lot easier

for you to find a developer for your company’s blog. Movable Type uses a PHP and Perl mix,

which makes it a bit more restrictive.

http://WordPress.org

http://MovableType.org http://MovableType.com

http://ExpressionEngine.com



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WordPress was designed as a personal blogging platform that is why each installation

corresponds to a single blog. Later on, the version was crated for those

wanting to deploy a blogging network, all managed “under the same roof”. The version name

comes from WordPress MultiUser. The MU version is free of charge. At the same time,

Movable Type offers the multi-blog/multi-user option in their base install pack.

ExpressionEngine also provides similar options through and add-on that costs $199.95.

While installing and setting up Movable Type and ExpressionEngine takes quite a lot of

time, WordPress is famous for its “5 minute installation”. The truth is that in the case of

an expert that has all the needed tools, it can take less than 2 minutes.

Additionally, WordPress is extremely popular compared to its two competitors, its

community being much larger, more active and willing to help. Therefore, whenever a

feature is included in the base kits of Movable Type or EpxressionEngine and does not exist

in the WordPress kit, the community immediately develops it to compensate.

In what customizing is concerned, WordPress is again the best. The wide range of free

themes and add-ons can help you customize your blog to match anything you have

imagined. Additionally, you will easily find freelancers or agencies that specialize in

customizing WordPress.

In terms of price, WordPress and Movable Type are free to download, install and use,

even if it is for commercial purposes. ExpressionEngine also offers a free version, but a lot of

the basic functionalities are restricted. A license to fit the needs of a real company blog costs

$249.95, plus an additional yearly fee of $39.95 for platform updates.

Based on the above comparison, it’s quite easy for me to draw a conclusion...

And the winner is...

It might be a subjective conclusion, but the high maintenance costs and the scarce

community took ExpressionEngine out of the race.

Although it makes it easy to create multi-user blogs, the restriction imposed by the

programming language as well as the lack of a community to constantly deliver new

resources disqualify MovableType, making WordPress the winner of the competition.

Along with the classic support option of contacting the development team, WordPress

provides users with and excellent guide/glossary at . If the

information provided here is not enough, the community is always willing to help and you

can find them at .

And if that is not enough, running a simple Google search will return a virtually unlimited

list of websites and blogs that publish WordPress dedicated articles, thus adding valuable

and varied resources and information to existing ones. One of those blogs is my own:

WordPress MU

WordPress

http://codex.wordpress.org

http://wordpress.org/support

Blogsessive.com



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http://mu.wordpress.org

http://www.wordpress.org/download/



8.2. Words of Advice

If you’re looking to start a corporate blog, consider investing in a custom designed

theme. You’re brand has to be reflected in the visuals of your blog too. Using a free template

will always have a negative impact on your image and the way people perceive it.

would be glad to help you out!

Limit the number of plugins and widgets you use to those that add the most important or

needed functions to your blog. Using a large number of plugins increases the risk of

incompatibility, not to mention the fact that most developers only test their plugins on the

basic installation of the blogging platform, as an extensive test including many other plugins

would be a really painful task.

Keep the navigation element visually separated. Usually, it’s recommended to use a top

navigation menu for page navigation, while using the sidebar to display categories, recent

posts, popular posts, polls, and so on.

Keep your sidebar clean and accessible. Do not fill it with tons of widgets that in the end

might only help 1% or 2% of your readers. Consider adding widgets to the sidebar only if

they are relevant to the majority of your users and readers.

My design

studio

Don’t forget to visit

for more blogging tips to helpyou in your blogging adventures!


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“If you can make readers discuss your

content, your blog will grow simply by

word-of-mouth and so will your

authority. Learning to create not

simply posts, but ideas and

discussions will help you to develop a

thriving community. Discussion is the

foundation of any great society, so

make sure your content gets people

talking!”

Excerpt from “Three Formulas for Sparking Conversation”



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