adding a blog to my website

[wildflowerschicago]

I would like to add a blog to my website but am clueless as to how. I read a few former threads that mentioned using blog services. What are these and where do I find them? If you use a service, can you add to & somewhat control the content?
Maybe what I want isn't a blog at all... I am looking to post some articles I have written to my website, add some seasonal content along with flower care and also post class schedules. I also would like to use it as a place to post upcoming public appearances. Is what I want even a blog at all? God I suck at this!!!
Thanks in advance for all your input!!:boggles:

 

[mgarden05]

Hi Amy,

I, too, am looking to add a blog to my site. So far, there are 2 commonly used services. Adding a blog (in my opinion) gives you credibility as a professional floral designer. A blog is definitely a great place to post the items you mentioned.

Check out:
www.blogger.com
www.wordpress.com

Seems like both are user friendly. What's great is that the service is free!

Anyone else have any experience with creating their blogs?

Mai

 

[Tracy D'Amico]

Or you can blog at Floristblogs.com, or blog on your personal blog here at Flowerchat - go to your user cp and explore!

 

[jared]

If you know someone who is a little "tech savy" I would have someone install a Wordpress blog on your website (wordpress.org). It is super easy to install so it doesn't take much.

Hosting the blog on your own website (www.yourwebsite.com/blog) is leaps and bounds better than going through a 3rd party service.

When you host it on your own website you build up credibility on your OWN site. When the search engines see the fresh content from the blog on your site they will put more "weight" on your website. If you start a blog through a 3rd party service (yourblog.wordpress.com) the search engines don't make the connection since it isn't actually "part" of your website and you won't get the full benefits.

So, yes a blog is a great idea. It's been proven that it can dramatically help your site- but for it to help it actually as to be on YOUR site and not hosted else where.

Wordpress is super easy to use (ie make posts, insert images,etc) so once you had it installed you would be good to go!

cheers

 

[bloomz]

It took me a few hours to install and customize wordpress. The instructions are quite easy - they really try to make it a no brainer, but you have to know how to use ftp programs and understand paths and folder and document structures. Installed it on an alternate domain on a different server hoping it could generate some link juice that wouldn't be discounted by being under my main domain. Jury is still out on that one.

Now I got that part done - I can't think of anything to write. How many ways can you say "yeah we rock"?

I swore it was going to be only positive stuff about our industry, no skimmer raves, no travesty reports or exposes about rippoffs or any of that stuff - but there's so frigging much negativity going on I sometimes (well ok often) go brain dead.

oh well.....

I think - if you're not a geek, the best and easiest way to go would be with Rich's floristblogs - contact our valued member RJD here for information.

 

[theRKF]

Thumbs up to Jared's advice - I'll just add that Movable Type is another solid, free, option. MT tends to be a little more SEO friendly out of the box, but WP has plugins to handle this as well.

JB - Adding a blog outside your domain will only benefit you with link juice IF you have a tonne of links to the log AND lots of content on the blog. You're much better off to have the blog on your site so that content is added to your core domain.

Ryan

 

[wildflowerschicago]

Thank you all!!!!! Great advice! I will be spending my evenings learning to play blog software. God, I hope they have spell check!!!! I can ramble with the best of them, but literacy is a whole seperate issue!:hug:

 

[jared]

Thank you all!!!!! Great advice! I will be spending my evenings learning to play blog software. God, I hope they have spell check!!!! I can ramble with the best of them, but literacy is a whole seperate issue!:hug:

If you use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer is has a spell checker built into the whole browser!

 

[wildflowerschicago]

Firefox...now that would require a whole new type of learning. I am at technology overload as it is now...If I changed browser, I fear my head would explode. Thanks for the tip though, maybe once I get my act together I will check it out!

 

[RJD]

Amy,

I got your email, and maybe Ryan wants to make a sticky FAQ about blogging. This same question gets answered every couple of months.

I advise people to avoid free sites such as Blogger, for two reasons. Blogger is owned by Google, and like all Google properties, it will be monetized. One day, Google will start running ads on your blog that you may not have any control over. Secondly, despite being owned by Google, Blogger is the biggest haven for spam blogs on the Internet. And it's getting worse (see http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/25/Spammers-ramp-up-siege-on-Google-Blogger_1.html). I've found sites like Vox don't rank well at all.

If you run your own site, and have the capabilities to do so, the best thing to do is to add a blog to your own site. Media 99 and Teleflora sites don't have this option, and not everyone is technically inclined enough to install and administrate a blog properly from the back end.

