…Because the way the internet works today, a static brochure site is like a car up on blocks: You can sit in it, you can show it to people — but it ain’t going far.

After discussing some issues in the comments to that post with my friend maiki interi (a talented and thoughtful Web developer), I’ve decided to correct an important piece of advice.

Originally I advised: “You can create a blog using a free service like WordPress.com and integrate that into any site.” Maiki correctly observed:

“Seems to me to be [that may be] massaging the truth, on a technical level. Of course it depends on what you mean by integration.”

I was thinking over what it would really take to integrate a blog into a static site. It can be done, but yeah, it’s a lot of hoops to jump through. Plus, there are many ways this integration could be done badly. Also, it’s not reasonable to expect a non-technical business person to know what to request from a web developer on this front.

So here’s what I’m going to recommend instead: Integrate your brochure site into a blog, not the other way around.

This does NOT means starting over from scratch. You can still use most or all of what your web designer originally built for you. However, you’ll be strapping it to an engine that will play nice with the internet and actually get your business moving.

This also does not mean your site has to look like a conventional blog. It can still mainly look like a brochure, if that’s what you want.

So here’s what the nontechnical people can do to reconfigure their brochure sites…

1. Set up an account on a blog hosting service

If you’re willing to live with some limitations on design and layout, you can use a free blogging service. I recommend WordPress.com. If you need more control over design than those services offer, try Typepad (which isn’t free, but it’s pretty inexpensive: $15/month for a pro-level account, which I recommend if you have custom design needs). Squarespace is another popular blogging service that can handle this job. (Pro level: $14/month)

Whichever blogging service (also called “blogging platform”) you choose, make sure it allows you to create a blog that includes pages, not just posts.

A blog page is like a page on a brochure-style site: It’s a good way to publish information that doesn’t change much, like your “Services” page. Blog posts are items that will be listed in reverse chronological order in the blog part of your site.

I don’t recommend using Blogger (another popular free blogging service) because it doesn’t allow you to create pages, only posts.

Make sure you set up the account yourself. It’s easy. But you want to own your account, make sure your e-mail is associated with it, and that you’re getting billed for it (if you choose a not-free service).

2. Ask a web designer to recreate your brochure site as blog pages.

This means taking all the design elements and assets (logos, colors, etc.), code (HTML), and content (text, photos, etc.) that comprise each page of your existing site and copying it into a corresponding page on your new blog-based site. You’ll end up with a set of pages that exactly replicates your original site.

Ask the web designer to make the new page addresses (URLs) and page titles (the Web designer will know what this is) EXACTLY match those from the pages on your original site.

Also, don’t change any content on your pages — yet. The shift to your new site will go much more smoothly if all you’re trying to do at this point is recreate your site exactly in its current form.

If you’re not technical, you must give your web designer access to your blogging account to do this work. So make sure it’s someone you trust, and tell them not to change the login. They cannot get access to your credit card information (if you’re using a paid service), but a nefarious or clumsy designer could end up locking you out of your account.

3. Map your domain name to your new site.

Once your site has been copied onto on your blogging service, you need to tell the internet it’s there. This involves something technical called domain mapping, and you’ll probably need help from your web designer or another tech-savvy person for this.

A domain name is the main address of your site on the web. Typing a domain name into a web browser takes you to that site’s home page. (For instance, the domain name for this site is Contentious.com.)

If you’ve already bought and are using a domain name for your existing site, you’ll want to get that domain applied to your new site. This is very important for making your business easily findable through search engines, and for people who already know your site.

After your new site (which so far is just a carbon copy of your old site) is up and running, ask your web designer to map your domain to your new site. Here are domain mapping instructions for WordPress.com. This is an extra service that costs about $10/year. Typepad offers domain mapping as part of its base fee.

Domain mapping takes a little time. After the technical work is done to map your domain, it’ll take a few days for servers around the internet to notice and start routing the traffic to the new site. So be patient.

Once your domain is mapped to your site, when you type your domain name into your web browser, your new site will pop up. As long as the new pages have URLs that exactly match the URLs from your original site, the search engines won’t get confused and existing inbound links won’t be broken.

