home > publications & resources

Blogs are not only easy to administer, they are also fairly easy to implement. If your needs are not too specialized, a blog can be created with free online tools in, literally, less than 30 seconds. Creating blogs that more readily integrate into your Web site design, however, can be a little more complex.

There are two basic ways to create a blog: 1) use a hosted software system or 2) host your own software on your own Web server.

Hosted blogs
This is the easiest way to do it. Blogs have taken off so rapidly that lots of services offer inexpensive or free ways to start blogging. These services enable you to sign up online, use a template, and start posting right away. The two best-known examples:

Blogger.com. This tool, which is owned by Google, is the easiest way to begin blogging--and it's free. If you are still experimenting with the possibility of blogging, go here first to get used to the concept. Just point your browser to www.blogger.com, fill out a couple of fields, pick a template, and start posting.

No doubt, Blogger.com is way easy. But it has its limitations. First, it doesn't allow you to group posts by category for easier archiving. Second, it offers no statistics on visits or page views, so you have to use a third-party service or else fly blind. Third, commenting is clumsy. Fourth, it has only a few template choices, and modifying a template (to, for example, add links to the sidebar) requires you to know HTML. And if you want to modify an entire template to match the look of your Web site, you'll need someone with good programming skills.

All that said, if you need a quick and free blog, it works great. My personal blog, Blogging for Associations, is hosted on Blogger.com at associationblog.blogspot.com.

TypePad.com. TypePad is a paid hosting service, with costs ranging from a few bucks a month to $14.95 or so, depending on the features you want. TypePad resolves a lot of the limitations mentioned previously, allowing for simpler commenting, a relatively simple way to add items to the sidebar, a drag-and-drop templating interface, limited statistics, and a design interface that allows you to change certain template items. You can also use domain masking so that the URL of the blog doesn't look like it's on someone else's server. However, if you want to completely customize a template — so that it fully integrates with your site's look and feel — the template programming required is extensive.

At the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, the ACCAbuzz blog is hosted on the TypePad service.

Host your own blog
If you want complete control over your blog, with total customization in application and design (so that it fully integrates with your primary site), then look into hosting your own blog program. If you don't care if the blog looks like the rest of your site, but you want a completely free blog and have the resources and expertise to set up blog software on your own Web server, this is also an avenue to consider. There are tons of free or inexpensive blogging platforms out there. Some of the well-known ones are

• Movable Type (www.movabletype.org) — the individual version of TypePad;
• WordPress (www.wordpress.org) — an open-source blog that's rapidly gaining in popularity; and
• Nucleus (www.nucleuscms.org).

Some larger organizations with more specialized needs, such as the National Association of Manufacturers (blog.nam.org) have had blogging platforms built into their content management systems. Setting up a self-hosted blog is, undoubtedly, more complicated from an information technology perspective. But once implemented, maintenance is usually minimal.

In any event, there's a blogging solution available for organizations of all sizes, staff levels, and expertise. And they all pretty much do the same thing. The only differences lie in the features or customizations you want.

Top ^
To ASSOCIATION MANAGEMENT
To ASAE home