I’m starting a blog, which
programme should I use?
Blogging is an essential part of any online
marketing strategy and when used effectively will drive traffic to your
website, promote interaction with your target audience and encourage other
users to share your content across the internet. With the amount of blogging
platforms available it can be hard to decide which one is best for your
business so here is an overview of some of the most popular blogging websites.
Tumblr as a blogging tool
The micro-blogging site Tumblr is often
overlooked as a viable blogging platform for many businesses, yet it hosts in
excess of 130 million blogs and is the 28th most visited website as
of July 2013 (Comscore, 2013).
Tumblr is a user friendly making it an ideal
channel for fast, hassle free blogging. It requires no previous knowledge of coding
or programming, the user simply needs to add content into a box and click to
upload. It is also easy to comment on, like and share content from
other users.
Tumblr also gives its users the option to
use Google analytics, allowing them to see the number of visitors, landing
pages and other useful feedback. In addition, Tumblr automatically
optimises blog posts for SEO purposes, making it easier for Google to index
each post, improving search results and visibility for your blog.
There are some aspects of Tumblr that you
may need to consider before deciding to use it as your main blogging platform. Importantly, Tumblr is a site mainly used for sharing images and video instead of
largely text based posts.
Wordpress as a blogging tool
Wordpress is a versatile website with
the ability to be used for anything from a standard blog to a more complicated
ecommerce store. This means that there are far more options for customisation,
especially if the user knows about coding and programming. The vast library of
Wordpress themes also allows the user to customise the appearance of their
blog, making it stand out more than other standardised blogs.
As Wordpress is an open source platform
there are a variety of plug-ins that will allow you to improve the functionality
of your blog, with new plug-in’s being continually developed and improved.
As with any blogging platform, Wordpress
also has some elements that may be a disadvantage to some users. The complexity
of the site makes it difficult for people with no coding experience to fully
take advantage of all aspects that can
be customised and changed. Also, to get the full benefits of a Wordpress blog a
user would need to host it on their own server, incurring extra charges for
hosting and domain name costs.
Blogger as a blogging tool
Blogger, owned by Google, was one of the
earliest blogging platforms available. As a result there are virtually no
stability issues as they have all been ironed out. Google has also had the opportunity to develop
its own Adsense modules, allowing users to monetize their blogs.
Blogger, like Tumblr, is very user friendly
and doesn’t require its users to have any coding knowledge. This makes it ideal for people who want a
professional looking blog which is easy to upload and to share content.
Again, Blogger has some attributes that may
not be helpful to all users. The extent to which blogs on Blogger can be
customised is limited, with only a small selection of themes and design
styles. There are also few plug-ins, which limits the possible usage and
adaptation of a blogger based blog.
There are also issues with using your own
domain name on blogger which can obstruct the creation or continuation of a
business’s brand identity.
Overall, when choosing a platform for your
blog you should consider the type of content you wish to share, will it be
mainly text or image based? And to decide how far you wish to customise your
blog and your ability or available funding to do so.
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Labels: blogging, blogging tips, blogs
