First, I don't apologize for not dumbing down the acronym. Kiss is spelled with two s's and so was the original acronym. Keeping the acronym slightly funny and getting someone's gall up just a bit helps them remember the acronym.
I have taken some steps in slightly new professional blogging directions over the last couple weeks. I am still following the exchange and looking for additional opportunities, however, I made it a point to go back to my current consulting customers and I've managed to build out my relationship with them by building or building out some very simple blogs for them.
Here's the simple formula:
1. Setup a cheap blog. I use blogger, it worked for me as a newbie blogger and it can work for a company as well establishing a brand new blogging presence. No money required and the effort required is easy. Let your customers learn to crawl and walk before they run and they will understand what they are getting involved in better later.
2. Review with your customer their recent milestones and achievements and then write simple press release like articles. Post them and back date them in the blog. This helps to catalog the news and accomplishments that the company may have neglected to publish on the web in the past. (If they already had a news section, you can pass this step, but if they are new to the web - like my customers, then this is a great tool to give them some examples and get them thinking about what constitutes useful professional posts.)
3. Setup their templates for them, but keep the template simple at the beginning. Again let them get used to things and grow them into the more advanced template settings. Otherwise the project can grow to quickly out of control and before you know it your customer will be out of budget without any content or readers to show for it.
4. Take full advantage of feeds. Take their blog and push it through a feed. I use feedburner. I then push the feedburner feeds to the news section of my customers website (wherever that might be) and now they have an instant updating news section straight from their blog.
5. Let your customer post articles to their own blog as well, but review and actively edit the articles with them. Just like a student in an art class, its important to let your customer get their hands into the clay and get a feel for things. Make sure you pay close attention to what they write and how they post it. Don't let them copy a bunch of stuff from Word and clutter up the code. Counsel them and correct any mistakes and talk about the theory of what they are doing it and why. Help them grow their knowledge and abilities and later they will be able to provide better stronger requirements as they start to manage their needs for professional blogging.
That's it! Its real simple, nothing complicated about it. There's lots of room for improvement and growth from this point, but the start doesn't have to be very complicated and tedious. It doesn't hurt to walk into the wading pool with a client and let them get used to the water. A client unfamiliar with bloggin need not be pushed off the high dive into the deep end of the pool.
So Keep It Simple Stupid and things will start off just fine!
I like simple Brett, but i
I like simple Brett, but i have serious reservations about the value of setting up a client on a third party hosted solution where they dont own the domain....
There is absolutely no
There is absolutely no reason not to set up a known blog system on a domain you own. Clients tend to offer feature wishes andi t is always good to be able to have a blog system which will fulfill the clients wishes.
A good point is #5. I am just going through this with a friend and he is precisely asking for that editorial review step as he is not feeling blog or web savvy.
Thanks for the critical Advocacy
Gentlemen,
I do not disagree with your perspectives and for anyone reading this article or thread, I would state that your perspectives and views are well within the conventional wisdom on the topic.
As I've already positted, I am finding that there is value in using a third party provider as things are started. Yes the domain is not owned, but it does speed up the process significantly. It is much cheaper (not that establishing a domain is expensive).
It definitely allows small and growing companies to learn the ropes.
I'd throw out an additional point that even if you do acquire a hosted domain lets call it xyz.com and you set up a subdomain called blog.xyz.com you should consider going into blogger and setting up a blogger redirect for xyz.blogspot.com to your blog.xyz.com address if for no other reason than to insure that some naysayer doesn't sabotage your clients interests.
Thanks for the critiqe and the contrarian perspective. I don't disagree, but I do think that an alternate path in this case can provide value. :)
agreed
Brett, yes, you could go one step further and setup blogger to work on a subdirectory of your client's domain. Since blogger generates .html files, you could in the future switch over to a "professional" blogging platform and still use the same directory. Make sure you use one that generates files dynamically.
The only drawback, which I think some of us professionals may forget, is that some older company sites do not have database hosting. In that case, you'd have to go with a blogging platform that generates .html, and rename the old index.html to something else (and place a link to it from the new index.html content). Either that or find some host that offers database hosting plans without a domain hosting move.
Good points on dynamic hosting considerations
Thanks Raj
All good points that I've covered personally myself, but definitely important to expressly state for anyone that catches this dialogue in the future.
Chris has an interesting dialogue developing about blogspot url's on his recent article about Strobist.
It would seem to me that the conventional wisdom about the cons of blogger is slightly off.
The biggest 'real' con that I've come across, is the inability to create 1. an email address with the url and 2. a sitemap
Neither are essential, but the latter is definitely useful.
No the biggest con is you
No the biggest con is you have zero control over your blogs future. For a everyday blog that might not be a problem but if you are serious about a blog as part of a business strategy this fact and the lack of ability to build upon the blog in any meaningful way makes it a poor choice.
I can't understand the resistance to move to domain and hosting, after the first couple of months it really isn't hard to make back the cost with a light dusting of adsense ...
Chris is definitely right.
