Page 151 - Social Media Marketing

Blogging Your Way to Credibility 135

Test Driving a Blog for Free

To get a feel for blogging before you invest too heavily in it, I
recommend that you try one or two of the free blogging platforms
currently available. You can set up a free blog on any of the following
web sites and take the company's blogging platform for a spin to
see what each one has to offer:

• WordPress at wordpress.com
• Blogger at www.blogger.com
• Yahoo! 3600 at 360.yahoo.com

For your test drive, don't spend too much time or effort config-
uring your blog and posting entries to it. Although most blogging
platforms do allow you to export your content so you can set up your
blog elsewhere using a different platform, I would hate for you to
waste time fine-tuning your blog only to have to start over when you
set up your permanent blog. In addition to the extra work involved,
if you move your blog from one of these free services to its own
domain (for example, moving from yourname.blogspot.com from
Blogger to www.yourname.com). search engines may lose track of
your posts, and it could take weeks before they get around to rein-
dexing them.

Choosing a Blog Host and Platform

The first step to launching your own blog is to choose a blog host and
platform. Although the companies that offer hosting services and
platforms are too numerous to cover, your choices can be grouped
into the following four categories:

1. Free, hosted platforms
2. Turnkey solutions
3. Standalone platforms
4. Remote hosting options

I describe these four options in the following sections.