Using a Blog (weblog) to market your property

[debk]

Why is Textpattern tops for you?

I was rather hoping the speed was just a problem on this side (got a new modem yesterday, too). But since you see it, typepad is definitely not going to work for me.

I'll check your other recommendations but would be curious what makes those two your favorites.

Thanks!
debk

[debk]

OK. I identified one of my concerns with having a commercial blog be your website: When google caches you, it will not point to your URL... it will point to the blog. I don't want that. But, again, I can't yet explain why.

[Garri]

Debk, you should visit the following site where you can logon to various test admins of various blogs and test them out:

http://www.opensourcecms.com

Very useful resource.

I like TXP because it was dead easy to install and configure on my server; tons of plugins which are dead simple to install and play with; easy to understand and use; open source and written in php so I can hire developers to write plugins if/when I need them.

It basically just appealed to me more than the others.

The downside is that it requires some knowledge of xhtml and css to get the most from it, to really make it zip and do what you want. There are certain limitations, as there is in all of the software I've tried, but nothing a little imagination can't resolve.

For my purposes I've had to think a bit differently as to how information is structured and had 2 choices. I made the more difficult choice of the two because the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, as I'm asking it to do something unnatural.

Wordpress seems to be incredibly popular but I didn't find it was as nice as TXP - it seemed too bloated, like Movable Type has become over the years. TXP by comparison is very lean and elegant and I get the impression I can 'see' more of what's going on underneath it all, I just understand it better. So it works for me in that sense.

[thisfrenchlife]

In answer to a few questions...
...for search engine optimisation you can tweak this and that and place keywords etc. personally the main things I do are articles and swapping links.
Blogs are perfect for search engine spiders as they are full of internal links which will often use keywords in the actual link text, a real plus that one.
And I place selected links on a page and obviously ask the same in return. But I know I have more links to my articles that people link to directly, without looking for a link back in return.
People can spend too long studying search engine optimisation and considering how quickly the rules change, it's a bit like painting the Forth Bridge.
I think it is worth spending this time writing articles and getting them on your site.
I'd also see a blog-style site as a way to supplement your holiday home income as you can link in with affiliate schemes providing links to car hire, travel insurance, money exchange etc.
And naturally you can feature links in the blog to your main holiday home site.

CraigMcG

[la vache!]

Debk,
well done on your blog, its far more professional than my effort! Haven't had time to do anymore on mine yet, but hopefully will continue with it and thanks to everyone for their advice. Joanna, you are quite right, I will de-personalize my blog, I don't have photo's of kids in my pool on the website for the same reasons you mentioned in your post. I will concentrate on the area/events etc. that may interest people.

[debk]

Thanks, CraigMcG, for your insight into positives for blogs. Those were some of the reasons why I put "blog" on the to-do list for the VRs.

However, it still seems that I should have a 'normal' website for VisitingPortugal.com and just link to a blog. That way, my site is actually VisitingPortugal.com. Google/etal will crawl it and cache it... and the links from the blog are just more plus positive. (This is contrast to actually using blogs to create your entire website.)

Would you, and anyone else, agree/disagree with the above paragraph?

Thanks everyone. Great info around here!

[Garri]

Would you, and anyone else, agree/disagree with the above paragraph?

Not necessarily, no. Blogs are increasingly becoming regarded, albeit within a small but exponentially growing community, of being 'normal' websites - better than normal because of the built in news feeds which is a massive bonus. Start using RSS technology and you'll see what I'm talking about.

You can use Textpattern, and probably most other cms tools, for managing whole websites with a mixture of static and dynamic content. Or purely static, or purely dynamic - it's very flexible. I don't really see it as purely a blogging tool in the same way as say Typepad or Blogger.

If you 'roll your own' cms system you could skillfully have the one website which doesn't necessarily have to look like a blog but can encompass blogging advantages and fullfil your needs to maintain a 'normal' web site.

Like I've said before, it's all in how you apply the technology here.

And, I will hold this up as a perfect example of a site which uses Textpattern to skillful, and in my opinion, stunning effect: http://www.seecroatia.net

[Garri]

Having just re-read the title of this thread I've realised that I've gone off on a tangent somewhat and my emphasis has been more on: how to use weblogs to manage your property's website.