WEB DESIGN AND MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS WEBSITES phần 6 pot

Link the links: Acrobat allows designers to embed URL links right into the PDF, which can be a great way for readers to return to the main corporate site afterreading the document, visit

Figure 8-8 When rendering PDFs destined for the Web, keep the file size small by using

Acrobat’s preset compression settings

Avoid dark backgrounds: Keep in mind that many people download PDFs with the

intention of printing them, and that they print as is, so an entire column of white

text reversed on a field of black will require people to waste an inordinate amount

of toner for a single sheet of paper The more whitespace in the design, the better

This does not mean that every PDF destined for the Web should reinvent yourbrand’s look and feel, but designers should be cognizant of how people will employthe collateral

Keep text as text: Layout programs have the ability to convert text to outlines,

meaning that the shapes of the letters are transformed into vector data that cannot

be edited (This avoids missing font issues with commercial printers.) Since the PDFformat embeds fonts into the file, this is not necessary Keeping the text as text notonly keeps the file size down, it ensures that the words are selectable via Acrobat’sSelect Texttool

Link the links: Acrobat allows designers to embed URL links right into the PDF,

which can be a great way for readers to return to the main corporate site afterreading the document, visit the featured customer’s website, or launch any websitereferenced in the content

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Provide a link to the reader: You can never expect anyone to have Acrobat

installed, let alone have the most current version Always provide a link to Adobe’sAcrobat Reader, which is a free download

Interactive Interactive is a loaded term because it means different things to different

peo-ple For some, it’s a fancy way of saying “Flash,” for others, it’s taken literally and thereader really does interact with the material In terms of case studies, it could mean either,but is better defined as a nontraditional presentation of the success story—instead of longpages of prose, the content is wrapped in pieces of interactivity that the user can navigate,flipping between animated sequences, video content, testimonials, text, diagrams, andmore

Interactive case studies work best when they are rich in content Simply turning a storyinto a self-running animation sequence of moving text and clever clip art is not enough towarrant the required development resources However, if the story is accompanied by ani-mated diagrams, video testimonials, and an internal menu to select between the differentparts, then the piece becomes a much more viable medium because it demonstrates con-cepts not possible with plain text on a page

Most of the time, interactive case studies are delivered in the Flash platform This has eral pros and cons Its benefits are easy to see: a huge amount of information can behoused in a relatively noncommittal download, and people can load and browse the con-tent almost as fast as regular HTML

sev-The medium, even though it remains an industry standard, still has its accessibility blocks Many of these are covered in Chapter 3, but to summarize, the key to better acces-sibility is providing text alternatives for multimedia content For videos, provide closedcaptions For narrations, provide a transcript For Flash files in general, provide HTMLalternatives in case users don’t have the proper plug-in installed And no matter what, pro-vide a link to Adobe’s web page that allows users to download Flash Player for theirbrowser Case studies are incredibly valuable marketing content, and there’s no reasontheir message should be lost because the reader lacks the technology or physical ability toconsume it

road-PowerPoint, Word, and other proprietary files Some companies choose to distribute their

customer stories (and sometimes press releases) in proprietary formats like Word andPowerPoint By all means, avoid this practice There are a dozen or more reasons why, butthe only one that really matters is the fact that these are expensive, platform-dependentapplications that a very large, quantifiable segment of your audience does not have access

to If it’s too much trouble to convert the content to HTML alternatives, at a minimumexport PDF versions and host those instead

Story length

Case studies, unlike press releases, do not have a soft word limit, and can be formulateddifferent ways The ultimate length depends on the customer being interviewed and howmuch they offer to the interviewee, plus the richness of the actual story Never try to force1,000 words of detail into a 200-word template, and never dilute the content by trying to

stretch it across an arbitrary minimum word count By letting your case studies unfold urally, you’ll begin to sense how they can be deployed across the website as they fall intoone of three categories:

nat-Long; story style: These case studies are written to be read over several cups of

cof-fee Their elaborate prose and rich detail are written in a story-like manner, andillustrate how the client solved all their problems using the vendor’s solutions;

these studies include supporting information, customer quotes, summary bulletpoints, and more Their word count could easily fall anywhere between 500 and3,000 words

Medium; news style: These case studies mimic the brevity and fact-oriented

approach of press releases, but have just enough embellishment to avoid that title

