Remarkablogger

Without further preamble, here they are:

1. Separate hosted blog service, like blogger
2. Separate hosted blog software, like WordPress
3. Integrated remote service
4. Integrated blog software

Separate hosted blog service, like blogger

Utilizing a hosted service where your blog is separate from your existing or main website can be a worthwhile option. While there are excellent reasons to host your own blog, the main one being control, a hosted service like Blogger can serve as an introduction to blogging. It’s definitely easy for beginners. If you’re creating a blog as an experiment, you may not want to have it as part of the main site at first. You want to test the waters first, see how it feels before you just dive right in. This is the easiest and least risky option to get started.

Many people cite Blogger’s lack of options and control as the main reason a serious blogger would avoid Blogger. Some of it is just plain old blog snobbery. While control may be a valid point, there’s a much more important reason why you may not want to use Blogger: if you decide later to switch to a different blogging system and hosting arrangement, all the work you put into building up your readership will be severely damaged when you make the switch. You will lose people. If there is the one thing Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble says you should never do, it’s change your URL. He speaks from experience. So think carefully. If you’re willing to play around on Blogger just long enough to decide to move on, then you may not be harming anything because your traffic hasn’t built up, yet.

Separate hosted blog software, like WordPress

If you want more control over your blog, you can have a separate domain for it. This keeps your blog separated from your existing site, and allows you to experiment with having a blog at no risk to the existing setup. This is more involved, because somebody has to procure hosting with the right features, install the blogging system, and then design & configure the blog.

For hosting, you’ll often need a MySQL database and PHP. You don’t even have to know what those are, really. You just need to know that you need them included with your hosting service. Your blog consultant will install the blog system and set it up for you, adding features and designing its look so that it’s what you want (this is what I do for people). I use WordPress, but there are other systems for this, like Moveable Type and TextPattern.

These systems, while more complex, are far more configurable, with options such as the ability to assign your blog posts to various categories or tags for organizing and searching purposes, and there are often many commenting options as well.

Integrated remote service

You can integrate a blog into your existing site. You’ll have to have a page created for the blog and have links to it added into your site’s navigation. You’ll also need the ability for your site to work with something called server-side includes or use the PHP scripting language. This will take the posts and other information from your blog and include it in the page. You may need to hire a web developer to help you with this part. When you’re done, you log in to your blogging service and post as if for a separate blogging service, like what’s mentioned above in point 1.

Integrated blog software

I know this can be done with WordPress, but I can’t speak for other systems like Moveable Type (if you know, please comment below). You install your blog software like usual, but your blog isn’t the primary focus of your site. Using PHP, you can call information from your blog and display it on a page in your regular website. In WordPress, this is done by including “The Loop” from the index.php file, along with other customizations of the code. This is definitely web geek territority. Update: Although you can do what’s described in the above paragraph, it isn’t necessary, anymore, now that newer versions of WordPress support “static” home pages. Since I originally wrote this post, WordPress has evolved into a light but powerful CMS (content management system).

These are your main blog setup options, and you’ll need to decide which one you want along with determining the purpose of your blog and other strategic objectives. For a more complete treatment on setting up a business blog (usually the scenario in which this will occur), see my series on How to Start a Business Blog.