4. Create your blog within your new site

In my experience, small business owners and independent professionals typically don’t want to spend a lot of time posting content online. If you don’t think you’ll post fresh content (articles, observations, photos, specials, etc.) frequently, then don’t put your blog on your site’s home page, because it’ll just make your site look stale.

Instead, tell your designer to designate one of your new site’s pages (recreated from your original site) as the home page. Then, create your blog as a section of your site and list it in your site’s main navigation bar. I recommend calling it “News and Views” to give you flexibility in what you can post there.

5. Learn how to post to your blog

Once your new site is set up, log in to your blogging service and post an item to your blog. Follow the blogging service’s instructions

Make your post short and relevant — just 2-3 paragraphs is perfect. If you’re not immediately comfortable writing in the blogging service’s posting form, then draft your post on your computer and copy it into the form. However, use a text editor (like TextEdit or Notepad), not a fully-featured word processor like Microsoft Word

I recommend picking a story from current news headlines that’s very relevant to your business or field of expertise, link to it, and write up a few short observations about it. The point is to quickly demonstrate your value and relevance. Do you disagree with the local paper about the potential impact of proposed parking regulations near your business? Is a new technology potentially important to your clients? Did Time Magazine overlook an important point about international shipping?

Practice creating links. If you’re referring to a specific news story, look it up online, copy its web address (URL), and link to it from your post. Both WordPress.com and Typepad make this very easy.

Work your links into the flow of your writing, don’t just say “click here” or “see article.” For instance, a link in your post can look like this:

“Philly.com reported today that SRS Energy is building a new solar roofing tile plant in Montgomery County. This project is funded partly by state programs promoting a green economy in Pennsylvania. I think more local companies should be aware of and could apply for these programs…”

…From there you could add a little more information, maybe list a couple of business sectors that you serve that could benefit from this information. And then maybe link to the program’s web site, or provide a contact phone number or e-mail for the program. And that’s enough for a post!

The point is to emphasize, not expound. You don’t have to be comprehensive in order to be useful, timely, and interesting. Make your first few blog posts quick hits. Make it easy on yourself and useful for the people you hope to reach.

Now your new site is really ready for action.

From here you can follow the rest of my advice: steps 1, 3, and 4 from my earlier post.

Try posting to your blog at least a couple of times a month, if not weekly or more often. After you’re comfortable with posting, learn more about categories and tags — tools that will make it easier for people and search engines to understand what your site covers.

This strategy should work much, much better for your business than a stale, limited, hard-to-update brochure site. It’ll be easier to stay connected to your current and prospective clients and allies.

Of course, if you’re creating a web site for your business for the first time, it’s best to use a blogging service right from the start. It’s always easier to do things the right way the first time.

…Honestly, it kinda burns me up that some designers are still selling small business people on static brochure sites that don’t allow blogging, and which often they can’t update on their own. I see no point to brochure sites for a business. For an individual product? Maybe. But for a business? No way.

Have fun with your better business site!

Last week, GigaOm reported that Nokia is now suing Apple, claiming technology patent infringement. And on Oct. 15 CNET reported on Nokia’s dire slide in the US smartphone market.

According to GigaOm:

“Nokia is looking to collect patent royalties of 1 or 2 percent for each iPhone sold, according to a note from Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, which — given the roughly 34 million iPhone units already in the hands of users — would amount to $200 million-$400 million. That’s not a lot of money to either company, of course. But Nokia is clearly hoping it can be more successful in the courtroom than it’s been in the marketplace.”

Nokia: Really? Is this what you’ve sunk to?

There are far better ways. Here are some options…

Nokia: How about finding ways to get the price of your smartphones phones down to compete with the iPhone?

How about offering smartphone service to your US users on reasonable terms? If my ultra-expensive Nokia phone breaks, don’t make me mail it back to you at my own expense and wait up to a month to get it back. Don’t tell me to drop by one of your flagship stores — because you’ve only got two (count ‘em: two!) US stores.

How about achieving both of those first two goals by finally cutting some deals with some US carriers? I know you don’t like the way they play. No one does. They all suck. But they do rule this market. If you want in on this market, you’ve got to play with them.

