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| The picture says it all! |
I think the best blog platform for small businesses, hands
down, is Wordpress. You need no coding experience and none to very minor html
knowledge to build a beautiful blog on Wordpress. (If you are paying someone to run your website or have a coding background, my recommendation differs. However, for the typically small business owner managing his or her own site or having an employee whose primary job is something else manage the site, Wordpress is the simplest and has the most associated tools.)
- Over the last few years I have also used Blogger
(Google’s blog platform), Wix, Tumblr, LiveJournal, and a few others. But none
of these compare to Wordpress for ease of use, designability, and options. All
of my company’s related blogs and sites are built on Wordpress, except for one (this blog, as a matter of fact),
which still uses Blogger. Blogger was the first true blog platform I ever
tried.
- Wordpress offers thousands of free, easy-to-use
themes that allow you to build a website or blog for almost free, except for
the cost of your domain and hosting. Themes provide the general design and
layout for your site. Many of these themes come with video instructions on how
to install, set up, and use the themes. Regarding domain and hosting costs, you
can even avoid these by hosting your website on Wordpress’ own servers and have
a domain name that includes “wordpress.com”. However, I believe having your own company-specific
site name looks more professional.
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| One example of a Wordpress theme. (There are hundreds.) |
- Wordpress has thousands of free plug-ins that
provide various functionality to a blog including SEO (search engine
optimization), share buttons, contact forms, site protection, spam
protection, and much more. As with the themes, many of the plug-in providers/developers offer
free video tutorials on how to use these plug-ins.
- There are many developers and companies that
provide higher-end themes and plug-ins with more functionality for a relatively
low cost, i.e., $20 to $200. With these you can build a blog that really stands
out for fractions of what it would cost to hire a developer to build one from
scratch.
- Finally, Wordpress has so many users and
developers that you can easily find web development personnel and access
expertise that can solve almost any problem or issue you’ll encounter with your
website.
Do you disagree with my recommendation? Agree? Please share your comments below.
