5 Critical Characteristics To Demand From Your Blogging Software.. Does Yours Do These?

With so many blogging software options available today, it
can be a difficult task to decide which blogging software
you should use. Each blogging software solution will have
its own unique set of advantages and disadvantages, so you
should determine your needs first, and then decide which
blog software solution will work best for you. Whatever
you determine your needs are, your solution should, at
least, have the characteristics described below.

1. Your Blogging Software Should Be Easy to Install

There are many blogging software programs available today
for many different platforms. Most of them are good and
will provide much of the needed functionality a person
needs to blog on their website. However, if the blog
software isn't easy to install, and if you are not a
programmer, you will have some trouble getting your blog
started.

Even the easiest of programs to install, will be
challenging to someone who is just barely familiar with
using a computer, but if the installation is easy enough,
you can pay a programmer or even a web designer a small
amount of money to install your blog for you.

Blog software is easy to install if you only need to
perform the following steps: 1) upload the software to the
webserver 2) fill in your specific information, into a
form, such as: the URL of the blog, the database
information, the username and password to administer the
blog, and an email address. 3) click the install button,
and your blog gets installed. 4) log into your blog
program, and personalize the blog for your own website.

2. It Should Be Easy for You to Change the Look and Feel of
Your Blog

Your blog software programmed should be set up so that it
is easy to change the look and feel of your blog through a
quick menu selection. Most blogging software comes with
several pre-defined templates that will allow you to change
the look of your blog very quickly and easily.

The blogging software should also be set up so that it is
easy to add templates. Usually it is as simple as uploading
the new template into the template folder of the blog
software - if it is more difficult than that, you should
find a different blog program.

3. Your Blogging Software Should Automatically Ping Blog
Servers

One of the best features of blogging software, is it's
ability to inform other websites that your blog has been
updated. This process is called 'pinging'. Pinging is an
important feature because it tells the world that you have
new content on your blog and they should come and check it
out. Pinging is a powerful way of getting exposure and
visibility to your blog relatively quickly. Search engines
love to find new content so they have services that
specifically search the web for new content. When you
'ping' one of these services, you are telling it to check
out the new content on your blog.

Some of the better blogging programs available will have an
interface that will let you easily choose what pinging
services you can ping about the new content on your blog.
Most blog programs include some of the more popular
services as a standard feature in your blog software. If
you want to ping more services, sometimes you will have to
go into the program and change the code. A competent
programmer should be able to do this for you in a few hours.

4. Your Blog Software Should Have Search-Engine Friendly
URL's

Most of the better blogging software programs that are out
there today store their entries in a database. This means
that many of the pages are dependent upon parameters being
passed to them before they can display the pages. For web
browsers, the way that parameters are passed are usually
indicated by characters such as '?' and '&'. Some blogging
software requires that several parameters get passed before
a single page, or blog entry, gets loaded.

Search engines usually don't index url's with a lot of
parameters passed to them (lots of "&" in the URL), because
the search engines can sometimes choke on these types of
URLs. The better blogging software programs have an option
to automatically 'convert' these URLs to more 'search
engine friendly' URLs that don't 'scare' the search engines
away. These converted URLs will allow the search engines
to index your entire site, and all of your post entries,
which makes it easier for visitors to find your blog.

5. It Should Be Easy to Add New Features to Your Blog
Software

As you become more comfortable and knowledgeable about
blogging, you will eventually find the need to add new
features and functions to your blogging software. If your
software is designed to be 'plug and play', it should be
very easy to add features to your software. All it takes
is uploading a new feature 'module' to your 'modules'
directory. Some blog scripts require a lot of code changes
in order to add new features, and that can be a huge task
for someone who isn't a programmer. Sometimes it's a huge
task for someone who is a programmer.

If your blog software isn't designed to have easy plug-in
add-ons, chances are the software isn't designed for easily
adding on new features. If this is the case, you should
choose another blogging software program.

If you select a blogging solution that has the included
characteristics listed above, you will be well on your way
to using a system that will grow with you as your needs
grow, and is designed to bring more traffic to your
website. The next step is to see what programs are
available for you to use as your blogging solution. Some
of them are free and some of them cost money.

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Your blogging software can lock you into a solution that
might not be the best for your needs. Read more articles
about blogging at
http://www.allwebcontent.com/articles/Category/Blogs/4 .
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