There are many blogging services out there, and more appearing all the time.
In the free & hosted variety, I’m most familiar with Blogger and Live Journal. But there are many more — here’s an article from About.com which lists many blogging services. Free & hosted services are the easiest and quickest way to get into blogging, but, naturally, the features are limited.
For example, neither Blogger nor Live Journal free versions allow you to look at logs, to see where your visitors are coming from, and what kind of activity your blog is getting. This is a drawback if you’re seriously trying to build your blog traffic. For example, I can look at my logs and see what search engine terms are being used to find my blog. Neither of these services have categories, either, which is a way to organize your posts by topic as well as by date, and also a way to create good keywords for the search engines.
There are also blogging applications which are free, but require you to have your own server. WordPress, which is used for this blog, is an example of this. I have a web hosting service with Dreamhost that has an easy one-click install of WordPress. (If you go with them, I’d appreciate it if you tell them ctbizblogs sent you.)
The price is right, but there is work associated with this option. However, if you love to mess around with techy stuff, as I do, then this might be the way to go. If you don’t like to mess around, or if you don’t have the time, one of the services we will be offering is hosted WordPress blogs. We’ll take care of the hassle while you have the fun. We’re still working out the details on that one, but email if you’re interested.
Here’s an excellent article by Suzannah Gardner, with an overview of the most popular blogging tools, a link to a comparison chart, and even a short glossary of blogging terms.
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November 7th, 2005 at 8:12 am
[…] This is an overview of the things you’ll need to start blogging. 1. A blog hosting platform. In order for your blog to be “on the internet,” you’ll need to find a blog hosting platform, or a web service provider, who will host the pages of your blog on their computers. These computers run special software called web servers which manage the delivery of web pages upon requests from web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. I’ve written a bit about blog hosting platforms in What are some of the ways to create a blog, and How to create a blog on Blogger. I’ll be writing more – this is a big subject. 2. A name for your blog. “Signs Never Sleep” is one of the best ones I’ve come across. It’s clever, but not too clever – you know it’s going to be about signs somehow! You want a name that reflects what your business is, without ambiguity. 3. A web address for your blog. If you’re serious about your blog, you need your own domain as soon as possible. This will give you stability and credibility. Stability, because, if you decide to host your blog elsewhere, you take your address with you. It never changes, no matter what computer of whose hosting service your blog is on. If you’ve got a web hosting service where your blog is housed, then you’ll need your own domain as a matter of course. […]
November 7th, 2005 at 8:25 am
[…] This is an overview of the things you’ll need to start blogging. 1. A blog hosting platform. In order for your blog to be “on the internet,” you’ll need to find a blog hosting platform, or a web service provider, who will host the pages of your blog on their computers. These computers run special software called web servers which manage the delivery of web pages upon requests from web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. I’ve written a bit about blog hosting platforms in What are some of the ways to create a blog and How to create a blog on Blogger. I’ll be writing more – this is a big subject. […]