They tell the customer story, but are focused on customer testimonials and tifiable evidence to support it Typically, these fall well within 1,000 words

quan-Short; summary style: This approach is used when there is just not much substance

to the soup, and watering down the information with gratuitous embellishmentclearly makes for a lesser product These might be the hardest to write well,because it requires editorial restraint to produce an effective case study only a fewhundred words in length

All of these mention word counts in the assumption the case study will be actually written

A different medium (e.g., Flash-based interactive) might use overall presentation time as amore effective measurement of content

Testimonials

Testimonials are third-party validation in its purest form: quotes right from the customer

The quotes can be any length, from a few words to a multi-sentence narrative, and canarrive in several formats, including plain text, audio files, and video files The hardest part

of testimonials is the actual acquisition (covered earlier in the chapter); distributing themaround the site is easy

Formats

Customer quotes can be delivered in several different formats, depending on how the ject is interviewed Plain text is by far the most common—it’s simple to gather, simple toproduce, and simple to add to a web page It’s also by far the easiest to get approvedbecause the writer and original speaker can collaborate on cleaning up the text to readmore smoothly

sub-Multimedia-based testimonials—namely audio and video recordings—are far more intensive Not only are they a chore to create, seeing as a second party actually has tooperate a recording device, but they do not give the client the opportunity of editing theirwords beyond what can be accomplished in the post-production room This also worksagainst the business trying to use the testimonial—if the quote is inaccurate, mumbled, orpoorly recorded, it may be lost; there is rarely a chance for a second take

labor-8

However, if done correctly—and if done correctly on a consistent basis—the companyends up with a library of marquee media that can be promoted heavily across the corpo-rate site, like in Figure 8-9.

Figure 8-9 When a company invests in multimedia testimonials, they can be promoted heavily across

the corporate site

Delivery

The most effective place for testimonials is in context to the subject If a customer ravesabout the professionalism and timeliness of a certain service, get that quote right up onthat page to support the rest of the marketing effort If a case study contains a number ofsolid-gold customer passages, pick the best one and make use of it as an excerpt or pull-quote next to the main text As flavorful additions to standard content, they cannot bebeat—Figure 8-2 is a perfect example of a short, potent testimonial adding tremendousvalue to the primary content

It is reasonable to create a page dedicated to testimonials, but not common practice Inorder for a testimonial to be effectively exhibited out of context, it needs to be long anddetailed, and these are sometimes difficult to write without sounding contrived, as if theinterview subject had been “coached.” It would be like trying to judge a cake after onlytasting the frosting Without the context of the cake itself, even the yummiest parts bythemselves are not a replacement for the whole experience.

When adding testimonials of any format to a page, make sure to attribute them oughly At a minimum, you should include the person’s name and their employer If possi-ble, also include their title

thor-Awards, recognition, and reviews

While case studies and testimonials present a personal testament to the company, awards,recognition, and reviews are a more objective means of recognizing a company’s achieve-ments For instance, placing a customer quote about a particular product on the productpage tells prospects that at least one other person on the planet really liked the product,whether it’s good or not But if the product wins an award, or receives strong reviews fromtrade publications, that tells prospects that the same offering has been recognized forbeing a good product after a thorough and objective series of comparison tests conducted

by an independent entity Both are valuable, but in different ways

None of this is new to the Web For years, car commercials have referenced awards that

cars have won (e.g., recognition by Consumer Reports, the JD Power and Associates Initial

Quality series of awards, or some internal award that the company bestows upon itselfafter conducting its own series of consumer tests) It makes sense for those same bits ofvalidation to be sprinkled all over the car manufacturer’s website (In fact, some manufac-turers have a submenu item in their pages called “Awards” that list everything a particularvehicle has won.) The film industry is no different A movie’s success is almost whollydependent on reviews, and to a lesser extent, awards

As you might guess, these bits of validation are best used in context of the original subject

Sometimes it’s for an individual product or service, sometimes it’s for the company as awhole For instance, in our example of the Inc 500 award, many of the higher-rankingcompanies chose to show the logo on their homepage, as you can see in Figure 8-10

These pieces of third-party validation are important to talk about on corporate websites,and should be referenced as much as possible to build credibility and prestige The public

at large puts tremendous stock in the opinions of professional reviewers, whether it’s an

award from a nonprofit like Consumer Reports or a self-serving industry award like CNET’s

“Editor’s Choice.”

