Seeking Blog SW recommendation
Romola Chrzanowski
duplicates. I hope we will eventually migrate to Joomla! or another CMS,
but for now the current static site is undergoing enhancement and
improvement.
My client is progressing from having just sent a first eNewsletter -- to
now embracing the idea of a blog! Thanks again to those who provided
feedback about the newsletter. The client didn't go for every
improvement idea, but I did incorporate many of the recommendations.
(Here is the result: *http://tinyurl.com/yg2yqw6).
*Re - blogs. Godaddy support told me that for better SEO results, the
blog should be on a separate IP, although it could share the domain,
with a name like blog.cbbld.com. There will be links between the main
site and the blog - obviously.
I am assuming that using blogging software is the best choice. So, with
the thought in mind that we may ultimately go to Joomla! or Drupal ... I
would appreciate any suggestions of blog SW to investigate. The blog
will be totally business related, they want to permit comments, and
there would be multiple authors.
Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.
Romola Chrzanowski
Anne Campbell
I've always liked Blogger. If you already have an HTML template, you can easily pop out the content area and insert Blogger's code instead, kind of the same way the component code goes into a Joomla template.
A lot of people think that Blogger blogs are always at something.blogspot.com, but that's just the default - if you already have a domain and hosting, you can set Blogger to publish to blog.cbbld.com, or cbbld.com/blog/ , or cbbld.com/blog.htm, or whatever you want. Then the client just goes to blogger.com to log in and post. It's pretty seamless, and easy for the client. An example that Mark Madison and I worked on recently is http://helenepowers.com/ - click Blog at the top.
I'm surprised and puzzled that GoDaddy said that the blog should be on a separate IP for SEO purposes. I can't imagine how that would make any difference at all. But I know only a little about SEO - I'd love to hear from someone who knows whether this is true, and if so, why on earth?
-Anne
Anne Campbell, acam...@gmail.com
http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
http://www.riverbenddoula.com/
e-tegrity consulting llc
1. Agree with Anne Campbell about Blogger - also, as Blogger is part of Google's family, you may enjoy better indexing for the new blog. Otherwise, you could use Wordpress.
2. The reason to use a separate IP address for your blog is to create a distinct, unique web presence which you will use to reference the cbbld.com website.
If your blog lives at blog.cbbld.com, your efforts are diluted.
(a)
The blog, if active with articles about lighting, will attract comments and links from other websites/blogs in the same area of interest - "lighting", architectural lighting", "(all aspects of) lighting" - thus making the blog appear to search engines as a quality, authoritative entity.
Inbound (and not outbound) links are very important, as is a solid relationship between blog and website, built using keywords and keyword phrases.
It is all about how things are related.
Take the time to do thorough keyword research and build keyword/phrase lists for each important page of the website.
(b)
Solicit comments from other web authors.
Get CBBLD staff to write articles also for other online entities, such as lighting news sites, association sites ... and use text links in the article to reference the blog.
Or at least cite the blog in the credits.
Anything to get that blog noticed.
(c)
Here is a process for establishing blog-website relationship:
CBBLD staff write articles and publish them on the blog.
Linked text in CBBLD blog articles points to important pages on the cbbld.com website.
The linked-to website pages contain words in their title, content, etc., that match the linked blog text.
This creates a good solid link from the focused, authoritative blog about lighting to the website about lighting.
Simultaneously, blog visitor comments (solicited/unsolicited) are starting to appear and inbound links are being established.
Search engines like this.
I have found that it is best to just let the writers write the articles naturally on their own.
Then you can review the articles and make the text links appropriately.
Sometimes it is necessary to slightly edit the article to get the correct link text.
Great questions, Romola, and fun to respond.
Tina
--
Tina DuBosque, M.S., Internet Strategies Management
etegrity consulting llc
PO Box 102
North Stonington, CT 06359
860 705 3151
Romola Chrzanowski
I am awestruck by all of your generosity in sharing your expertise. My
client and I are taking baby steps and will benefit 110% from the
knowledge you share.
Thank you so much. I will definitely push for going with blogger (until
we get to Joomla!); and will figure out the IP question as we go along.
Thanks!
Romola Chrzanowski
Barrie North wrote:
> >From an SEO perspective, I think its less to do with being a seperate
> web presence and more to do with critical domain trust algorithms in
> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-root-domains-subdomains-vs-subfolders-microsites
>
> If a business is trying to build a blog presence, I 110% recommend
> that they build it into their existing site, using, where possible the
> same platform (i.e. Joomla). The "blog" should be integrated into the
> main site where possible.