If you want to be accessible to most US smartphone consumers, they need to be able to buy, service, and replace their Nokia phones locally. Plus getting a subsidized price break for handsets would help a lot.

Yes, unlocked phones are nice…  IF they’re not outrageously expensive to buy, or exceedingly onerous or risky to repair or replace.

Also, how about releasing Android phones? Symbian and Maemo are OK, but just too geeky for most folks. I really don’t understand why you’re still fighting Android when you’re already losing in this market.

Nokia, if you care about the US smartphone market, then please start acting like you really want to be here. Work with us. Stop digging your heels in and telling us what you think we should want. Rather than snapping at Apple’s heels, why don’t you invest in building a real business here?

You make pretty good smartphones, Nokia. I like them. It’s just the recalcitrant way you do business that turns me — and a lot of other would be Nokia users — off cold.

If you don’t want to be here, then just bow out. You’ve got a strong market presence in the rest of the world. You may not really need to be a player in the US smartphone market.

The biggest challenge in business is deciding which business you’re really in. That’s partly about deciding which business you want to be in, and also not kidding yourself (and others) about what business you’re really in. Nokia, I suspect you need to ask yourself some frank, basic questions about the nature of your US smartphone business

The apparent crack epidemic sweeping the executive suites of media organizations across the U.S. has claimed another victim.

Mark Cuban loves the news business. Over the years he’s done and said some smart things in media. But on his blog a few days ago, he took a big ol’ nose dive straight into the shallow end of the pool.

In his Aug. 8 post, My Advice to Fox & MySpace on Selling Content – Yes You Can, Cuban exhorted news sites to start blocking access to links to their content coming from aggregators. So, for instance, someone might encounter a Newser summary of a USA Today story — but if USA Today blocked inbound links from Newser, someone who wanted to learn more from the full story would click the link and go nowhere.

Here’s the key point for news orgs to grasp: The audience would NOT view Newser as the problem there. Newser has already provided value with the story summary — and they were trying to provide the audience with even more value through a direct link to the full story.

Instead, the news organization would be spoiling its own reputation by presenting itself as an obstacle. The blocked aggregator link in effect says “We don’t want your attention unless you come to us our way, even though we’re not providing the kind of easy summary through aggregators that obviously meets your needs and attracts your interest.”

To which the audience would more likely respond, “Yeah, screw you too. I’ll take my eyeballs elsewhere, thanks.”

Not exactly good for the news business.

The sad and scary thing about Cuban’s post is that a lot of news execs will probably listen to Cuban right now, and maybe even follow his advice, because they’re scared and he’s playing to their fears, prejudices, and weaknesses. It’ll be sad to watch.

Perhaps the one bright spot in this mess is that it may be technically simple to get around aggregator link blocking…

Matt Nelson commented shortly after Cuban’s post hit the web:

“The day after the news providers start blocking aggregators is the day a browser plugin is published to hide or spoof the referring site. I would bet that the next major release of Firefox and Chrome would then incorporate it by default, with IE avoiding it until the loss of market forced them to relent.”

I’m not a web developer, but I just had a quick chat with a web developer I know. He confirmed that there are multiple technical options to get around blocked links — from browser plugins to proxy servers. This kind of subversion might reduce the significant harm news orgs would be inflicting upon themselves by blocking aggregator links.

But more likely, the more news orgs put obstacles between people and their news, the more likely it is that more open competitors will win out. As commenter Rob Levin noted:

“Why is this any different from free vs. paid radio? There is a fundamental disconnect in trying to make a business out of something where the product is not scarce.”

Michael Wolff, founder of Newser (a popular news aggregator that Cuban singled out for attack) published a pointed retort to Cuban. Wolff made an excellent point about giving today’s audience what they want, rather than trying to force them to surmount various obstacles just to get the kind of news that news organizations think they should want:

“People who go to aggregator sites don’t really click through to the original story. But he misses the profound and game-changing aspect of that fact: They don’t want to read the original story. Habits have changed on the Internet, where information comes faster and from many more sources. Hence, news needs to be short and it needs to be aggregated, which is precisely what brand-specific news sites lack: News from diverse outlets that can be consumed quickly. Here’s the rub: People don’t want news (there’s too much of that), they want aggregation (ie, efficiency and ease), which there isn’t enough of. Oh, yes, and free.”