Chris is definitely right. If you don't have a strategy (read: good reasons) why you have chosen blogspot or to mention another example StumbleUpon to blog about your topic then it is definitely the right decision to have a controllable platform.
Good way of looking at it
Markus has a good idea, let's look at the reasons FOR blogger/wordpress.com
1. Free (yeah, in return for not owning it, $10 a month on the other hand (price of a curry) and you do own it, can sell it and can back up and take it with you if you don't like your host)
2. Get blogging right away (or you can use a host with a one-button wordpress install, that is REAL wordpress not the crippled wordpress.com)
Well for professional blogging neither hold much weight in light of the arguments against.
1. No control - the host can do whatever they want, you can't
2. Just a blog - Not a platform you can build on
3. Risk - T&Cs, downtime, backups, archives, exploits ...
4. Diluted branding - mysite.com versus mysite.someotherdomain.com, if someone is going to guess a domain what will they try? NNN.com or NNN.[localtld] (some free hosts in fact waste screen real-estate advertising things other than your brand)
5. No access to server logs
6. No Client Script - Many free hosts don't even allow javascript so you can't use pro tracking tools or even advertising
7. No plugins/modules - see some functionality you would like to use? Tough luck
8. You get what you are given - you are stuck with whatever software they choose to give you, even if you dont want their half-assed "upgrade", buggy new interface or "social networking" features.
9. Privacy - you dont get to choose what changes the company makes on your behalf with zero notice, just look at the facebook privacy bruhaha - an upgrade has revealed lots of data (on purpose), many people dont like it but they dont have a choice
10. Break the rules and you are gone - I just read the other day about someone who had his entire flickr account deleted without notice because he posted a naked photo of his kid at the beach. No notice, no right of appeal, no data. Gone. Only protection you have with free host is to suck your RSS down every day. With a paid host you can backup properly.
I have mentioned StumbleUpon
I have mentioned StumbleUpon on purpose because you will also get a full featured community for free. To promote yourself or some topic SU is absolutely great.
With all the self centric contra arguments I go with you 100% :-)
StumbleUpon and Backups and exports
I will definitely check out StumbleUpon.
Please understand gentlemen, I'm not trying to convince or argue with you on this point. I do understand the validity of your arguments and pitch those myself.
However, I've also seen that the downside or cons are not really as detrimental as they appear.
It is possible to backup a blogger blog and it is possible to export them into wordpress and several other blogging tools on a different domain whenever you are ready to do that.
Look at it this way.
blogger and google have built a blogspot community. They did it in the early days. They have not exploited this community yet, like MySpace has been exploited or even flickr for that matter or even Performancing.com
Blogger is a community with untapped potential to be expoited. Picture all the blogger / blogspot blogs as part of a developed community and the type of leverage they would get.
All Google needs to do is flip the switch and ramp up the community aspect of blogger and there would be almost an instant rival to MySpace.
Then anyone sitting in the Google blogger real estate would be positioned to benefit. In the meantime, its possible to have the best of both worlds. Real estate in blogger, and the ability to jump to a domain anytime its necessary.
As to metrics, I get great metrics to my blogspot blogs through Google analytics and performancing and several other tools.
I can put java script into the site, just not into the individual articles, which is definitely another con.
I sense that we are refining this case more and more, thanks for responding to my devil's advocate stance here. I'm trying not to jump on board with the status quo on purpose as I sense too many people are absorbing the SEO gospel without reconsideration.
The gospel has many valid points, but dogma can be dangerous if not understood. Thanks for testing these assumptions with me, and refining the metal a bit!
I think the point
Brett, I think the point Chris and Markus are making is that when it comes to a blog for a business, going with something like blogspot.com or even wordpress.com, typepad, or any of the free hosts, says that the business isn't serious enough to spend a few dollars and go with a more professional solution. Sure, I like the simplicity of blogspot for some of my blogs. But my serious content is on paid domains. Any business worth their salt should think twice about using a free domain for their blog. On the other hand, that doesn't mean they should also establish a presence in various online communities as a SUPPLEMENT to a self-hosted blog.
Supplemental side-blogs
Raj, you made my day ... why couldn't I find that word 'supplement' when commenting on that issue.
If blogging professionally or doing corporate blogging you need a sturdy base. Having some side-blogs (remember side kicks) can be very very wealthy to your business if you have a solid structure.
My main side-blogs: del.icio.us, Flickr, StumbleUpon, blogspot
Raj Great supplemental point
:0 That does clear things up and I suspect wraps up most of this dialogue pretty clearly. I would agree with your points on that most completely. :)
ooops
Of course, i meant to say "On the other hand, that doesn't mean they SHOULD'NT" instead of "should". But I guess you guys got that :)
What to use when creating your own domain blog
I have the domain names for the blogs I also have on blogger but recreating the pages ( and the submission forms, comments, etc. ) sounds like a lot more work than I will make back in adsense. I have www.scienceandsupermodels.com, for example, but I have it forwarded to blogger because I am not sure what the best/easiest tool would be to use to host it on my own.
What is the recommendation for that? How big a task is it?