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Figure 8-10 Companies winning prestigious accolades can display them right on their homepage.

This website uses the Inc 500 logo as a way of telling the public about the distinction

Summary

Third-party validation can add tremendous value to your company’s website By ing your marketing message with customer success stories, testimonials, press releases,and editorial distinctions, you help build your corporate brand value You also instill confi-dence in prospects, helping them understand that you are not marketing in a vacuum, andthat others in the world are using your products or services with enough success that theyare willing to voluntarily share their positive experiences

reinforc-9 THE CORPORATE BLOG

For years, many modern businesses have recognized the value of communicating withtheir customers about events, news, policy updates, changes in leadership, and other sig-nificant happenings within their organization In fact, some of that communication hasbeen made mandatory by law—any publicly traded company, for instance, is required toprovide quarterly financial information Over the years, marketing and public relationsdepartments have seen the tremendous benefits of maintaining an open line of communi-cation with the public On a basic level, this transparency builds customer trust, whichbuilds brand loyalty, which can be gasoline for the word-of-mouth marketing fire.Traditionally, a company’s stream of communication has flowed in one direction: frombusiness to individual Annual reports, financial statements, newsletters, mailing lists, andletters from the CEO are all positive, proactive steps in informing the public about thehappenings inside the business, but they do not allow for reader feedback All of these arecontrolled environments in which public relations can operate; the best a customer could

do was respond with a letter or phone call to voice their opinion The only forum whereopinions could be voiced by the public were annual shareholder meetings, or indirectlythrough mainstream media

The World Wide Web has leveled just about every communication-related playing field.Web-based publishers can report news the second it happens, small media outlets cancompete with large media outlets, independent blogs can compete with all media outlets,and any reader can instantly argue with anyone simply by posting a comment

The Internet community at large has become jaded to the barrage of paid opinions frompontificating columnists, vested political interests in the “unbiased” media, and news withthinly veiled corporate sponsorship People seek authenticity The fragmented Web makes

it increasingly difficult to focus on any more than a few sources of information, and usersare seeking sites with a laser-like focus on the topics they care about

The need for authenticity and topical focus has been the single greatest catalyst for thephenomenal growth of blogging Coupled with the ability to publicly comment on thecontent, smart web users have found the perfect medium to satiate their content thirsts aswell as stand on a virtual soapbox and sound off

Corporations who take advantage of blogging can also meet these simple reader needs Byoffering a topically focused blog written by members of the company, they provide theaudience with an unfiltered view into the thought process of the business while simulta-neously allowing people to comment on topics they care about While promoting an openexchange of thoughts has its potential downfalls, the benefits of a well-operated companyweblog cannot be ignored

The success of a business blog depends on several key factors:

The content and goals of the site need to be well-planned, focused, and consistent.The implementation needs to be technically sound with a means for readers toprovide public-facing feedback

The interaction between writer and reader needs to be encouraged, nurtured, andmoderated

This chapter will cover all of these points, but for now, keep in mind that while blogging isthe new cool thing all the kids are doing, trendy technology does not always align with anorganization’s marketing, public relations, and sales goals, and should only be imple-mented if it provides legitimate value to the business.

Your blogging mileage

Like any communication technology, the massive marketing potential of blogs is crippled

by their susceptibility to abuse by both publisher and reader While any company coulduse the medium to their advantage, it must also be prepared to absorb the risks as well asreap the rewards But before going into the hard-lined pros and cons, let’s explore whysomeone might start a corporate blog

Purpose of the business blog

Arbitrarily launching a corporate blog is generally not a good idea Any platform for mate conversation between business entities and their interested public has to be carefully

inti-planned For businesses, blogs are marketing vehicles Even if the president of General

Motors decided to write about pruning bonsai trees, his name would still be linked to hiscompany, and one false or poorly worded comment could dramatically impact the public’sperceptions of the software giant—whether it was intended or not

A business blog has to have focus, goals, and purpose; it needs to exist for a set of ble, real-world reasons that can be quantified (or at least qualified) to justify its existence

tangi-The worst possible reason to start a business blog is “for the heck of it.” Readership andparticipation will be much stronger if the content is consistent and relevant