>
> Always good to have different perspectives :)
>
> Barrie North
> www.joomlashack.com <http://www.joomlashack.com>
> www.simplweb.com/joomla <http://www.simplweb.com/joomla>
> www.compassdesigns.net <http://www.compassdesigns.net>
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM, e-tegrity consulting llc
> <etegrityc...@gmail.com <mailto:etegrityc...@gmail.com>>
>
> Hi, Romola.
>
> 1. Agree with Anne Campbell about Blogger - also, as Blogger is
> part of Google's family, you may enjoy better indexing for the new
> blog. Otherwise, you could use Wordpress.
>
> 2. The reason to use a separate IP address for your blog is to
> create a distinct, unique web presence which you will use to
> If your blog lives at blog.cbbld.com <http://blog.cbbld.com>, your
> (a)
> The blog, if active with articles about lighting, will attract
> comments and links from other websites/blogs in the same area of
> interest - "lighting", architectural lighting", "(all aspects of)
> lighting" - thus making the blog appear to search engines as a
> quality, authoritative entity.
> Inbound (and not outbound) links are very important, as is a solid
> relationship between blog and website, built using keywords and
> keyword phrases.
> It is all about how things are related.
> Take the time to do thorough keyword research and build
> keyword/phrase lists for each important page of the website.
> (b)
> Solicit comments from other web authors.
> Get CBBLD staff to write articles also for other online entities,
> such as lighting news sites, association sites ... and use text
> links in the article to reference the blog.
> Or at least cite the blog in the credits.
> Anything to get that blog noticed.
> (c)
> Here is a process for establishing blog-website relationship:
> CBBLD staff write articles and publish them on the blog.
> Linked text in CBBLD blog articles points to important pages on
Romola Chrzanowski
I am starting to work on the blog. For now, I am working on blogger.com,
and will later re-home it. (For some reason blogger says that
www.yourdomain.com/blog/ can't be done, but I believe you that it can).
I want to create a template based on our site design. When I view the
template code on blogger, I see xml, and am confused about where to
start -- what part gets cut and pasted into our own template? I started
by choosing one of the simple templates, and now I am in Layouts-->Edit
HTML (Edit Template). I copied that down to DW to work on it, but it
does not seem to be something that displays as HTML. Can you offer
suggestions about where to start the cut and paste from blogger's
template into my own?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Romola
Anne Campbell wrote:
> Hi Romola,
>
> I've always liked Blogger. If you already have an HTML template, you
> can easily pop out the content area and insert Blogger's code instead,
> kind of the same way the component code goes into a Joomla template.
>
> A lot of people think that Blogger blogs are always at
> cbbld.com/blog/ <http://cbbld.com/blog/> , or cbbld.com/blog.htm
> <http://cbbld.com/blog.htm>, or whatever you want. Then the client
> just goes to blogger.com <http://blogger.com> to log in and post. It's
> and I worked on recently is http://helenepowers.com/ - click Blog at
> the top.
>
> I'm surprised and puzzled that GoDaddy said that the blog should be on
> a separate IP for SEO purposes. I can't imagine how that would make
> any difference at all. But I know only a little about SEO - I'd love
> to hear from someone who knows whether this is true, and if so, why on
> earth?
>
> -Anne
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Romola Chrzanowski
> <rom...@verizon.net <mailto:rom...@verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>
> I am sending this to both groups, so apologize to anyone receiving
> duplicates. I hope we will eventually migrate to Joomla! or
> another CMS,
> but for now the current static site is undergoing enhancement and
> improvement.
>
> My client is progressing from having just sent a first eNewsletter
> -- to
> now embracing the idea of a blog! Thanks again to those who provided
> feedback about the newsletter. The client didn't go for every
> improvement idea, but I did incorporate many of the recommendations.
> (Here is the result: *http://tinyurl.com/yg2yqw6).
>
> *Re - blogs. Godaddy support told me that for better SEO results, the
> blog should be on a separate IP, although it could share the domain,
> site and the blog - obviously.
>
> I am assuming that using blogging software is the best choice. So,
> with
> the thought in mind that we may ultimately go to Joomla! or Drupal
> ... I
> would appreciate any suggestions of blog SW to investigate. The blog
> will be totally business related, they want to permit comments, and
> there would be multiple authors.
>
> Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.
> Romola Chrzanowski
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
> http://www.riverbenddoula.com/
>
> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "New England Adobe User Group" group.
> To post to this group, send email to ne...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> neaug+un...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/neaug?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>
Anne Campbell
For now, I am working on blogger.com,
and will later re-home it. (For some reason blogger says that
www.yourdomain.com/blog/ can't be done, but I believe you that it can).
