Ennui Blog

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I’ve seen it again and again, Blog Misunderstanding Syndrome. It’s very common. A company gets convinced by someone, probably on their staff, that they should be blogging. Not wanting to spend money on the medium, said person starts a blog on a free service such as Blogger or Wordpress.com.

Great! They started a blog! But wait. When you read the snazzy new blog you see that the URL address is http://company.blogspot.com. Your eyes screech to a halt. Whatever blog you were about to read just completely lost credibility. It automatically gets lumped into the same category as ‘Joan’s Period Blog.’

Folks, not having your own domain name hurts your credibility and shows your inability to understand Web 2.0 mediums.

It does not take much work or internet knowledge to use your own domain name on Wordpress or Blogger. Both platforms allow you to use your own domain name. I think many people would agree with me that http://blog.company.com looks a hell of a lot more professional than the alternatives. Wordpress charges $10/year for this. Blogger charges nothing.

You may think, “oh, I’ll just use this until the blog is established, then move it.” Bad idea. Moving domains, unless you are an SEO expert, will destroy any search rankings your blog may have had.

But nothing destroys your corporate credibility more than hosting your shiny new blog on Blogger or Wordpress.com

Don’t have a domain? Get one, they aren’t that expensive. As soon as you start a compnay you should buy the related domain names to prevent the chance for squatters to steal them first.

How do you buy a domain name?

It’s simple, you use an easy to use service such as GoDaddy and register your domain for as little as $7.49
. You can even get a cheap hosting package with them and roll your own blog hosting. It’s really not that hard and they’ll hold your hand through the whole process. Read my article on How to Set Up your Own Self-Hosted Wordpress blog for more detailed information.

If your company is going to blog, buy the domain name and host it there!