I don’t agree with Wolff that “people don’t want news” — I think they do, as long as it’s relevant and (increasingly) efficient. That means providing summaries, and being available through aggregators.

As I noted earlier today (see Washington Post: Go Gawker Yourself), news organizations probably have more to gain by creating their own summaries and aggregators than by railing against the people who spotted this opportunity first. Or, if they’re just not up to that challenge, they could actively partner with aggregators, bloggers, and entertaining “newsmockers” like Gawker and The Daily Show to make the relationship more mutually beneficial.

Sigh…  If only staging a mass intervention for this crack epidemic would work. As Molly Ivins wrote in 2006:

“I don’t so much mind that newspapers are dying — it’s watching them commit suicide that pisses me off.”

But at least not everyone’s on the pipe. If you want to see a genuine bright spot, read this Aug. 4 commentary by Reuters president Chris Ahearne: Why I believe in the Link Economy. He wrote:

“I believe in the link economy. Please feel free to link to our stories — it adds value to all producers of content. I believe you should play fair and encourage your readers to read-around to what others are producing if you use it and find it interesting. …Let’s stop whining and start having real conversations across party lines.

“…Our news ecosystem is evolving and learning how it can be open, diverse, inclusive and effective. With all the new tools and capabilities we should be entering a new golden age of journalism — call it journalism 3.0.”

If you like what Ahearne had to say (or if you don’t) be sure to tell him on Twitter.

So I’ve amended this post to reflect that information. My earlier advice to submit even if you still wanted to tweak your application was wrong, and I’m sorry for any confusion I caused.

——————–

This year I’ve been mentoring several people who are applying for Knight News Challenge grants. The deadline for applications is midnight on Saturday, Nov. 1 — so this is your last chance to toss your hat in the ring for this year’s round of funding.

I’ve noticed a few idiosyncrasies of the submission process that may confuse some applicants, so here are 10 tips to help you get your application in order…

1. Be patient! Site may be slow. Understandably, right now the News Challenge site is receiving peak traffic — so site performance is suffering at times. Sometimes it may take anywhere from several seconds to a minute or more for a page to load. I know this can be frustrating. However, if you’re submitting, commenting on, or rating an application, remember how important this process is and stick with it. Go get a cup of tea, take a deep breath, and be Zen about it.

2. Don’t wait until the last minute. If you have your application mostly ready, post it in their system and save it. However, DO NOT HIT “SUBMIT” until your feel it’s ready enough to be judged. Knight has already started judging (and in some cases rejecting) proposals submitted thus far. You apparently can continue to edit your proposal even after it’s been submitted — but you won’t necessarily know when the screeners have started to review it. Still, don’t run the risk that site performance problems in the hours or minutes before the deadline might interfere with your submission. Also, you want to have at least a little time to encourage people to rate and comment on your application. (See 8 below.)

3. To do anything, first register at the site. Whether you want to submit an application, or comment on/rate a submitted application, you need to first register with the site (free, fast, easy). You can’t do that on the home page, so go here and click the “sign up now” button (top right).

If you’re already registered on the site, you must of course sign in before you can do anything there.

4. The Garage is NOT the application. Many people took advantage of the News Challenge Garage to get community input on their ideas, in order to refine their proposals. However, if you have a project in the Garage, that does NOT mean you have officially applied for your grant. ASAP , you must submit a formal application here before the application deadline.

5. Editing required! Garage and application forms are NOT completely identical. When I was helping Tom Vilot submit his application for the Skyguy project a few days ago, we realized that some of the fields in the application form give you less space than the corresponding fields in the Garage.

Therefore, don’t assume that you can simply copy over your Garage project info into the application form. If you have more text in a Garage field than the application form allows, the application will truncate your info. So you may have to edit what you’ve already written — which can be difficult (even painful), but it is necessary.

