Here’s a ’short list’ of the best software options when you’re using blogs to boost your internal business growth, and/or for marketing with business blogs. They’ve all been tested and worked over well either by the RPM Success Group tech team, or by our blog coaching clients.

Here we’ve split them three sub-categories — free, self-hosted, and third-party hosted.

Free Blog Publishing Software

Well, free kind of says it all. Quick, simple, and no cost — these are the top two choices for permenantly free third-party hosted blogs (a blog hosted on a server you don’t control).

WordPress.com


This is where you get the reliability of the WordPress open source software without the upgrade and maintenance responsibilities. This is the option we recommend for students of the Marketing With Business Blogs course who don’t feel they’re ready for a self hosted blog yet. When you’re ready to move your database to your own self hosted WordPress blog on your own server later …. no problem. It’s a snap!

Blogger

This is an easy-to-use blog hosting service where you can quickly post thoughts, interact with people, and more. Simple, not much customization, and very limited tracking capabilities, but a great way to get started for the truly ‘techno-phobic.’

Self-Hosted Blog Publishing Software

Here are the top blog publishing software applications that are installed on your own servers. If you want absolute control over technical details, search engine optimization, configuration, and customization — one of these options will work well for you and your business.

WordPress.org

WordPress is a state-of-the-art blog publishing platform. The focus is on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. WordPress is a massive open source project that is the de facto choice for top a-list bloggers and business bloggers alike. This is the recommended choice for business owners who are serious about marketing with business blogs, or who want to build secure, functional internal blogs for business efficiency.

Since it’s open source, it’s free. The only thing to remember is that you will be responsible for upgrades and maintenance on the software. But this is easy to do yourself, or very inexpensive to have done for you when you hire a programmer on Srciptlance or Rent-a-Coder.

Greymatter

Another open source software with fully integrated comments, searching, file uploading and image handling. It’s completely customizable through dozens of templates and variables, multiple author support, and many other features.

Movable Type

Movable Type is a well supported weblog publishing tool for individuals, organizations, and web developers … but for a fee. Each business license will cost you a pretty penny. Since it’s not open source it’s not as flexible as the other programs listed here. Some support is included, but from what we’ve heard from business owners — don’t expect to get your hand held.

‘Third-Party Hosted’ Blog Publishing Software

This is a list of fee-based blog publishing software for hosted services. That means you will pay a monthly fee with any of these. They’re all very affordable services and may be your best option if you want to focus purely on publishing (less on upgrades and administration,) and you have limited need for direct search engine optimization of your own domain(s).

BlogHarbor

BlogHarbor offers the easiest and most powerful way to publish on the web. With easy-to-use templates and advanced blogging features, bloggers and businesses both find BlogHarbor blogs the best web publishing solution available today! Lots of great tracking features built in here too.

TypePad

TypePad is a powerful, hosted blogging service that gives users a rich set of features to immediately share and publish content. TypePad is always on the move, trying to give bloggers the options and tools they want.

SquareSpace

Need a new website and looking to start a blog at the same time? SquareSpace is a managed publishing service that lets you effortlessly create and maintain complex multi-page web sites with integrated blogs. Another good option for business owners who don’t need that much customization and want all updates managed for them.

No matter which software you choose to get started with, don’t worry too much about making the “wrong choice.” The most important thing is to start blogging for your business now. You can always have your blog’s database moved to your another host or to your own domain very inexpensively.

If you have any kudos or added recommendations, be sure to share them with a comment.

Enjoy!

Copyright © RPM Success Group Inc. 2002-2006. Other bloggers and journalists are allowed to excerpt and link to posts (as is common with bloggers,) as full credit/attribution is given to AdvancedBusinessBlogging.com and RPM Success Group Inc.

Learn how to unleash the maximum marketing power of business blogs, podcasts, and RSS (in any industry, profession, or niche) with Marketing With Business Blogs™.

John-Paul is a published author and weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin. As a Click-and-Mortar Business Coach he helps small business owners integrate offline and online influence strategies for rapid, reliable business growth. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].