Web Hosting Geeks' Blog » blogging http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog Web Hosting Industry News, Latest Trends, and Analyses. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 05:48:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 To Blog or Not to Blog?http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2011/09/01/to-blog-or-not-to-blog/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2011/09/01/to-blog-or-not-to-blog/#comments Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:05:23 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=2005 Social media is becoming an integral part of the 21st century.  Customers expect business owners to use social media marketing tools such as blogs to promote products and services.  In fact, 50% of global companies implement blogs into corporate communication and about 12% of larger Fortune 500 companies blog.  While there are many advantages of blogging, business owners must have the time and energy required to maintain a blog, otherwise it’s a lost cause.

Blogging is an increasingly popular way of maintaining relationships with existing customers and attracting new sale leads.  Perhaps the greatest advantage of blogging is being able to keep customers in the loop of the daily operations of a specific company.  Whether providing important customer updates, details on special promotions for first time buyers, discount information for existing customers or just random ramblings too read for enjoyment, everyone with a garnered interest appreciates being kept informed.  Companies that open their doors and share experiences via blogging are more often than not repaid with customer loyalty.

Blogs are also a great tool for building and strengthening business relationships.  Not only do blogs allow customers an insight, but also encourage them to participate in blogging by leaving comments and feedback regarding specific products or services.  Many blog administrators find it helpful to enable the comment feature on blogs to allow visitors to post comments and replies.  This is especially helpful when soliciting customer feedback.  Although most feedback is extremely positive or negative, each individual feedback response is vital for continuous improvements of product quality or services

Blogs also help to generate traffic to a particular website.  An increase in blog activity is typically a good indicator of increased traffic; thus more traffic means an increase in potential sells.  While it’s important to keep in mind that not everyone visiting a blog will make a purchase; however, blogs are a great marketing tool to fish for new sale leads.

Disadvantages of Blogging

The greatest drawback of blogging is the time it requires.  Depending on how often a blog is updated dictates how much effort is involved with maintenance.  If a blog is only updated once a month, bi-weekly, or weekly, the time required isn’t too demanding; however, for those requiring everyday entries, the task may become daunting.  It’s important to post scheduled blogging entries; old and out-of-date entries are a sure way to tarnish one’s reputation.

For blogs requiring daily entries, often the task of posting entries is outsourced to a third party.  While smaller companies may not have the resources to hire someone responsible for blogging, larger ventures find that having someone to handle the blog a worthwhile investment.

Spam is another disadvantage of hosting a blog.  While it’s not nearly as much of a nuisance as it was just a few years before, robots and malicious users continue to thrive on posting spam and other annoying posts.  The good news is that blog administrators have more control over blogs, especially when it comes to thwarting spam attacks.

Conclusion

The decision whether or not to blog depends on the size of the company and available resources.  Even though most blog web hosting packages include a free blog, the amount of time and effort required to maintain a functional blog is often too much of a strain on smaller ventures.  Mid to large-scale companies with a sizeable customer base, however, reap the most benefits from blogging.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2011/09/01/to-blog-or-not-to-blog/feed/ 0 Choosing the Best Web Hosting Solution for Your Bloghttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/11/03/choosing-the-best-web-hosting-solution-for-your-blog/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/11/03/choosing-the-best-web-hosting-solution-for-your-blog/#comments Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:26:26 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=601 Blogging has become a common way to publish content and express yourself online.  This popularity is reflected in the countless number of new blogs that go up each day.  No longer do you have to be restricted on who you to run your blog with because you can easily host it yourself on a variety of platforms.  Before creating your blog site and throwing up your first post, there are some important factors that deserve careful consideration.

What Blog Software Will You Use?

There are many blogging applications available to you, with WordPress, Blogger and b2evolution being among the most widely used.  This is all a matter of preference, but it should help to know that WordPress is the most popular of the bunch.  Supported by a large community of developers and users, WordPress is highly customizable through a vast selection themes, widgets and endless plugins.  Regardless of the platform, you may want to put an emphasis on ease of use as some blogging applications are more complex than others.

Free or Paid Blog Hosting?

When making the decision to set up a blog site, you also need to determine if you want a free or paid hosting service.  Free services are abundant and usually do not force you to litter your pages with third-party advertisements like free web hosting offerings.  However, there are some disadvantages you should know about.  Opting for free blog hosting restricts you in terms of features and control, factors that could possibly limit your potential.  If you want to make the most of your blogging experience, it would be best to purchase an affordable web hosting plan that comes with free blog support.  Being that blogging has become such a phenomenon, rest assured that these services are plentiful on today’s competitive market.

Finding a Host

If you decide that paid hosting is the best move for you, the next thing you need to consider is the company that will be hosting your blog site.  In the past, finding a good web host was a rather tedious process that often left prospective customers worn and frustrated.  Things have changed as more resources are now available to aid in your search.  There are numerous sites online that provide side-by-side comparisons of companies offering blog hosting services.  These sites generally tell you the price you will need to pay for the service and the type of blog supported along with other specifications such as the amount of disk space and bandwidth included in the package.  Review sites also make a good source of information, particularly the ones that offer both expert opinions and feedback from real users.

