In a era where quality content is more important than ever before, blogs are a surefire way to make sure that your website stays fresh, while providing your business with an opportunity to be a thought leader. A well-written blog can position your brand as an authority, provide visitors a reason to return to your site, and also help with search, in an uncertain SEO world. While being active on social sites like Facebook and micro-blogging sites like Twitter is important, smart businesses are also taking ownership of their own content and developing blogs on their own platforms. So what’s the best blogging platform for your biz? Here are a few of our top picks. WordPress – As one of the top blogging platforms, WordPress is easy to set-up and free to operate. It has tons of template options, so customizing the look and feel is easy to look the same as your website. WordPress is extremely versatile, doubling as a website CMS, and it supports everything from portals to enterprise level sites – all on a PHP and MySQL database. Joomla – Offered as a simple extension, the WordPress for Joomla blogging component is growing in popularity due to its easy out-of-the-box versioning and posting. It isn’t quite as easy as WordPress, and simple coding may be required, but it’s not as complicated as some other platforms. Joomla also runs on a PHP and MySQL db and is compatible w/ Windows Mac and Linux OS. Drupal – A free CMS built on PHP, Drupal modules are easy to install and customize – if you are a programmer. A blog on Drupal is feature-rich and scalable, but it works best only if you have the technical programming staff in-house or plan to contract with someone who can include this as part of your website maintenance agreement. Blogger – A Google tool that is easy to use and can be accessed from your Gmail account, Blogger is good for both new and advanced users. Plus, it is easily indexed by search engines. On the downside, Blogger’s interface and functionality has some restrictions. For example, it doesn’t allow importing of content from some blog sites (if you’re switching over), contact forms or comment editing. At the end of the day, the best blogging platform for your business will depend on your preference and content management abilities. While some companies shy away from blogs, thinking they will be a time-suck, the bottom line is that blogs are more important than ever to a company’s overall marketing plan. In a era where quality content is more important than ever before, blogs are a surefire way to make sure that your website stays fresh, while providing your business with an opportunity to be a thought leader. A well-written blog can position your brand as an authority, provide visitors a reason to return to your site, and also help with search, in an uncertain SEO world. While being active on social sites like Facebook and micro-blogging sites like Twitter is important, smart businesses are also taking ownership of their own content and developing blogs on their own platforms. So what’s the best blogging platform for your biz? Here are a few of our top picks. WordPress – As one of the top blogging platforms, WordPress is easy to set-up and free to operate. It has tons of template options, so customizing the look and feel is easy to look the same as your website. WordPress is extremely versatile, doubling as a website CMS, and it supports everything from portals to enterprise level sites – all on a PHP and MySQL database. Joomla – Offered as a simple extension, the WordPress for Joomla blogging component is growing in popularity due to its easy out-of-the-box versioning and posting. It isn’t quite as easy as WordPress, and simple coding may be required, but it’s not as complicated as some other platforms. Joomla also runs on a PHP and MySQL db and is compatible w/ Windows Mac and Linux OS. Drupal – A free CMS built on PHP, Drupal modules are easy to install and customize – if you are a programmer. A blog on Drupal is feature-rich and scalable, but it works best only if you have the technical programming staff in-house or plan to contract with someone who can include this as part of your website maintenance agreement. Blogger – A Google tool that is easy to use and can be accessed from your Gmail account, Blogger is good for both new and advanced users. Plus, it is easily indexed by search engines. On the downside, Blogger’s interface and functionality has some restrictions. For example, it doesn’t allow importing of content from some blog sites (if you’re switching over), contact forms or comment editing. At the end of the day, the best blogging platform for your business will depend on your preference and content management abilities. While some companies shy away from blogs, thinking they will be a time-suck, the bottom line is that blogs are more important than ever to a company’s overall marketing plan.