Here are the character-count limits for key application form fields. Before you copy your Garage info into these fields, use the character count function in your word processor to edit your responses down to size. That’s much easier, faster, and safer than trying to edit text via Knight’s web-based form:

• Project title: 100 char.
• Describe your project: 1800 char.
• How will your project improve the way news and information are delivered to geographic communities? 750 char.
• How is your idea innovative? (new or different from what already exists): 750 char.
• What experience do you or your organization have to successfully develop this project? 1600 char.

Also, be aware that (unlike in the Garage) the News Challenge application system appears to delete paragraph breaks. So, for instance, if your project description is 1799 characters long, but broken up into 4 paragraphs for easier reading, expect that after you submit it the site will display that text in one long paragraph. Yes, this is frustrating — probably as much for the screeners as for the applicants — but it’s the current reality of this system.

Therefore, when editing the text for your application, I recommend hat you enter it all as one big paragraph in your word processor. This will help you make it as readable as possible within that constraint.

6. Upload an icon. If your project has a graphic icon, make that your first of your five permitted file uploads associated with your application. Anything you can do to draw attention to your project helps.

7. Save as you go! The application form allows you to save your work as you go. Again, I recommend that you edit your text offline in a word processor for safety. However, once you copy edited text into the form, save it! And as soon as you feel it’s ready to be judged, submit it. You can continue to edit submitted applications, but you may not know when it’s being reviewed.

At this point, it’s unclear to me whether your proposal will be assigned a permalink (that you can direct people to) when it’s saved but not submitted — or whether people can rate/comment on saved-but-not-yet-submitted proposals. Try saving it and see if those features work for you.

8. Ask people to rate or comment on your application — NOW! I honestly don’t know how important ratings or comments are to Knight’s selection process, but since Knight does ask for these — and highlights the top rated entries, it’s logical to assume that they do factor into this process.

So after you submit your application, e-mail all your friends and colleagues. Give them the direct link to the proposal (the actual application, not in the Garage) and ask them to rate it and leave a comment. Let them know they must first register on the News Challenge site if they haven’t done so already. And ask them to be patient with the site if pages are slow to load.

If you used the Garage and received comments there, know that Garage comments are NOT automatically transferred to your application. It’s likely that the News Challenge screeners will review input on your project from the Garage, but I’m not 100% sure about that.

Therefore, I recommend that you contact the people who commented on your project in the Garage. Send them a copy of their comment, and ask them to repost it on your application — and again, give them a direct link to your application, and warn them the site may be slow-loading. Yes, I know this is a hassle, but it can’t hurt to ask…

9. Upload supporting materials. You can upload up to 5 files as supporting materials for your application. Each file can be no larger than 20 MB — but there are no restrictions on what kinds of files you can include. So, for instance, you might want to upload letters of recommendation or intent from organizations in your project’s target community to demonstrate that you have alliances in place to make your project work. Or a short video or audio recording (compressed to a suitable file size). Or you could compress several files into a zip archive to upload as a single file — such as for a collection of photos.

Of course, don’t go overboard with your file uploads. The News Challenge screeners have a LOT of applications to process. Expect that they’ll only check out your file attachments if they decide your project is worth a closer look.

10. DO THIS NOW!!! Again, waiting until the last minute may be risky, given the News Challenge site performance issues already manifesting. Take a little time today — right now — to edit your application and submit it through the News Challenge site. Waiting can only work against you.
…OK, that should get you going. Once again, do NOT wait until the last minute! Get your application online NOW!!!!!

And good luck!

“What’s the real difference between a blog and web site? Can I have a link to my favorite sites, favorite videos, host a forum, etc. on my blog, or am I better off just building a Web site…and maybe having a blog on that. Likely I will probably only do one or the other.”

My take on this is that the difference between blogs and web sites is steadily vanishing. These channels are definitely converging.

In fact, they started out converged. After all, a blog is nothing more than a kind of web site supported by a content management system that provides a useful collection of features: Comments, a permalink for each post, categories, tags, a home page where the latest content automatically appears on top and earlier stuff scrolls down, etc. (If you thought a blog was something else, see: What’s a Blog? Bag the Stereotypes)

So what’s someone who’s just starting out online with a blog or site to do?…

Keep in mind that blogging is far more versatile than it used to be. You can embed video or audio or photo galleries in your posts, use the blog as a base for a podcast, integrate widgets or interactive tools, and have separate static pages for things like your bio. It’s not just text anymore.

