Using a Blog (weblog) to market your property

[Garri]

Susan, you've done the easy bit - setting up a blog, so now comes the tricky bit: applying it skillfully to your needs.

Originally you wanted it for collecting and publishing comments from guests. So, set up a post called Guestbook and switch on 'allow comments' function.

I can understand your reluctance to publish personal stuff e.g. you, your family and pets. Here's the deal: you don't have to be personal in that way.

If you're uncomfortable with something, as you seem to be, then don't do it - let your instincts guide you in this.

You could be personal in a different way as you have a distinct advantage of living in the area. So, perhaps think about using your blog to document what's going on there e.g. activites, festivals, courses (cookery, painting, whatever).

Review them and make comments about them from your perspective.

Use your blog to collect all these things and arrange them into categories. Switch off the 'allow comments' function for these types of posts. You really only want to corral comments on the guestbook page - your original raison d'etre.

Anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say is plan your strategy for the blog and make it do what you want it to do. Start with the Guestbook idea for now and then build upon it.

[Alan Knighting]

Alexia,

I may be wrong but I think that Websites tend to be laid out in page format to break them up into logical chunks and to avoid scrolling. I don't think there is any technical constraint on the length of a Webpage.

Alan

[Garri]

Another question. Are other people's posting, comments, etc. added to the blog site automatically as they are on a forum or does the site owner have to add them manually?

Comments are automatically added by the person commenting but once they've submitted it they can't edit or delete it.

The publisher/owner of the blog can delete them, or approve them before they're published.

What I'm seeing on my travels is owners closing articles for comments after a certain time period.

This can all be achieved in the respective blogging software back end.

[Garri]

Alexia, your man may know about Philosophy but he knows diddly about colours. Please tell him orange against a green background is a no no!

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

Could you also give some pointers as to the relative costs of creating and maintaining a blog as opposed to a personal Website. Things like obtaining, registering and maintaining a domain name; hosting a site; software required for the creation and maintenance of a site.

Also, does a blog owner get a full set of statistics about the use of the site?

Questions, questions. When will they end?

Alan

[Garri]

Alan,

To answer your question about prices the same rules for registering domains, hosting etc apply to blogs. However, there are 'hosted' blogging solutions such as Typepad, Blogger, Squarespace and many others, whereby they charge an annual fee. It's all set up and hosted.

Or you can roll your own for free and host on your own domain ...

I'm using Textpattern, which is open-source and free. You can test a few cms solutions over at the excellent opensourcecms.cms

Easy to download and set up and comes with a variety of plugins.

Most blogs contain stats built in, although not that extensive they are OK. So in my Textpattern admin section I have a tab called logs. It shows me all the referrer links.

I'm currently looking at signing up for a stats application called Mint - it looks great but devilishly trendy http://www.haveamint.com/

[la vache!]

Garri,
is this better - there are no comments possible now on the standard things, just the guestbook blog entry.

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

On balance, are you saying that it would be better to create a personal Website using a blog template rather than using Stylemaster, etc.?

Maybe, maybe not, the ideal approach would be to use a blog template as the first step and then to import the results into Stylemaster and an HTML editor like Dreamweaver for further refinement?

Alan

[Garri]

Alan, you can still use those tools you mention and you're right, this can easily be imported into the blogging templates. Although I do think using Dreamweaver in this scenario is much like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut (so as to speak)

I think if you know a smattering of html/css you can really make the templates sparkle and manipulate the content to your needs.
You really need to experiment on the quiet - as I'm doing

[Garri]

Susan, yes better.

If possible you need to make the Guestbook post 'sticky' i.e. always appearing at the top, as most recent post. Not sure if Blogger lets you do this but other platforms are more flexible in this regard.

Also, I've just viewed your first comment and it looks like comment spam to me - so this is a brilliant example of what I was talking about earlier.

[alexia s.]

Susan,
I don't know if it's a "comment spam" (I'd call it a "parasite"), but it's awful! Can you get rid of it? I think I'll invite comments through my mail and then post them if they're relevant.

[alexia s.]

"orange against a green background is a no no! "
Gary, it's been statistically proven (Haendel and Scheonberg, 1989) that 87.75% of academic philosophers are colour blind. I think any colour will be a no no.

[Garri]

Alex, I'm colourblind too but I know that orange against green is a no no to non-colourblind people. My art tutor used to refer to is as being discordant, actually he described all my work in that way (he was a really nice bloke though)

[Alan Knighting]

Garri,

I only mentioned Dreamweaver on the basis that one needs to edit content somewhere. In fact, with Stylemaster I think that Notepad is more than adequate for generating and maintaining the content. Maybe the text editing tools in the blog site software are enough.

Your'e probably right. Get one (which one?) of the free offerings and play with it.

Whatever the tools, I find the most difficult bit by far is deciding what a site should look like and what it should say. My artistic talents are slightly short of zero. Many people observe that I have nothing to say but I insist on saying it. They are not the best attributes to have when designing a Website, are they?

I tend to be a bit of a minimalist and I do question the relevance of personal websites which are so crammed with information that they rival the local tourist information office.

I am rather warming to the concept of blogs. I am seeing them as "all things for all men" limited only by the vision of the creator but easier to create than would be the case by taking a more traditional approach. Want to publicise your gites? Want to be an information source? Want to run a diary of public and personal events? Want to maintain a photo-gallery? Want to get good SE ratings? Do it with a blog! Am I now getting over-excited or should I be under-whelmed?

Alan

[paolo]

A comments book is just one of the interactive applications. Site visitors could also leave their views on specific restaurants, markets, villages, attractions, shops, etc. So you could get others to populate your site with reviews which potential renters will find useful, interesting, and 'sticky'. Ditto search engines.

Which blogging software allows you to use your normal domain name? Presumably the paid ones?