I won't swear to it in case I'm mistaken, but I *think* it's possible if you adjust the FTP settings in Blogger.
I want to create a template based on our site design. When I view the
template code on blogger, I see xml, and am confused about where to
start -- what part gets cut and pasted into our own template?
I always start with the Minima template, because it seems to be the simplest in code, so there's less to wade through. I'm going from memory, but I don't recall there being any XML in that template's code. The key bits of code that you want to look for are:
- <$BlogMetaData$> within the <head> tag
- There's a custom tag for inserting the blog title and description - I usually remove that, so I don't have a note of it, but keep an eye out for that too
- <MainOrArchivePage> in the body
- <$I18NPreviousPosts$> and <BloggerPreviousItems> for a list of previous posts
- <$I18NArchives$> and <BloggerArchives> for archive lists
- and most importantly, anything within the <Blogger></Blogger> tags. This part is the equivalent of the component code in Joomla; it's where the actual blog posts and comments will go. This is what you want to be sure to pop into the content area of your template.
- You also might want to take a look through the CSS that's embedded in the code, and see if you want to keep some of it to format the blog posts, comments, etc.
-Anne
Anne Campbell, acam...@gmail.com
http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
http://www.riverbenddoula.com/
Romola Chrzanowski
I found that the reason the code looked odd to me was that I needed to
switch to the Classic Template, and I am using Minima.
So far, I have gotten it set up on the client's site. Fortunately, I
found some good instructions for doing that, using ftp, as you said. If
anyone else needs to see this, here are the instructions I followed:
http://personalweb.about.com/od/easyblogsandwebpages/ss/bloggeronsite.htm
Now, on the how to set up the client to post using a company email
address, and how to start styling the page.
I appreciate your response and advice. I like the site you and Mark
created, too.
Regards.
Romola
Anne Campbell wrote:
> Hi Romola,
>
> You wrote:
>
>
>
> I won't swear to it in case I'm mistaken, but I *think* it's possible
> if you adjust the FTP settings in Blogger.
>
>
> I want to create a template based on our site design. When I view the
> template code on blogger, I see xml, and am confused about where to
> start -- what part gets cut and pasted into our own template?
>
>
> I always start with the Minima template, because it seems to be the
> simplest in code, so there's less to wade through. I'm going from
> memory, but I don't recall there being any XML in that template's
> code. The key bits of code that you want to look for are:
>
> * There's a custom tag for inserting the blog title and
> it, but keep an eye out for that too
> * <$I18NPreviousPosts$> and <BloggerPreviousItems> for a list of
> previous posts
> * <$I18NArchives$> and <BloggerArchives> for archive lists
> * and most importantly, anything within the <Blogger></Blogger>
> Joomla; it's where the actual blog posts and comments will go.
> This is what you want to be sure to pop into the content area of
> your template.
> format the blog posts, comments, etc.
>
> Hope that helps - my biggest tip is just to start with the Minima
> template and save yourself a lot of the baroque code!
>
> -Anne
>
> --
> http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
> http://www.riverbenddoula.com/
>
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "New England Adobe User Group" group.
Romola Chrzanowski
I would like to know if others are dealing with a blogspot change that
as I understand it will require converting to using subdomains like
blog.yourdomain.com instead of being able to continue to use
yourdomain.com/blog. The change is being required because blogger is
discontinuing use of and support for 'ftp' "publishing".
Is anyone else dealing with this and if so, what are your
options/choices? Is there a way to retain yourdomain.com/blog, which
would be preferable from an SEO perspective?
Does this raise the question for others of whether to stop using
blogger? If you have suggestions about alternative blogs to incorporate
into traditional HTML site, I am interested in advice. In my case
porting content is not an issue. (This does become one more reason to go
with Joomla.)
Thanks.
Romola Chrzanowski
Anne Campbell wrote:
> Hi Romola,
>
> I've always liked Blogger. If you already have an HTML template, you
> can easily pop out the content area and insert Blogger's code instead,
> kind of the same way the component code goes into a Joomla template.
>
> A lot of people think that Blogger blogs are always at
> something.blogspot.com <http://something.blogspot.com>, but that's
> just the default - if you already have a domain and hosting, you can
> set Blogger to publish to blog.cbbld.com <http://blog.cbbld.com>, or
> cbbld.com/blog/ <http://cbbld.com/blog/> , or cbbld.com/blog.htm
> <http://cbbld.com/blog.htm>, or whatever you want. Then the client
> just goes to blogger.com <http://blogger.com> to log in and post. It's
> pretty seamless, and easy for the client. An example that Mark Madison
> and I worked on recently is http://helenepowers.com/ - click Blog at
> the top.
