Real Lawyers Have Blogs : Law Blogs, Social Media, Twitter

Amen to that. Three reasons. One, it looks better to have your own domain name. Two, it is much easier to remember. Three, many countries, including China and Vietnam frequently (or always) block ALL Blogger, Typepad and Wordpress blogs. If I had a dollar for every time I have had to tell a blogger that it is not his or her blog that has been blocked, but all blogs, I would be as rich as Kevin already.

Kevin,

I agree that there is certainly an important branding component in a blog's URL - however - to me it seems a question of "what is the blog's purpose"? If the blog's purpose is to serve as a conduit of one's voice to "the masses" - then - I tend to think its the content vs. conduit that is the key (i.e. substance over form). However, if the site is either part of something bigger (i.e. corporate web) or is a standalone resource with content beyond one person's view - than I would agree with you about the need for branding. As an aside - many bloggers continue to use blogger domain names and blogger - or the like - because they are already entrenched with it (familiar/readers/etc.), or they are people who inherently like to use technologies that are low/no cost, or they are just blogging purists - who got into blogging because they wanted to quickly have a voice without having to go through IT or MARCOM to have a web page developed - and doing the whole web/url thing is what prevented them from "writing publicly online" in the first place.

Thanks/Rob

Kevin

You risk confusing the issues for your readers:

If you're going to blog, use your own domain name - agreed

You can do this with all the main hosted blog platforms

If you have a hosted blog, the downside is you are subject to functional limitations and are "hostage" to the host

The upside is someone else does all the hosting, maintenance and upgrades

There are many professional-looking blogs hosted on these services using their own domain names; they can readily "upgrade" to hosting their own blogs when they choose

Kevin - thanks for sharing the article with your community and also to your readers for the healthy debate.

I knew when I wrote the article that it may be contentious as some well known bloggers have done well with Blogger or unbranded blogs.

And of course given my area of interest I am going to comment about the online identity and branding of your business blog.

One of the key reasons is also what I wrote in my last paragraph of the original article:

'Investing a little in implementing a business blog that is hosted on your website not only makes you look like you take business blogging seriously as part of your online marketing strategy, it also means that every link to your great content is a link to your website.'

As you know for your clients, incoming relevant links are like gold when it comes to search engines.

Especially if you are business rather than a person blogging independently, why waste all those wonderful links coming to your blog and not also getting the benefit for your own corporate site?

As for small businesses and solopreneurs then I'd recommend that you develop your corporate website and integrate a blog for your articles using blogging software hosted by yourself - I know a number of solopreneurs in professional services who have benefited from that approach.

Nick's comments about being 'hostage to the host' are certainly correct. Just this week I had someone contact me to let me know their Blogger blog seemed to have been taken down - though I don't know why.

And a while back one of my Typespad feeds was 'infected' with content from someoneelses blog - all due to an error by Typepad.

I am sure this discussion is one that will run and run - so thank you for facilitating it!

Hello Chaps

Both sides of the argument are nicely outlined here...but I think the answer is horses for courses.

In my experience, customers that are more au-fait with technology and how it can be applied - are quite happy to blog on any of the platforms mentioned above; their main thought is not about what's in the address bar, but rather to have a conversation and dialogue with their colleagues, customers, etc.

Regardless of whether they are comfortable with the in's and outs of applying their own domain names or being capable of choosing a hosted blogging environment over hosting it themselves does take away from the common issue for any new blogger : the finding their feet phase.

I don't think this should be underestimated - whether it's doubt about their writing smarts, the time they give to it, or their ability to have a consistent output.

If they are blogging as an employee of an organisation - then there many be issues or sensitivities in using their personal brand which should probably be considered.

So my takeaway would be the following; give the customer the pros and cons of hosted blogs vs. hosting it themselves - they ultimately will decide on whether the additional cost/effort is justified.

Peyton is right. The goal is to have an informed buyer who understands the plusses and minuses so the buyer can make an informed choice as to whether their business blog is worth the expense of paying somthing for it.

De's point is that business blogging takes time and that the ROI can be very high. Knowing that, De is warning business bloggers that they should be creating links to a domain they own, as opposed to links to a sub-domain hosted on someone else's service.

Nicole, agree that the vast majority of traffic to your blog comes via links and via the search engines. Rarely do people key in the url anymore. The point here though is should you ever want to leave that sub-domain, you lose the links to your blogs.

It's those links to your blog by which Google is determining the importance of your blog and pushing it to the top of the search results.

Good points, but what of the fact that people generally arrive at web content via a link on the web, as opposed to typing in a URL?

Good points, but what of the fact that people generally arrive at web content via a link on the web, as opposed to typing in a URL?

I agree and you have a points there. Very interesting concept.

Daniel