Tell the news

One of the most intriguing and reader-snaring aspects of blogs is their near-realtime ery of news Almost anything significant that happens in the world is blogged before beingpicked up by the media, and the public actively looks for that exclusive, first-on-the-sceneinformation Corporate blogs can easily be built for the same type of content

deliv-Large companies are always in the news Some of them are constantly being blasted by themedia (like Microsoft, for their never-ending string of lawsuits), while others becomemedia darlings (like Apple, whose gadgets and secrecy are easy stories for reporters)

Imagine a business blog that works in tandem with the traditional media, making smallannouncements, teasing at bigger ones, always one step ahead of the public because it hasthe inside track The audience would be sitting on the edge of its seats, waiting for thenext post Here are a couple examples of the type of news that might appear

Product announcements These are the big announcements that the public waits for This

type of content is best suited for companies that have a passionate user base—

people who wait for these announcements so that they can scrutinize the product fromevery angle, possibly buy the product, and then give the rest of the world a recommenda-tion on whether to buy the product

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Keep in mind that the size of the user base has nothing to do with the users’ level of est Few of the billions of people using computers wait breathlessly for the latest driver

inter-updates for their video cards, but almost all users of Six Apart’s Movable Type publishingplatform are tuned in to the latest updates of the product.1(And the Six Apart team hasits own series of blogs discussing these very updates.) Similarly, most car owners don’t careenough about their manufacturer of choice to pay much attention to any blogs on the carmaker’s website, but there exists a small niche of dedicated auto aficionados whose pas-sion is following the automotive industry It is this second group to whom a blog from acar maker should be focused

Corporate and industry news When a company becomes entrenched in an industry,

peo-ple look to it as the expert in its field And not just from a product- or service-offeringstandpoint, but as training ground to educate a concentrated group of employees in theindustry to create a focus point for talent

Consider golf Millions of people enjoy the sport of golf—and a large percentage of themare fanatical about it—but the true talent of the industry, the people who obsess over thegrams of a driver and the shape of a tee, often end up working for companies who pro-duce golf-related equipment Businesses operating in the golf industry become breedinggrounds for golf experts

Taking that one step further, it’s a natural leap of logic to transform that technical edge and passion for the sport into blogs, as Alpha Golf did with its website, shown inFigure 9-1 The blog not only discusses the company’s products and general companynews, but the industry as a whole, from tours to individual players

knowl-Figure 9-1 Alpha Golf uses a blog to discuss its products and the industry

as a whole

1 www.movabletype.com

When a company can leverage its industry expertise into an interactive publishing platformthat encourages reader feedback, it creates a winning situation for both parties Fans ofthe organization have a place to gain industry insight from people and organizations theyrespect, and the business can connect with its customers on a direct but informal basis.

Insight into the process

An increasingly common practice for technology companies is to support internal blogsdiscussing progress, landmarks, dilemmas, and achievements regarding the projects forwhich they are responsible These blogs are generally technically focused and devoid offluff They are written by people immersed in the process for people who care about theprocess, and provide an unprecedented, telescopic viewpoint into an organization

Often, these blogs are written by a team For instance, Microsoft employees write a ber of internal development blogs One of the most popular is IEBlog, where members ofthe Internet Explorer team regularly post about the latest developments in the browserand the browsing industry in general.2This blog is heavily trafficked by web designersbecause it provides frontline insight into the future of the most prevalent browser on theplanet, and thus deeply affects almost everything produced for the Web

num-As Internet Explorer 7 began climbing out of the beta stages of development, Chris Wilson,the team leader, posted two articles on Internet Explorer 7, standards, and forthcomingCSS compatibility.3These posts aggregated nearly 600 comments each They heralded apivotal moment in web design, as thousands of web designers began planning for futurecompatibility of their websites Without the expertise of Microsoft’s team and its willing-ness to share their information through a blog, industry professionals might never havebeen able to prepare as well as they ultimately did

This type of focused content into the business process is not limited to software turers Service-based companies also openly discuss their process and projects—blogsexist for architectural design teams, legal teams, advertising teams, consultancies, andmore

manufac-All about the personality

Sometimes the personality of a company leader is all it takes to make a successful rate blog Ideally the person will discuss issues facing the company, the future of the indus-try, major product insights, and other topics that the public would expect from atop-ranking figurehead, but it’s certainly not required if they carry tremendous charisma

corpo-(Chances are if Steve Jobs were to start blogging, his site would be in the top five read blogs on the planet, no matter what he wrote about.)

