Google’s Blogger: The Best Free Blog Service for Entrepreneurs
This is part 2 of a 3 part series by Mike Gamache discussing the best content management systems (CMS) and website options for those intrepid entrepreneurs that want to build and manage their own websites. In this post, the Fleetfoot Marketing co-founder discusses the benefits of using Google’s free Blogger service. Stay tuned next week for an in-depth look at WordPress as a CMS and how WordPress’s SEO tools can boost traffic to your website. Read Part 1
At the same time, the reality is that most entrepreneurs don’t have the time or resources to divert from the core business, so they need a simple and effective solution. There are several options, but I highly recommend Blogger.
Learn how to be a viral blogger
The Perks of Being on Google Blogger
Blogger is a Google property. The pages are indexed more often than many websites, and you can sign up for free and start posting in minutes. When setting up a Blogger account, it is very easy to set up a “Google Plus” account that is linked to the blogger account. This is important for several reasons, these being the most important:
- Verified Authorship
- Linked Google account to all other Google properties.
What is Authorship?
Authorship is basically Google’s way to decipher who was the original author of web content. This is very important because there are “scrapers” who use software to find subject-related content, and then place it on their own websites. Google’s algorithms find the duplicate content and penalize all pages/websites that are using it. The verified author does not get penalized because the original content is theirs.
Linked Google Properties
As most entrepreneurs know, Google is a powerful and expansive force on the internet. Recently, they have been able to tie all of their services together into a nice package using Google Plus.
Blogger, Youtube, G+, Google Maps, and many more important items are all part of the Google Package. You will benefit greatly by utilizing all of these services that are linked together and verified under one account.
As your Google places profile receives positive feedback, your blog receives quality traffic and links, your YouTube videos are liked and shared, and your G+ business places profile spreads its influence, they increase each others’ ranking and expedite your brand’s online growth.
If you don’t have a video marketing strategy, I recommend taking it into consideration. At the same time, you don’t need an active YouTube account to use the Google package to your advantage and increase your traffic.
Disadvantages of using Blogger
There is one fundamental setback of using a blog that is hosted at a different domain or subdomain than your website: as your blog gains authority, your website won’t. Although this doesn’t mean that you can’t capitalize on your blog’s traffic, you will have to develop a strategy to convert your traffic directly on your blog, or send that traffic to your website using links and calls to action.
An effective option for many startup businesses and entrepreneurs is to use a blog and avoid building a website all together until your business can monazite a professional developer that you trust.
For those of you who are ready to get your hands dirty, so to speak, Part 3 of the series is all about building a CMS website that is set up for SEO, and doing it on your own, even if you don’t have any experience with development.
