Getting Your Startup Blog Up and Running

First post from Jamie McHale (@jamiemchale), a frequent attendee of the monthly meetup. Jamie is Director of Telaco based in Glasgow.

Generating interest, getting feedback and building a community are all essentials for most startups. Blogging is a key way of hitting all those bases and starting to build connections. Just look at Rookie Oven!

WordPress is a very popular tool for blogging. It is a great content management system that helps you get up and running quickly.

Here are five points as to why WordPress might be suitable for your startup blog:

1. Quick Install

The famous ‘Five minute install’ is usually painless. Many web hosts offer 1-click installs of WordPress.

2. Customisability

WordPress is highly extensible. You can customise the look, feel and functionality of your blog. This makes WordPress a great choice for those who don’t know how their blog will develop. If you are worried about choosing a platform that will support future technologies then WordPress should be a safe bet.

3. Your content is yours

WordPress makes it easy to export content. Other paid providers may make it difficult to export data. Your content is yours when you have a WordPress site.

4. Easily share content with plugins

There are many great plugins that are available to use on your site that allow you to share content. From Twitter, Facebook and Google +1 buttons through to commenting plugins such as Disqus, MailChimp Social and IntenseDebate.

Sharing content means you are more likely to get the feedback, ideas and community that you need.

5. Great developer community

If you are stuck with WordPress there is a great developer community on WordPress.org. Closer to home there is the WPScotland group.

What tools do you use to build your websites and blogs? What other packages are good for those starting a company blog?