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2 http://blogs.msdn.com/ie

3 “IE and Standards,” at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/03/09/391362.aspx, and

“Standards and CSS in IE,” at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/07/29/445242.aspx

Many company leaders are already widely known Blogs inflate their fame and draw tion to their company Bob Lutz, vice chairman of General Motors, blogs regularly.4Othersare not widely known but become famous after their blogs gain huge, dedicated followings.Joel Spolsky, author of the Joel on Software blog,5brought unprecedented success to hisdevelopment company, Fog Creek Software, after his posts started getting read by millions.His excellent writing, topical relevance, and fearless approach to the industry positioned him

atten-as a prominent thought leader

Naturally, a blog driven by a single authority in the company is a double-edged sword Itwill get traffic simply based on their name and title, but its content has to be vigilantlymonitored to avoid public relations nightmares You may have an outspoken, intelligentCEO who makes great jokes, but whose comments are better left behind closed doors, notrecorded for public consumption

The bad, the good, and the better

Corporations are constantly policed by their own internal PR and marketing departments,making sure their image is polished and presentable to the public Blogs present theopportunity to strip away the veneer and let some of the raw thought process of the com-pany show through While that makes for an ulcer recipe for a PR executive, it also has thepotential to benefit the company by establishing a more human face to the corporateentity

The risks of business blogging

Since companies are dependent upon their customer base, they have to delicately craftthe content and direction of the blog This is especially true for publicly traded companies,whose fortunes can rise and fall with the ebb and flow of public opinion While any of thefollowing issues can be solved or at least nipped in the bud before they grow out of hand,it’s best to avoid them altogether if possible:

Trade secrets being leaked: Imagine if Coca-Cola’s secret formula were published

on a blog, or detailed schematics of Intel’s computer chips, or the source code forWindows

Bad information being disseminated: The last thing you want is the public reading

false rumors about the management team, incorrect earnings reports, rumblings ofacquisitions, and so forth

Overwhelmingly negative response: While the old cliché “any publicity is good

pub-licity” is true, it is only true to a certain extent If a company’s blog generatesnothing but negative, heated response from the public, it should be either takendown or realigned, because after awhile that negativity is going to become afeeding frenzy of bad media

4 http://fastlane.gmblogs.com

5 www.joelonsoftware.com

Most of the risks of blogging can be addressed with training The writers and designers ofthe blog need to know exactly what can and cannot be written about, and the audienceneeds to know exactly what behavior will be tolerated before being subjected to modera-tion Once these wrinkles are ironed out, the organization can reap the benefits a well-structured weblog.

Tangible benefits

When it comes to business blogs, the benefits are both tangible and intangible There aresome that can be directly measured in numbers, or at least estimated within reason, andthere are some that are very difficult to quantify, but whose results are plainly evident Thetangible benefits, some of which are listed following, tend to directly influence the success

of the company

Deliver news faster: If a company chooses to make announcements via its website,

there will be no faster mechanism than the corporate blog

Gain reader response: One of the most valuable aspects of operating a blog is the

dialog it creates with customers These aren’t idyllic case studies or paid sons, but real-world patrons using your company’s offerings every day Their insightand responses to different topics should be taken seriously Unfiltered and unso-licited feedback is rarely so easy to come by

spokesper-Increase traffic: Few areas of a corporate site are as interesting as the blog People

understand that this is where the action lies, and that it offers the best chance offinding the juiciest bits on the company Adding a blog to a site can only increasereadership

Increase search engine positioning: Blog posts are indexed highly in search engines

for several reasons: they are topical and short, they are comprised of real HTMLtext for easier indexing, and they tend to get linked by other sites because theircontent is more compelling than the general marketing fluff present on otherpages

Intangible benefits

Just as important as the measurable advantages of corporate blogging are the peripheralbenefits that are difficult to quantify While it’s difficult to apply hard numbers to these,companies with well-organized blogs will realize these in some capacity

