Don't Use Blogger Custom FTP

We used to implement Blogger custom FTP for clients, but now are no longer recommending its use. Blogger custom FTP is where your blogger account is set up to allow your blog posts to be archived back on your own domain server using FTP for search engine benefits.

The problem with Blogger custom FTP is that it is easily crashed, sometimes can take hours for the FTP part to send the posts to your server, and if you have a custom template can be fraught with problems.

If you want the search engine benefits that a blog affords, I strongly recommend that you use WordPress back on your own server. Upload and posting time is very snappy and you won't end up at the mercy of Blogger when they do updates. We migrated several customers several months ago when Blogger had a reported bug for custom FTP clients as it took two days to publish blogs.

Another issue with Blogger custom FTP is label bloat. If you end of with many labels on your blog, get ready to spend hours deleting them as your publishing time will move to hours from seconds. The best option if you simply cannot use WordPress is to use Blogspot with a custom domain setting. We have found out that you really do not take a hit with the search engines when you are not using custom FTP blogging.

Integrating Your Blog With Your Website

If you have a website and have added a blog to get the flow through traffic benefits you need to cross link both your blog and your website.

It is easy to link your blog to your website. It is typically done in the footer of the page as well as in the sidebar. You can even deep link to your website by using the BlogRoll option in WordPress if you are not HTML savvy.

On the website side, it is best if you include your blog as an important link in your main navigation. I have seen some times link only in their footer and this is a missed opportunity as your site visitor will typically be focused on the top level navigation. Remember that the top right section of your page is hot real estate. Having a button, icon or image to point people to your blog at this location builds on eye tracking studies and will drive traffic from your website to blog effectively.

Don't have the links to your blog be secondary in nature or added as an after thought. Blog traffic needs your initial assistance by heavily linking from your website to your blog in an effective and comprehensive way. Don't set your blog up for traffic problems by not doing your part to effectively integrate it into your website.

Blogger, You're Fired!

That's right, we're firing you Blogger. Frankly, you should take note of this post. For sites that have complex custom blog templates and are using Blogger custom FTP, the issues with blog post publishing are getting so bad that we are migrating many of our clients to WordPress.

Here's a real world example:

Stern Environmental Group has a complex blog design. It is done in compliant CSS and using Blogger to FTP the posts to the www.SternEnvironmental.com/blog. In the last two months we have had nothing but trouble since our client's new template was installed.

At first, we thought it was an issue of too many labels. One of our blog writers created a new label for nearly every post. We took time to clean up the labels and instituted a new procedure where labels were predefined for the writer. Still we had publishing problems and they were getting progressively worse.

This past week, even after Blogger had fessed up that their new update had impacted sites like this one with complex templates, and that they said they had corrected the problem a post from Wednesday did not appear until Friday. On top of that a post from Friday did not appear on the blog until Sunday. Mind you, I had been in to the control panel numerous times during this period trying to get Blogger to publish the posts.

In fact the problem was so bad, that the Friday morning post arrived to me via email via Feedburner, and the link to view the post online was broken; as Blogger had still not gotten its act together to publish the post. Good grief!

So, Blogger, you're fired. Stern Environmental Group is moving to WordPress.