Technology just keeps moving along but it is hard to imagine an internet and World Wide Web without the blog.  This medium is here to stay and will likely evolve with improvements that make the experience even more worthwhile.  If you can find a web hosting solution that provides adequate support for your specific needs, a blog can give you a viable and near flawless connection to the rest of the world.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/11/03/choosing-the-best-web-hosting-solution-for-your-blog/feed/ 3 Establishing Your Online Presence with WordPress Hostinghttp://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/10/01/establishing-your-online-presence-with-wordpress-hosting/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/10/01/establishing-your-online-presence-with-wordpress-hosting/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:19:58 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=550 Even though social networking has evolved to include sites like MySpace, FaceBook and Twitter, traditional blogging continues to be one of the hottest phenomenons in today’s web-based world.  There are quite a few blogging platforms, but WordPress is easily among the most widely used and perhaps the most popular of them all.  This powerful web publishing tool is easy to install, customize and maintain, providing you with the ability to have your very own blog site up and running in no time.  You can blog about a hobby, something that interests friends or family, or use this medium as tool that helps propel your business to the next level.  Regardless of what your plans call for, WordPress can act as that stable and reliable platform you need to make a name for yourself as a blogger.

The WordPress Phenomenon

WordPress has become an immensely popular blogging platform due to its ease of use and cost efficiency.  The software is open-source with no licensing fees required, making it absolutely free to anyone who wants to use it.  Being open-source also allows the WordPress software to be customized to meet the specific needs of the user.  Over the years, developers have created a number of themes and plugins that are now widely available to its large community of users.  All this activity gives you the opportunity to start out with a simple blog and later incorporate all the features and functionality needed to enhance your site.

Meeting the Requirements for WordPress Hosting

Perhaps the most unique quality of WordPress is that is can be self hosted through WordPress.com or WordPress.org, with the latter requiring you to install the software on your own web hosting account or server.  Finding the right solution isn’t necessarily difficult, but it does call for you to evaluate all of the available options before choosing a hosting provider.  Because it is such a popular software program, WordPress is widely supported by many companies on the web hosting market.  However, one must still conduct thorough research in order to make sure their requirements and expectations are met.  When shopping for a service, some important factors you want to keep in mind are bandwidth and disk storage so your blog will have enough resources to support traffic and store your files.  There are also some basic requirements that must be fulfilled to complete a WordPress hosting package.  The two most essential features you will need are a MySQL database, and a web server such as Apache with PHP installed, which is the programming language the software is written in.

There are many web hosting providers offering a wide variety of features and options that make it much easier to work with the WordPress software.  For example, some offer auto-install utilities and upgrades that allow you to remain current with the latest functionality and security features.  Others permit the hosting of multiple domains, which gives you the opportunity to host more than one blog under a single account.  WordPress can work wonders for your web presence, but the journey all begins with finding a company that can provide you with a reliable hosting solution.

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]]> http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/10/01/establishing-your-online-presence-with-wordpress-hosting/feed/ 0 Is WordPress Really a CMS?http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/04/22/is-wordpress-really-a-cms/ http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/2009/04/22/is-wordpress-really-a-cms/#comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:17:23 +0000 Art http://webhostinggeeks.com/blog/?p=299 Blogging is still soaring in the Web 2.0 era and WordPress is easily the most popular engine on the market.  This multipurpose blogging software is used for everything from personal diaries to business applications, helping many achieve online notoriety and even more bring in consistent revenue.  Although WordPress is generally referred to as a weblog publishing tool, some are calling it a CMS.  Do you agree?  We don’t.  And this article will explain why.

In order to determine whether WordPress is a CMS or not, you should first become acquainted with the three main types of content management systems, as outlined below.

Open-source Systems – Software packages like Drupal and Joomla that are becoming more popular for small to medium sized ventures.

Enterprise Systems - Proprietary solutions like Microsoft Content Server.  This type of CMS is geared towards corporate users that require powerful business applications and frequent database interaction.

Home Grown Systems – These systems are developed in-house by webmasters who have specific requirements for content management.

When comparing the WordPress platform to the software in these classifications, it falls short as merely an over-hyped content delivery system.  Though it has a tremendous following and a number of benefits, WordPress doesn’t have what it takes to be called a real CMS.   In fact, it lacks several of the necessary protocols the average CMS provides as standard.  This includes update features, security tools, user permissions and more complex content management functionality.  When considering the all the capabilities it is missing, calling WordPress a CMS may be like unfairly moving it up in weight class.

Should WordPress be a CMS?

Perhaps the real issue should be whether or not WordPress needs to be more like a genuine CMS.  While this software gives you a lot, there are limitations and thus disadvantages.  Ask a fan of Mambo or PHP-Nuke and they will probably tell you that WordPress is highly inferior.

Despite the shortcomings, it still is a very efficient tool and rightly embraced by millions of users around the world.  It can also be a nice alternative to some of the more complex and intimidating content management systems.  For the most part, the user community is happy with the functionality and would probably prefer to keep things as they are.  After all, turning the platform into a true CMS would tamper with a relatively clean code and possibly cause the software to lose some of its natural appeal.  Besides, simplicity and ease of use are two of WordPress’ biggest advantages.

Conclusion

There is no denying the capabilities of WordPress.  The overwhelming enthusiasm the community shares for this platform is certainly warranted.   It is very cost effective and makes and ideal tool for small to medium sized operations and can even move up to a larger scale as well.   Be that as it may, tagging WordPress as a content management system is not inherantly accurate.   In order to earn that title, the software would require a major overhaul which would in turn, cause it to lose so much of the qualities that has made it so popular.

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