However, today’s “blogging tools” generally can do so much more than mere blogging. For instance, WordPress, which started out as an open-source blogging platform, has grown to become a full-fledged content management system. Blogging is just one part of what you can do with WordPress. You also can integrate static pages, forums tools, media libraries, and virtually anything else you’d want to have on a “web site.”

So my answer to Dan is: If you think you’ll want to do more than blog, choose a platform that will let you expand. If you think you’ll want things like a forum, video library, or wiki, you’re probably better off building a site in on a more full-featured platform like WordPress, Drupal, Movable Type, or Expression Engine. Then you can start with a blog and grow from there.

In contrast, if you’re pretty damn sure you’ll never ever want to do anything more with your site than blog, then you’re probably fine with a hosted blogging service like Typepad. It’s technically simpler, the cost is low, and you don’t have to update your software.

If you’re not sure, then I recommend either starting with a full-featured CMS and just use it for blogging at first. That gives you room to grow later.

The important thing is: Your site should have its own domain. Don’t settle for a subdomain like dan.typepad.com. Having your own domain not only improves your search visibility — it also makes it more feasible to move your blog to a different platform or host if necessary. (Never fun, but sometimes necessary.) If you decide to start with a hosted blogging platform like Typepad, be sure you map your domain to it right from the start, so every page on your site bears your domain in its URL.

Also, your site should definitely include a blog, even if it’s not limited to that. And your blog probably should appear on your site’s home page. Why? Search engines love blogs. They really, really, love blogs. And if you’re in the media business, you want search engines to love you — because like it or not they have become the arbiter of your career.

Think of your blog (or the blog portion of your site) as Media Career Insurance. If you use it right, it can allow opportunities to keep finding you, regardless of what happens with your current job or employer.

I asked these students whether they read blogs. As is common, the vast majority said no. But, as with Web users of all types, it’s likely that in fact they do read blogs far more often than they think. That’s because nearly all Web users frequently encounter blogs through search engine results. But they may not realize that, since many weblogs don’t call themselves (or resemble) blogs. In fact, they often look just like any other Web site — except that they happen to be supported by a blogging platform on the back end.

Why should young journalists care about this? Because in a professional environment where staying findable equals sustained opportunity and flexibility, search engines are a key arbiter of your career. The more findable and linkable you are, the more search engines will reward you.

…And search engines really, really love blogs…

Journalists at any career stage who hope to keep working and stay relevant (regardless of the fortunes of any or all news organizations) should aspire to be as findable as possible. The easiest way to achieve this is to use your very own blog to build a strong, persistent personal brand.

The key to building your personal brand is to publish easily findable content on your own site — not just via your employer’s site, nor just within a community site or group weblog. Your very own site.

Having your own blog is media career insurance. It will serve as your “home base” where you establish your personal reputation, track record, abilities, interests, and aspirations. It’s a rewarding, useful, persistent way to be professionally and personally generous. It can attract help, insight, serendipity, and opportunity. And it lets you achieve all this consistently, despite inevitable changes in your job, bosses, beat, location, or goals.

Even better, blogging tools make online publishing easy so you’ll probably publish more often.

It’s never too late to start your own blog. Still, the earlier you start, the better. Search engines (especially Google) tend to accord higher rank to sites that stick around. Thus you can end up well-positioned in search rankings simply by starting a blog and sticking with it.

You don’t even have to blog every day. Over time, even blogging as little as a few times per month can yield fairly strong search positioning.

Here are my tips for starting and running your own blog:

1. GET A GOOD DOMAIN NAME

Pick something that’s easy to spell and remember, and that preferably ends in .com, .org, or .net. Don’t make it too cute or too restrictive — but you can still have fun. For example, even though I own the domain for my last name (gahran.com), since 1998 my main blog has been Contentious.com. This was originally intended as a pun on the then-nascent term “content,” but its unintentional open-endedness has given me considerable and valuable room to explore a wide range of topics beyond media and journalism.