I am new to this site this evening so sorry if this has been covered somewhere else and I haven't seen it.
Cash
Great Question: Best porting practices
I've only done it 3 times using Wordpress. It did work, but it was a lot of work and I wasn't terribly happy with the end result.
I haven't tried it in a while and my web skills have improved by a couple light years since my last attempt.
I'd really like to hear from anyone that's got a lot of experience in this area. I've done it and know its possible, but if you have several sites, I'd agree it could take a long time for Adsense to pay for the time invested.
I can't believe it. You both
I can't believe it. You both (the last two, yes, you) sound like an ordered precise and self-ironic example why not to start serious publishing on a "free beer" blog.
Now imagine you do corporate blogging. What will happen if you or your client decide to add some nifty feature. He will be angry, he will wish to have spoken to an expert first - he will be gone.
@hanksname: I am sorry for that rude welcome but it fitted sooo perfectly. Here comes the free bonus: Welcome to performancing.com and absolutely don't hesitate to post questions. There are no stupid questions. Btw, that's my personal house rule :-)
I always recommend Textpattern over WordPress because it offers sections and a little bit because I am snobbish.
@Brett: What else do you need to hear?
I can believe it
Markus, I am not offended but let me clarify what I do. I am not a serious publisher, I am a scientist who likes to publish. I hope that doesn't exclude me from participation here but, like any good scientist, I go to where people know the most to learn.
Instinctively I knew having the blogger domain reeked of amateur and once I got the content down and discovered a form and flow I like, I knew I could switch, so that's why I ask now.
By the way, amateurs aren't all bad, even in publishing. It keeps the medium alive. I am okay with you doing amateur science. Just don't set your hair on fire.
sorry markus
I can't agree. Textpattern is fine, but wordpress 2.0+ is great, has more plugins, more themese, etc. I tried Textpattern and while I actually liked it. It's somewhere between Wordpress and Drupal in complexity. But Wordpress is relatively easy to setup for someone who doesn't want to get too techy in the configuration. But I don't to get into a spitting match about.
@hanksname: The fact is, you can easily port pages from blogger to wordpress 2.0+. except that if you duplicate your pages, one set may be filtered out in the engines as irrelevant (due to duplication).
Once you are experienced at porting . . .
@Raj and Markus
It sounds as if you have both ported a number of blogs out of blogger. I've only done it 3 times. I improved each time, but wouldn't claim to be very adept at it.
Once you are practiced up, how long does it take on average for you to port a blog over and get it set back up again to a respectable level? Tags, Categories, Template, Images, ads if you run them, blog rolls and the variety of widgets?
It typically has taken me several hours 4-8 range and even then a part of me thought that I might have been better off leaving the blog on blogger. I did it for th experience and because the conventional wisdom indicated that it was better for the blog.
Truth be told 2 of the blogs died out all together, and the third needs to be completely redone.
Regarding the corporate expectations, I think this is more about the relative size of the customer/company in question.
Some of the work I do is for companies of 10 or fewer employees. I've worked for some of the largest companies in the world and they are in the market for this type of service. There are a lot of companies in between these sizes and I'm paying attention, but I'm cutting my teeth on smaller companies right now, and they are cutting their teeth on the novel idea of a blog.
It would seem that internet marketers are better educated about the usefullness of a blog, but that's just a niche market. My clients don't work in that niche.
yeah
Brett, yeah, that's about right. While it takes only a few minutes to import into Wordpress 2.0+, everything else takes time. I would say bill your clients for at least a day, and if it doesn't take you that long, add some plugins that would help them, and other features. It's easy but tedious to port completely.
The problem is, while you should get rid of the old site, you'll lose any links to it, and engine ranking. Which is, if I'm not mistaken, kind of what Chris was saying. (I'm reading between the lines based on older discussions at Performancing.)
If you have several clients in the same niche, consider proposing a single blog you control and write for. You'll link out to each client when appropriate, and bill them for content on a subscription or retainer basis. But this takes away from the spirit of a blog, if you don't do it right.
Sitemaps for Blogger Blogs
OK, I'll admit, I had hoped that this post had run its limit. But I came across some extremely useful information relating to blogger blogs.
Above in our discussion, I mentioned one of the limitations of a blogger blog was the inability to load up a sitemap.
This is no longer an obstacle.
2 things changed to make this possible
1. Google added the meta tag option for verifying a site - that was easy, probably easier than uploading and html file, but just barely
2. Instead of having to build and xml sitemap file and literally point to that URL or upload the file straight into google, you can simply point Google Sitemaps at your blogger blogs feed address. Most blogger blogs activate their feed through atom even though they may redo it through feedburner later. Well this feed can basically serve as an instant sitemap for a blogger blog or for that matter any blog where you are on a sub domain and don't have an ftp option to upload an xml file, but you do have the ability to have a feed created!
So, I'm in the midst of setting up stiemaps for about 30 sites right now. lol
I know, I know Blogger Blogspot Blogs are bad, so damned bad, but they are pretty easy too! I'll reform one of these days, I promise, but for now I guess I'm a blogger junkie.
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