Position the business as an industry thought leader: If a business writes consistently

about its process, products, services, the industry, and even its competition, it willearn itself the reputation of being a principal thinker in its field When a prospectlooks to make a decision between companies, and all other things are equal, thatpotential patron will choose the vendor who is vocal and passionate about itstrade

Give the company a personality: It’s too easy to get swept up in the slick marketing

copy prevalent on most business websites, so when readers come across an entiresection written by a real person with a visible personality in the writing style, it can

be a refreshing change of pace As businesses grow, the tendency (intentional ornot) is to become increasingly faceless and obtuse, so countering that with friendly,engaging writing can be very appealing to the audience

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require-Hosted platforms

For those who lack the ability, time, or resources to implement a customized blog ment on an internal system, there are a number of plug-and-play websites that allow thenear-instant creation of a complete blog These are advantageous for companies seeking asimple, fast solution; they are not intended for companies desiring a fuller, feature-rich, con-figurable weblog

environ-Most hosted blogs are burdened with several key shortcomings Since they are often ated from predesigned templates, they often have the appearance of being haphazardlystapled to the main corporate site without consideration for design continuity Depending

cre-on the system, the alteraticre-on of these templates ranges from simple CSS and image ation to the more intense customization of proprietary templating systems On top of that,even if the primary design of the mother site can be approximated, their URLs can be dis-jointed with the rest of the site because they are not hosted locally, as you can see inFigure 9-2—although some hosted solutions allow clever redirecting or full DNS capability.Finally, hosted solutions run a slight risk of data loss simply because content is beingentrusted to a third party While hosted solutions run their own backup systems, if theservice ever folds, copies of the content might be difficult to obtain To help prevent thisworst-case scenario, many hosted systems provide manual backup options

alter-Also consider content restrictions If the host company interprets any post to be offensive

or running into the naughty section of their Terms of Use, individual entries or entire blogscan be taken down without explanation or justification, whether you consider the actionwarranted or not

Even after all these appreciable deficiencies, hosted blogs remain a viable option becausetheir free, elegant systems allow rapid publishing with little resistance, avoiding some ofthe headaches that can arise with an internally managed platform This is valuable to writ-ers and editors who may not want to hurdle technology barriers in order to post content.There are a few hosted services available to companies today

Figure 9-2 Blogs hosted on third-party systems often have URLs that are different from their main site.

Blogger

Blogger is the blogging tool owned and developed by Google.6It is an immensely popularplatform used across the world in dozens of languages by individuals who value express,push-button publishing The site boasts well-designed templates, a simple but powerfuluser interface, and exceptionally fast publishing times It is also completely free to use,including its advanced features

From a designer’s perspective, Blogger has two advantages First, you can get under thehood and edit the presentation layer Clever web designers can not only mess around withthe HTML and proprietary Blogger tags in the templates, but also tweak the CSS, images,and more to wrangle a customized design out of the system This customization is capped

by Blogger’s inherent limitations (like the fact that a single template drives both the ing page and individual post pages, and functionality is limited to available tags), but this isusually sufficient if all that’s needed is a blog, not a whole site

land-The second advantage of Blogger is its ability to point the entire blog to a custom domain

This is accomplished by entering some general access information for a host (see Figure 9-3)and pointing the domain’s DNS records to ghs.google.com This enables the business to useits established domain (e.g., blog.yourbusiness.com) rather than Google’s internal URL(yourbusiness.blogspot.com)

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6 www.blogger.com

Figure 9-3 Blogger allows companies to point the blog toward a custom domain using Google’s

nameservers

WordPress.com

WordPress is a popular piece of blog software It comes in two flavors wordpress.org isthe home of the WordPress publishing platform itself, where you can download installa-tion files, search the forums for help, and learn about different plug-ins that extend thesystem’s functionality It is a CMS that is heavily biased toward blogs, and is covered insome detail in the next section

WordPress.com, by contrast, is the hosted version of the software It operates along the

lines of Blogger—users create an online account, name their blog, and start publishingalmost immediately with a very intuitive interface and dozens of design templates tochoose from, which can be changed instantly It contains almost all of the tools of the tra-ditional WordPress software, but without the need for a local installation

