Blogging for business (2): What are the technicalities?

by David Hallam

Starting a blog is technically very easy and can cost nothing. Both Blogger (now part of the google group) and Wordpress offer simple stand alone  solutions, free of charge. Both boast that you can start blogging within minutes, but  that's not quite how you should approach it.

There are other platforms and most IT service providers now have some form of blogging as part of their portfolio. My strong advice is that if your business runs to having an IT department or has an external provider you should speak with them first. It obviously makes sense to integrate your blog with the business's own web or CRM platform, especially if, for example, the blog is purely for internal audiences, membership or identified customers.

Blogger and Wordpress provide easy to follow installation instructions. A new blogger should sign up to both platforms and work out which one is most comfortable. For this blog I've gone with Blogger mainly because it provides the package with which I am most familiar. It is just a feeling but Wordpress blogs tend to look visually more appealing.


Name and URL

The first challenge will be to choose a title and URL. Both platforms offer a facility to help you do this. It may come as a surprise to find that your chosen name (even your own name) may already be taken, much as you may have found when you tried to register your own business URL address.

So once again that is a decision that needs to be thought through in advance. However once you have the germ of an idea for a name - grab it! Blogs are being created every moment.

There was no problem choosing "improve communications" for this blog with Blogger. Wordpress insisted I changed it slightly. The URL is www.improvecommunications.blogspot.com. I've also registered www.improvecommunications.co.uk  This is the link that I will promote on my LinkedIn profile and elsewhere. It is relatively easy to register a URL and then point it towards a blog.

Dashboard and templates

Once a name is created you will be directed to a dashbord. It is sensible to click every tab and sub-tab on the dashboard to find out where things are. At first they may not make sense but it helps if you know the options. This is where the creative work begins because you have to choose a template. These come in various shapes and colours, each has a different look and feel. The great thing  is that it is very easy to experiment with multiple previews as you develop your ideas. And if, after a few weeks you think you've made a mistake, you can change it without loosing data.

 Features and widgets

There are other choices to make as you decide whether to include various features and widgets. Most of these can be landed through the dashboard. Sometimes you may want to introduce widgets from a third party such sitemeter  in which case you simply copy and paste a specially generated  piece of html (don't let that panic you - it's easy). It is worth looking at other blogs to see how these may fit in with your look and feel. My advice would be to keep it simple at first.

Comments

One decision you will need to make is whether to accept comments and if so whether to moderate them or not. There are people who send out spam comments and it is possible to get some pretty nutty comments. If the purpose of your blog is to create controversy to argue for a case, comments are a great way to create interaction and an audience.

However a business blog focused on creating customers will want to take a very different approach.There would be one advantage of allowing moderated comments - it is a great way of getting, and responding to customer feedback. As my old marketing lecturer drummed into us: the customer who complains is the most useful customer and should be valued.

Advertisements

Another early decision  is whether to accept advertisements.On Wordpress accounts this happens automatically as it is their way of funding the service that is provided to you free of charge. By paying a small fee you can appear without ads.

Blogger offers the option of google Adsense. This generates advertisements which theoretically  match the contents of your post. You get paid everytime someone from your site clicks onto the advert. This can range from a few pence to £s depending on the competition among the advertisers.

The disadvantage is that potential customers may arrive on your site and be confronted with an advertisement for one of your competitors or simply leave your site having been distracted. You may also find that the innocent use of certain words (I shan't give examples here) may generate advertisements which are not acceptable to your company's image.

The advantage is that you make money from your site. But don't book a holiday on the back of it. I've yet to hear of a blogger making a fortune directly from site advertisements.

There are other advertising providers and affiliate programmes. Once again, be aware that they take up valuable space and are unlikely to generate much income.

Your first post

Despite Blogger and Wordpress claims, it is now sometime since you opened the account, nowhere near five minutes! Are you now ready to post? Just hang on a moment. When you press the "new post" tab a box will open. Along the top of that box will be a number of buttons. Once again this is a time for exploration if not experimentation.


Although every template will come with a default typeface and format, it is possible to choose different fonts, sizes, colours and  formats. Once again a little piece of advice. Unless you are a good, qualified graphic designer, be vary careful of inserting background colours, reverse type or fancy typefaces. Most of your readers are used to variations of Times or Ariel on a white background. Once they are on your page you want them to read your copy. Don't loose them with bad graphics.

Make sure you know how the link buttons, jump breaks, underline, bold and other buttons work. Never be afraid to use a spell check or dictionary. Try uploading pictures and inserting a video clip from you tube. Both Blogger and Wordpress have a preview facility which gives you the opportunity of seeing what will actually appear before it is published.

It you have no idea what what html is don't worry. As you move along you will sometimes see it but in five years of blogging I've never thought it critical. There are however some occasions when formatting can be problematical. That is when you write an article on Word or Notepad and copy and paste. Most times it will appear without difficulty but sometimes you have to delete the imported html formatting.

Well that's it. You are almost ready. Watch out for the little wavy red lines that appear under British spellings of words like colour and programmes. Make sure you don't confuse their and there and remember that the spell check facility doesn't work on the post title box!

Start blogging!