What software do you recommend for managing a blog?

So Trevor, I would say this - you'll want your blog to have it's own URL, so you don't lose any SEO opportunities. For example, if you wanted a blog that was called "Business Update Blog" (lame, yes, but bear with me), you'd want the URL to reflect that name only, and not have wordpress or blogger in the URL.

Regarding what to do when you start? Well, first of all, I think creating an editorial calendar would be the best thing you can do, right behind commenting on other blogs of similar interests.

Commenting on other blogs allows you join in on the conversation had by your community, and will allow others to hear your voice on particular topics, which should, in turn, bring traffic to your blog.

A blogging or editorial calendar is just going to make the process much easier for you, so you never feel like you're stuck with what to write about.

If it is a business blog, you should consider blog platforms that are tied into your analytics and marketing systems (did one of your leads comment on your blog?) rather than a standalone system with lots of blog features but no business features. One example of this would be HubSpot, which has a business blog built into an online marketing system (disclosure: I work there!). For personal blogs, Wordpress, Typepad or Blogger are all good. Selfhosted wordpress does require some technical skill, as others have mentioned.

Agreed with Chris Snell that it is essential the blog is on a subdomain of your site or other URL of your business - it should NOT be company.wordpress.com.

Try using wordpress - it is simple to use and can be customized quite a bit. Our blog (blogs.prayag.com) is on it for the last few years and we have had a very good experience with it.

Hey Trevor, I use WordPress to manage my blog. I like it because it's pretty easy to use and it has a ton of customization options.

I guess I'd like to know if this blog is for yourself or for your company?

Green Leads is a HubSpot client, and can't say enough about the product AND the methodology. That's the key to HubSpot. The methodology. Listen to everything they tell you, read everything they share. Then count the leads!

I would just stick with Wordpress the new version offers 1 click updates, and just pick a reasonable strength password and you should be ok. If the hackers really want to get in they will, just make sure you register it within Google Webmaster Tools, it won't help much with flagging if you have been hacked but you can spot a sudden spike in impressions and what strange keywords are showing in the search result and see what subdirectory the hackers have hidden the content.

If you are really lazy just run off wordpress.com that is where I run my primary blog and i never have any problems...

http://thelostagency.wordpress.com

If you want all the upside of Wordpress without the hassles of being your own IT department, check out http://page.ly . Can't recommend it enough for recreational/smb users.

Wordpress is definitely the best. Huge amount of customization options, great SEO plugins, social media widgets, etc. Also, Wordpress MU (multi-user) is a great option to host a number of blogs under one installation (a great example is for a franchise organization that wants a blog for every franchise territory and needs centralized control).

I have not used Wordpress but it is well regarded. I am using blogger by google and have been very happy.

Hello Trevor,

You can use the blog tools mentioned in previous posts. If you also use other tools such as contact or calendar management or sales management, Borneosoft Blog offers all those tools plus it has blog tools for you. It has Free Edition with all the functionality. Have a look at http://www.borneosoft.com and http://www.borneosoft.com/docs/blogfeatures/Borneosoft%20Blog

I like Blogger. I've been blogging since Sept. 1st, 1996

WordPress sounds neat and everything but unless you are a programmer, you might want to think about letting Google defend against hackers for you, there is nothing you have to do with a Blogger blog for security except moderate comments.

I use wordpress for my blog but I have an IT department that hosts and backs up my blog. When I didn't have that protection, my blog got hacked and took me weeks to get it back. Over the last couple weeks, I have seen friends' wordpress blogs get hacked. The prevalent hack is one where Cialis ads take over your site. Net-net, Steve's point is well-taken...the blog has to be protected so if you can't get a service that can.

Thanks Jeff,
Last Week, i got a call to help fix 1
Last Month, i got 5 calls
This year, i've encountered 10+ blogs removed from Google search for this reason.
( I get the calls to help getting them back in Google.)

I say wordpress i find that its often a problem with poor quality passwords or using outdated patches/software on your servers. You need a IT department to click "update wordpress" or "backup", anyone in your company could do that.

This blog is going to be for my personal use. I don't want to maintain a blog that needs a lot of maintenance on the technical side. I want to concentrate more on my content.

Once I've started my blog. What are some good tips to keep in mind when operating a blog?

Disclosure I don't work for Wordpress but they make it possible to run my blog without any headaches and i love them for that!

Most platforms like wordpress, typepad or Blogspot allow you to use your own domain http://en.wordpress.com/products/

WordPress seems to have won the day. We migrated our blog to WP recently (we'd be using Apache Roller), and we're even using it as the content management system for our whole site.

On nice thing about WordPress is that it has widespread support in many areas: a well developed user community, an enormous number of templates (free and commercial), and it is supported by many web hosting sites. For example, I started up a personal web site recently using Dreamhost and installed WordPress in 20 seconds. BTW, Microsoft just announced that WP would become the default for Windows Live. See: http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/09/27/word...

Having said that, there are many great options. Drupal would be a good choice, as would Hubspot (we used it for site monitoring a while back, but never for blogging). I know people that really like Blogspot.

One thing you could do is to see what platforms your web hosting service provides, or if you don't yet have a host, find one that supports multiple content management systems. I think you can get a sense within 15 minutes if one will work for you or not.

David King, FULCRUM
http://www.fulcrum-mktg.com/insights/blog/

We use wordpress but we add in Socrates to give better themes it also loads Wordpress for you, designs header and layout please give it a try - this is a blog

http://wp.me/p11iL0-2L

Hope that helps

Gary

We have been very pleased with HubSpot. Not only are all the tools for easily creating our blogs available, every imaginable way of measuring results is part of the package. Beyond our blog, the inbound results of all our social media are also easily monitored.

If it sounds like I am selling HubSpot, in a way I am. MLT Creative is one of many Certified HupSpot Partners that know like we do, it works.

If you would like more information, find it at www.hubspot.com
For visible proof we practice what we preach, visit www.mltcreative.com