However, choosing your name (like HowardOwens.com) or nickname (like DigiDave.org) as your blog’s domain also can work well.

The ultimate point of your blog is to promote your personal brand, so your domain should be more about you than a particular topic or place. This gives you room to change, grow and publish what you want. Also, owning your own domain gives you the option of switching blog platforms or hosts without losing the benefit of traffic and search rank you’ve worked to build.

2. MAP YOUR DOMAIN TO YOUR SITE

This will cause every page on your site to bear your domain in its URL — which helps search visibility and page rank for your site.

Domain mapping is important if, for technical simplicity, you choose a hosted blogging platform like TypePad. There, the default is to assign your site a subdomain like myblog.typepad.com — which is less impressive to search engines. Avoid hosted blogging services that don’t allow you to map your domain to your blog.

If you have your own Web hosting account (such as with GoDaddy or DreamHost), and register your domain there, your domain will probably automatically map to your site.

Note: Domain mapping is much easier to do when you first start to blog, rather than apply retroactively to an existing blog. But retroactive mapping is better than none, if you want search visibility. Just be sure to employ 301 redirects from your old site URLs, so Google will know you really just moved your site, it’s not a new or different site.

3. STICK WITH YOUR DOMAIN

Time and continuity work in your favor with search engines. The longer you blog at the same domain, the higher you will probably rank. If you have an established domain that gets search visibility, it’s probably best to stick with it even if your focus changes over time. Resist the temptation to rebrand yourself with a new domain, or to spin off special-purpose blogs under separate domains. This dilutes your “Google Juice.” (See now why it’s best to choose a domain name that gives you room to evolve?)

4. DON’T WORK FOR ANYONE WHO WON’T LET YOU KEEP YOUR OWN BLOG

Ever. It’s just not worth it. Consider maintaining your own blog a basic right of being in the media business. The danger with agreeing not to blog is that you sacrifice the findability that you’ve worked to build — and that you will need more than ever if or when your current job ends.

It’s kind of like this: What if you have your own personal IRA for retirement. You’ve been paying into it for years, it’s building up. You get offered a shiny new job and they tell you, “If you want to work for us, you have to cash in your IRA. No, we won’t reimburse you for penalty fees. Don’t worry, we have a great 401-K plan. The catch in, if your job here ever ends, you don’t get to keep any of the money from that 401 K.”

Bad deal.

That said, it is fine to negotiate with your employer about reasonable concessions regarding your blog, such as no blogging on your site about workplace issues. But outright blogging prohibitions should be a flat dealbreaker.

Most media employers do back down on flat blogging prohibitions and negotiate compromises if challenged. So I strongly recommend that you push back and negotiate. No employer should be able to dictate your online identity. They don’t own who you are.

5. JOIN THE CONVERSATION, AND LINK BACK TO YOURSELF

For many reasons, online conversation ultimately makes you more findable. And if all the conversation channels you use point back to your blog, Google will love your blog more. That’s because inbound links from other sites (even in comments you make) are a key ingredient of Google Juice.

So when you comment on other blogs (and you should), always link back to your blog’s home page. Put your blog’s URL in your e-mail signature line. Include it in your social media service profiles, plus anywhere else you can think of. Don’t worry, this isn’t pushy; it’s normal. It’s even expected as a matter of courtesy and transparency.

6. KEEP YOUR OWN BLOG GOING, EVEN IF YOU ALSO BLOG ELSEWHERE

For instance, I have always blogged on Contentious.com even though I edit Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits blog and probably post there more frequently. That’s because Contentious.com is the core of my personal brand. I have collected a valuable community there.

Furthermore, Contentious.com currently boasts a Google page rank of seven (out of a possible 10). By comparison, the main Tidbits page currently ranks at six, while the Poynter Online home page ranks at seven.

…How are you using your blog to build your personal brand? Has it helped you through career transitions (such as from journalism to academia, or from reporter to editor, or from employed to self-employed)? What tips would you offer? And if you still don’t have your own blog, why not? Please comment below.

(NOTE: I originally published this on Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits on Sept. 16, 2008. See the comments there.)