Business Blogging 5 Sites for Starting in 5 Minutes or Less
With the pervasiveness of blogging technologies, many of which are free, the bar has been lowered so that any aspiring small business marketer with minimal technical skill can get started in 5 minutes or less. In this post I’ll share with you 5 resources to get your business blog rolling fast. For the small business marketer, business blogging is becoming a “must do” item.
Business Blogging 5 Sites for Starting in 5 Minutes or Less
WordPress.com
Go here, open account, and start posting. They host the blog software and server space, at no cost to you…and there are no ads. This is a great model, and works well because they have a host of integrated templates to choose from, widgets, and common plug-ins which enhance the use of any business blog.
WordPress.org
If you plan on hosting your blog on your own domain, this is the site you can go to get the downloadable install. It is also a great resource if you need support, or want to download one of the many plug-ins that extend the functionality of your WordPress blog. This can also be a great resource if you need technical support with WordPress.
See the bonus tip at the bottom for more information about hosting your own business blog.
Blogger.com (Google)
Blogger has been around for some time and was acquired by Google a few years ago. If you have been paying attention to some of the posts here about Google Friend Connect, Blogger accounts are tied into your Google profile as well. They are also really easy integrate with Google Friend Connect.
They too have a wide variety of theme templates, and are fairly customizable. If you don’t have a blog yet, and you have a Google account, this is a great place to start your business blog.
WetPaint.com
Wetpaint is another good service for small business bloggers because they make it easy to setup, and have a great range of templates to choose from. Wetpaint is a free website creation and hosting service, which includes wikis, blogs, and social networking features, but I lump them in here because they make it really easy to get started, fast, and for small business marketers, isn’t that what we need? Public sites are indexed by the search engines, and can be “joined” by other webpaint members.
Weebly.com
I’ve always liked the name of this service. Similar to Wetpaint.com in that they are more of a website hosting service, what makes Weebly different is, while Wetpaint is an interactive social site with many “wiki” features, Weebly offers more of a basic blog/comment format. They have a drag and drop interface, and have a wide range of design templates to choose from. They even boast of no cost domain hosting.
Bonus Tip if You Want to Self-Host Your Blog
Sometimes small business marketers wish to host their business blog on their own domain. Some of the common reasons for doing that include:
- Branding their domain name
- More control over the content display, and the functionality of the blog
- Search engine traffic is flagged with their domain name, not the domain of one of the content hosting sites listed above
- Risk… if one of the hosting companies goes out of business, or is hacked, or has a technical issue, the content you created is unavailable, and will eventually be de-indexed by the search engines.
I’ll talk more about the pros and cons of your business blog hosting options in a future host, for now, you just need to take the first step.
Time to Get Started
Pick one of these sites and spend a few minutes getting a page up. Don’t go through all the options before publishing, just get the business blog up and have a short celebration (YOU did it!). Then, focus on providing great content to your prospects and customers, and tweak the site as you go.
Discussion: Have a business blog already? Using one of these services (or another one)? Discuss your experiences in the comment forms below.
*Image credits to jphilipg
Layla on 
DrBermant on 
Sirhcnus on 
Jeff on 
Facebook
Plaxo
LinkedIn
YouTube
Twitter
Skype
Hi, my name is Travis Campbell, I operate this site. I'm here to share what I can from my lessons marketing online. With sizeable investments in continuing education, various software products and services, I have had some winners, and some losers. One way I can extend what I've learned is by writing about it, here... and helping you along the way.
I just had to take a minute to comment on this article as I just finished setting up my first two business blogs on Weebly and Wetpaint. As you said they were fairly straight forward it’s just hard to know what to click and not click and what set up decisions affect the future etc! I’m getting ready to tackle Blogger and WordPress next, do you have any specific suggestions for upfront decisions that I should be aware of. Such as “when you set up your page, make sure to…”
Thanks!
