Choosing a Blog Platform

Never has it been easier to setup and maintain a blog, and a large part of the reason is the blogging platform. The blogging platform includes the blogging software itself, along with the hardware and infrastructure required to power the software.

The two main categories of platforms are hosted (often referred to as “services”) and self-hosted (often refereed to as “standalone”).

Hosted Blogs (Blog Services)

Hosted platforms refer to services whereby a service provider grants you access to their hardware, network connection, and software, and you create a blogging account to use on that platform. This would be very similar to signing up for an account at a site like Facebook or MySpace. As far as you’re concerned, there’s nothing more than a web page where you enter and view your information. Everything that goes on behind the scenes is con-trolled by someone else, and you have no stake other than being a user of the service.

Within the hosted blog space, you have a few subcategories of service, as well. There are pure blog plays—your account is used to create a blog, and the end result that gets traffic is a blog and a blog only.

There are also social networking services that build blogging into their platforms. MySpace has a very rudimentary blogging system, though I don’t believe that it meets the accepted requirements of a blog. Then there are services that fall somewhere in between, like Xanga and Vox, which offer a mix of media and social networking.

Some pure play examples include:

• LiveJournal
• TypePad
• Blogger
• Blog.com
• Wordpress.com (not to be used with the software available from Wordpress.org)

Advantages of Hosted Platforms

• Inexpensive: many are free; others (like TypePad) are offered with multiple price points
• Simple to setup: just create an account and get to blogging
• Page rank: search engines might give more favorable weightings to hosted blogs, but note that this, if it is true, would only hold true for low-traffic blogs
• Automatic updates: you don’t have to worry about keep-ing hosted software updated and patched

Disadvantages of Hosted Platforms

• Inflexible: there are fewer configuration options with hosted platforms. This often results in applying workarounds or “hacks,” which make moving off of the platform cumber-some.
• Fewer design choices: you typically only get to select from a limited number of average designs, and you often can’t make updates to the standard designs
• Generic URL: some hosted platforms will allow you to use your own URL, but the process can be complex; others don’t offer the option at all
• Less control: you are at the mercy of the platform
• No commercial sites: some platforms will not let you serve ads on their platforms

Self-hosted Blogs (Standalones)

Self-hosted platforms consist of a web hosting account you establish with a data center, and the blogging software you install on the data center’s server.

Some self-hosted solutions include:

• WordPress (not to be confused with the hosted accounts at WordPress.com)
• MovableType (the self-hosted version of TypePad)
• SubText
• typo
• Apache Roller

Advantages of Self-hosted Blogs

• Design flexibility: you have full control over design and lay-out
• Great software: the best software exists on self-hosted plat-forms
• Custom URL: custom URL’s are ubiquitous on self-hosted platforms
• Adaptability: your blog can change as your needs change

Disadvantages of Self-hosted Blogs

• Difficult setup: setup can sometimes be difficult
• Cost: while the blogging software is free, the hosting platform will cost you money
• Hosting issues: unless you choose a good host, you might have to suffer from downtime or poor support.
• Upgrades: you will need to keep your software patched

Blogs are really specialized versions of content management systems (CMS), which are systems used to manage the computer files, images, media and content of a Web site. CMS’s generally support workflow, which is a process for moving content from creation, through approval, to publishing with automated routing and notifications. CMS’s usually support a large number of authors and editors (sometimes collaboratively) in a distributed environment.

Blogs are simplified versions of CMS’s, though they retain many of the same characteristics, and I do know of some people who use WordPress in place of a full-blown CMS.

Popular CMS’s include:

• Textpattern
• Drupal
• Joomla

Which Platform is Best?

It’s a personal decision. The majority of my blogs are self-hosted. I prefer the flexibility and design options available to me in self-hosted software. Self-hosted solutions are also much more professional. Blog readers can tell a difference.

Often, whichever blog platform you start on, you finish on. As  your blog gets larger and more backlinks are created, you start to become handcuffed to the platform. This blog, for example, was hosted on Typepad until two weeks ago. Not because I preferred Typepad, but because it started as a quick and dirty personal blog that continued to grow. That’s one reason I always recommend that peopled start blogging on a flexible platform–you always have room to grow.

In February 2007, I conducted a usability study with several readers, placing the same content on two different blogs, one hosted, and one self-hosted. Both were setup to take full advantage of the underlying platform, meaning I made the blogs look and behave as best as I could with the tools I had available. Universally, the self-hosted blog was perceived to be higher value, and the content was considered to be more credible.

Note that this was a small study, and usability tests are not what I would consider scientific by nature, but the anecdotal evidence is worth considering.

For my money, I will always go self-hosted. Your mileage may vary. If you just want to try this blogging thing out, try one of the hosted services. But if plan to maintain a professional blog, I think you’ll find yourself upgrading quickly.

I’ve used six different blogging services, hosted and self-hosted, and I’ve dug around the API’s of several. WordPress is hands-down the winner.

• WordPress has an extensive theme directory. Themes are used to change the look and feel of your blog. You don’t need to know how to design or code a thing.
• Thousands of themes are available around the web, and if you want a premium theme, you can find quite a few of them. Premium themes are great for sites that you want to monetize, or where you want to convey a professional presence.
• WordPress has an extensive plug-in directory. Plug-ins enable you to add interesting functionality to your blog. How about a map of your recent readers? Adding a contact form to your about page? Showcas-ing affiliate products? Fighting spam? Improving your search engine rankings? Mobilizing your site? If you can think it, a plug-in is probably around to do it.
• WordPress offers complete administrative control over your blog. There are very few things that you can’t do with your WordPress blog if you’re self-hosting.
• WordPress has excellent user management, using a role-based security model that supports multiple levels of access. For example, authors can write articles, editors can publish those articles after approval, adminis-trators can change the design of the blog.
• WordPress fights spam. A comment spam plug-in installs with Word-Press by default. Say goodbye to that annoying Blog Blaster spam.
• WordPress has an active and enthusiastic contributing developer community. This means that software updates are frequent, bugs are fixed regularly, the software is mature, and requested features are actually added to the product by people who care about and use the product. The WordPress community is the reason why WordPress is such a powerful and easy-to-use product. It is a real gem.
• WordPress has an easy-to-use page editor. With pages, you can really blur the lines between what is a web site and what is a blog. Pages allow you to store static content (i.e. content that isn’t regularly updated). Pages are especially common for people who use WordPress as a content management system. For a lite version of WordPress-as-CMS, check out the Thirty Days to Blog Traffic site.
• There are a large number of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) reasons for choosing WordPress, but a discussion of them is outside the scope of this book, so I’ll just say that WordPress has paid atten-tion to how to help search engines find your blog.
• There are also plenty of SEO and traffic-related plug-ins available for WordPress.
• It’s free! There are other free blogging packages out there, but none offer the same combination of power and simplicity that WordPress offers.

Here’s an interesting exercise: Google “moving to WordPress.” People are moving for a reason!

In a nutshell, if you’re blogging, you need to be using WordPress. It’s that simple. WordPress has built a fanatical community and support base for a reason: they’re the best. If you find yourself on another platform like Blogger or TypePad and you want to move to WordPress, I’ve detailed the migration process step-by-step.