>
> I'm surprised and puzzled that GoDaddy said that the blog should be on
> a separate IP for SEO purposes. I can't imagine how that would make
> any difference at all. But I know only a little about SEO - I'd love
> to hear from someone who knows whether this is true, and if so, why on
> earth?
>
> -Anne
>
> On Thu, Nov 12, 2009 at 2:13 PM, Romola Chrzanowski
> <rom...@verizon.net <mailto:rom...@verizon.net>> wrote:
>
>
> I am sending this to both groups, so apologize to anyone receiving
> duplicates. I hope we will eventually migrate to Joomla! or
> another CMS,
> but for now the current static site is undergoing enhancement and
> improvement.
>
> My client is progressing from having just sent a first eNewsletter
> -- to
> now embracing the idea of a blog! Thanks again to those who provided
> feedback about the newsletter. The client didn't go for every
> improvement idea, but I did incorporate many of the recommendations.
> (Here is the result: *http://tinyurl.com/yg2yqw6).
>
> *Re - blogs. Godaddy support told me that for better SEO results, the
> blog should be on a separate IP, although it could share the domain,
> with a name like blog.cbbld.com <http://blog.cbbld.com>. There
> will be links between the main
> site and the blog - obviously.
>
> I am assuming that using blogging software is the best choice. So,
> with
> the thought in mind that we may ultimately go to Joomla! or Drupal
> ... I
> would appreciate any suggestions of blog SW to investigate. The blog
> will be totally business related, they want to permit comments, and
> there would be multiple authors.
>
> Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.
> Romola Chrzanowski
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Anne Campbell, acam...@gmail.com <mailto:acam...@gmail.com>
> http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
> http://www.riverbenddoula.com/
>
> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "New England Adobe User Group" group.
> To post to this group, send email to ne...@googlegroups.com
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> neaug+un...@googlegroups.com
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/neaug?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>
Anne Campbell
I would like to know if others are dealing with a blogspot change that as I understand it will require converting to using subdomains like blog.yourdomain.com instead of being able to continue to use yourdomain.com/blog. The change is being required because blogger is discontinuing use of and support for 'ftp' "publishing".
Yes indeed...Google sprang this on us recently, and I'm in the process of moving a number of blogs to blog.[domain].com. So far, the process has been pretty seamless; you just have to log into the client's account at their domain registrar and set up a CNAME record for blog.[domain].com (or whatever subdomain you like - it doesn't have to start with "blog."). Then there's a Blogger wizard that brings you through the rest of the process quite seamlessly. It even creates a new blog post saying "This blog has moved" and redirecting to the new address.
After it's all done, you can update the other navigation in the client's static site so that links are pointing to the new subdomain instead of [domain].com/blog or whatever it was before.
Is anyone else dealing with this and if so, what are your options/choices? Is there a way to retain yourdomain.com/blog, which would be preferable from an SEO perspective?
Does this raise the question for others of whether to stop using blogger? If you have suggestions about alternative blogs to incorporate into traditional HTML site, I am interested in advice. In my case porting content is not an issue. (This does become one more reason to go with Joomla.)
Of course, I'm always tempted to just move clients to Joomla altogether too, but often that's not possible because of budget or because of other infrastructure. But for me, and for the clients I have who are using Blogger, it hasn't been a deal-breaker. One thing that's really nice about the move is that when you create a new blog post or make a change to the template, instead of taking a few minutes to "publish" via FTP, it's instantaneous.
Let me know if you run into questions during the migration process that you think I could help with!
--
Anne Campbell, acam...@gmail.com
http://www.annecampbelldesign.com/
http://www.riverbenddoula.com/
Chris Luksha
Hi Romola – I have made it simple on any clients that didn’t want the blogspot address and simply ported them over to Wordpress on their own site. It gives them a chance to revisit their blog and say “You know I always wanted to ______” and then they felt justified in spending the time and money to update their site.
Just a thought of course.
Be Blessed!
Chris
Chris Luksha
Echo Web Services
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Debbie Lazar
What does this mean?
blogger is discontinuing use of and support for 'ftp' "publishing".
Anne Campbell wrote:
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Debbie Lazar
I see photos no longer show up.
I guess that's the ftp issue?
Debbie
Chris Luksha wrote:
Debbie Lazar
Blogger Status
Monday, March 29, 2010
Our image backend is experiencing problems which may affect the display and/or uploading of photos. We are working to resolve this and will update this post when we have more information.
http://blogger-status.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-image-backend-is-experiencing.html