Pick a good username that you want “out there” for the site. As each post indicates the author. That text is typically linked to you and your site. Some use keywords in their market, others find that too impersonal and use their real name. Hope that helps.
Travis, I love your blog which I found through Twitter. I’d like to weigh in what I’ve learned since I started Blogging about 8 months ago. Blogger is SO easy to get started and has great widgets allowing for monetization and integration with aweber etc. WordPress.com is easy too, but limits you on the above mentioned. Also, as you warned if they don’t like your content, they can just shut down your blog…(just happened to me this week.) WordPress.org and hosting your own domain is the way I suggest once you get started and have proven you will be faithful to keep up your blog. I have no experience with the other 3 platforms you mentioned.
Carla, glad you found value here and in this post specifically. You are not the only one who has been suddenly wiped from Blogger. Sorry to hear you got bumped. You might have a look at the other services you may find them more tolerant.
Of course if you can swing it, hosting it yourself gives you the most control of your content, as well as search engines would then be referencing (and branding) your domain.
Again, glad to have you on board.
I recently started a WordPress and Webpaint account for my office. Putting the company name in the url/username for both accounts had them at the top of Google searches in hours. Definitely good places to get your business name out there with.
~ Kristi
Kikolani’s last blog post..Fetching Friday – Web 2.0 At the Bookstore, Twitter Resources
Kikolani-
Glad to hear of your results, these are fairly typical results (depending on the market). Are you also using Google Friend Connect on your blog Kikolani?
-Travis
Thanks for clearly explaining the options here. I guest I can start with something this simple, as I always seem to get hung up on the technology.
Terry-
Not sure what you are attempting to do, but technology can be a productivity killer. Going with something simple can save a lot of headaches and help you focus on getting to what is important, content. Thanks for stopping by.
I’m glad I ran across this post, as I was unclear which of the free blogging services out there were worth my time. If I want to get started and later move it to my own hosted domain, which service is best?
Cheryl-
You ask a very good question. Since WordPress is most widley used, I think that is a good starting point, you can then host your own WordPress domain and do an export import to bring over the posts. You may want to outsource the move to make sure you get everything you can.
free is good, thanks for sharing these resources, following your instructions I got a blog up in about 5 minutes.
Congratulations Ashar… Glad to hear it worked quickly for you.
paul smith
buy paul smith
paul smith store
paul smith shop
paul smith outlet
paul smith online store
paul smith UK
paul smith authentic
paul smith sale
paul smith men's wear
paul smith women's wear
paul smith accessories
paul smith collections
buy paul smith shoes
buy paul smith trainers
cheap paul smith shoes
cheap paul smith trainers
paul smith shoes
paul smith trainers
authentic paul smith shoes
authentic paul smith trainers
Paul Smith Canvas Holdall bags
paul smith bags
paul smith bag
Paul Smith Blonde Naked Lady Belt
buy paul smith belt
paul smith belt
paul smith belts
paul smith clothing
paul smith clothes
buy paul smith t-shirt
paul smith men's tshirt
paul smith ps t-shirt
paul smith polo
paul smith clothes
buy paul smith cufflinks
paul smith cufflinks
paul smith credit card wallet
paul smith leather wallets
buy paul smith wallet
buy paul smith wallets
cheap paul smith mens' wallet
paul smith mini wallet
paul smith naked lady wallet
paul smith striped wallet
paul smith wallets
paul smith women's wallet
paul smith sweater
cheap paul smith sweaters
authentic paul smith sweater
buy paul smith sweaters
genuine paul smith sweater
paul smith flip flop
buy paul smith flip flop
authentic paul smith flip flop
paul smith scarves
buy paul smith scarves
authentic paul smith scarves
paul smith notebooks
paul smith neckties
paul smith underwears
For a simple start to blogging, have you considered posterous.com?
Tim – great suggestion, haven't fully reviewed that service yet. I trust you are familiar with it? What do you like about it?
Tim – great suggestion, haven't fully reviewed that service yet. I trust you are familiar with it? What do you like about it?