So, that's why I started FloristBlogs in 2005. It's a site I run, and all members chip in $60/year to cover hosting. This way, we don't have any ads on the site at all. And, it's only real florists who blog there. Your blog is part of the Florist Blogs community, so all you have to do is log in and post--no site administration required. I do all of that.

There are two schools of thought about blogs and helping your site in the SE rankings. Some people feel strongly that having your content on your own site attracts visitors, which then become customers. This was the theory with our wedding blog, and it's paid off in spades for us.

Other people think having an external site link to your main site adds inbound link juice. This is the theory with our every day blog, which is at Florist Blogs. We already dominated the rankings in our area, so I can't say for sure if it helps or not. But, the combined efforts of a lot of us linking to the ProFlowers video did a helluva good job moving it up in the rankings.

 

[ivygreen]

Amy,

I got your email, and maybe Ryan wants to make a sticky FAQ about blogging. This same question gets answered every couple of months.

I advise people to avoid free sites such as Blogger, for two reasons. Blogger is owned by Google, and like all Google properties, it will be monetized. One day, Google will start running ads on your blog that you may not have any control over. Secondly, despite being owned by Google, Blogger is the biggest haven for spam blogs on the Internet. And it's getting worse (see http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/04/25/Spammers-ramp-up-siege-on-Google-Blogger_1.html). I've found sites like Vox don't rank well at all.

If you run your own site, and have the capabilities to do so, the best thing to do is to add a blog to your own site. Media 99 and Teleflora sites don't have this option, and not everyone is technically inclined enough to install and administrate a blog properly from the back end.

So, that's why I started FloristBlogs in 2005. It's a site I run, and all members chip in $60/year to cover hosting. This way, we don't have any ads on the site at all. And, it's only real florists who blog there. Your blog is part of the Florist Blogs community, so all you have to do is log in and post--no site administration required. I do all of that.

There are two schools of thought about blogs and helping your site in the SE rankings. Some people feel strongly that having your content on your own site attracts visitors, which then become customers. This was the theory with our wedding blog, and it's paid off in spades for us.

Other people think having an external site link to your main site adds inbound link juice. This is the theory with our every day blog, which is at Florist Blogs. We already dominated the rankings in our area, so I can't say for sure if it helps or not. But, the combined efforts of a lot of us linking to the ProFlowers video did a helluva good job moving it up in the rankings.

Thanks for explaining this clearly, for those of us not so in the "know."

 

[BOSS]

Firefox...now that would require a whole new type of learning. I am at technology overload as it is now...If I changed browser, I fear my head would explode. Thanks for the tip though, maybe once I get my act together I will check it out!

Don't be afraid of FireFox... it's soooooooo easy!

Download it, and run them both until you get used to FF... I know you'll like it much better, and wonder how you got along with out it for so long.

Get it here.

Enjoy~!

 

[wildflowerschicago]

Thank you all for your advice!!! I joined wordpress and had my developer add it to my site. Hopefully, this will be easy enough for me to maintain. I have a backlog of information and articles to post so I am fine for content, the technical aspects I will have to muddle through once Mother's Day is over. Thankfully, I have no commitment to wordpress, so if it doesn't work, I take it down. Now if we could just get the stie up for Mother's day, I would be SO happy!!! I am turning into one of those bridezillas with no patience. My deadline was 4/25 and we are now costing me money(orders) as I see it. I had 2 clients call the store yesterday who usually order from my website (back when it was a canned Teleflora site). I am with Ivy, thanks for explaining this for those of us who are slightly tech challanged!

 

[jared]

Thank you all for your advice!!! I joined wordpress and had my developer add it to my site. Hopefully, this will be easy enough for me to maintain. I have a backlog of information and articles to post so I am fine for content, the technical aspects I will have to muddle through once Mother's Day is over. Thankfully, I have no commitment to wordpress, so if it doesn't work, I take it down. Now if we could just get the stie up for Mother's day, I would be SO happy!!! I am turning into one of those bridezillas with no patience. My deadline was 4/25 and we are now costing me money(orders) as I see it. I had 2 clients call the store yesterday who usually order from my website (back when it was a canned Teleflora site). I am with Ivy, thanks for explaining this for those of us who are slightly tech challanged!

Good call. I personally believe that to get the all the kickbacks of having a blog it has to be a part of your website.

If you need any Wordpress help, just ask. With Wordpress you can do almost anything

cheers