While WordPress.com offers writers tremendous flexibility in publishing options, the tem itself can be harder to customize than Blogger The template is fragmented into cate-gories like CSS, Sidebar Widgets, Custom Image Header, and more, rather than beingcondensed into a flat template As you can see in Figure 9-4, customization is limited towhat the WordPress system will allow

sys-Finally, WordPress.com also offers free domain pointing, a la Blogger, but it arrives with afee of $10 per year WordPress.com also charges for other upgrades, such as expandedstorage and full editing capability of the CSS

Figure 9-4 WordPress.com allows users to edit pieces of the template, but does not allow full access

to all the HTML driving the page

TypePad

Six Apart, the company behind TypePad, is a pioneer of blogging software, having oped the venerable CMS Movable Type, which brought simplified commenting, track-backs, archives, and more to the mainstream While Six Apart still produces otheradvanced blogging platforms, TypePad is marketed as the hosted option for professionalbloggers, as it allows for deep customization and advanced features not present in theother options

devel-TypePad’s subscription-based model sets it apart from Blogger and WordPress.com

TypePad is not free to use In fact, there are four levels to choose from—Basic, Plus, Pro,and Business Class, with prices ranging from a few dollars a month to well over a hundreddollars a month Six Apart touts the latter as the “only enterprise-grade hosted bloggingservice,” and they’re probably right The Pro and Business Class levels approach the func-tionality of custom-installed blogging software—domain mapping, multiple author levels,full template control, and more—but without the maintenance headaches In addition, thepaid service allows you to get under the hood and tinker with both the functionality andpresentation

TypePad is the clear choice for companies who take their blogging seriously, and who wantthe raft of advanced features without the need for software installed on their own servers

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Locally installed platforms

Every hosted blog solution has its inherent limitations Those systems are targeted towardthe consumer not needing or wanting granular control over the design and structure Forany deep level of customization, a company should install, develop, and manage a local CMS.There are many to choose from, but most share some common requirements and capabil-ities All of them allow full control over the presentation (including template editing andcreation), the ability to develop an entire site (not just a blog), plug-ins, rich support con-tent, and more All of this culminates in seamless site integration Users should never knowthat they are tapping into a variety of back-end systems when visiting different areas of asite—the design should be consistent from the About section to the blog to the supportforum This visual alignment can rarely be achieved through strict hosted environments.There are many, many CMSs to choose from They come in all shapes and flavors, all levels

of complexity, a range of licenses, and nearly endless bugs and shortcomings There is noperfect system However, for our purposes, some accommodate blogging with fewerheadaches

Movable Type

This system, created by Six Apart, pushed blogging functionality into the mainstream.Almost from day one, the software let designers use comments, trackbacks, RSS, archivepages, and static pages for a richer user experience Movable Type (or MT, as it’s known byits users) is rock solid in terms of security, deep in terms of functionality, and extensible interms of the host of plug-ins, hacks, and more that the wide user base has created.The system is available in a variety of licenses, from free personal licenses to multiuserlicenses to an enterprise edition that affords businesses cutting-edge functionality such asuser-specific permissions and support for Oracle databases It is built for businesses andprofessional installations

Companies seeking technical support will find solace with Six Apart’s support center WithMovable Type’s rich language and highly scalable capabilities, this dedicated support isvery appealing to companies wanting a professional-grade solution

One great resource to keep bookmarked is Open Source CMS (www.opensourcecms.com), which allows the public to try out free, open source CMSs Since all software is automat- ically reinstalled every 2 hours, visitors can experiment freely The open source solutions described following—Textpattern, WordPress, and Drupal—are all available to test drive

on the site.

Textpattern is a free, open source, PHP-powered CMS.7Despite the proliferation of similarproducts, the power of Textpattern lies in its elegant separation of content and structure,the simplicity of its templating system, the wide developer and user network, and thelibrary of plug-ins that extend the core system

One of the great draws to Textpattern is its well-designed administrative interface (shown

in Figure 9-5) The system allows for several types of roles and permission levels, so agroup of users may have one master publisher, several writers without publishing capabil-ity, system admins, and designers The architecture is virtually transparent—templates are

100 percent customized by the designer without any built-in code, so the CMS can blend

in with any site

While Textpattern is a fully capable CMS, it excels at blogs It has a configurable authoringenvironment and full commenting, and supports all of the technology designers expect in

a blog, such as RSS syndication and archive pages

Figure 9-5 Textpattern offers writers a well-designed and functional authoring environment for

blogging

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7 www.textpattern.com