Construct Canada video

Here is the youtube video from Construct Canada that I took yesterday.  Today’s posting also helped me understand some of the processes needed to transform the primary blog site from blogger to a self-hosted WordPress account, as I discovered the intricacies of the “API Key” and the distinction between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.  If all of this is far to confusing to you and you are wondering what it has to do with Construction Marketing, you have yet to discover the wonderfully complex space of transforming a blog from a commercially hosted site to one you control and administer yourself.

This is why most start-up blogs use the readily available templates and services, and these (blogger and wordpress.com) do the job quite well, for most situations.  The weakness is your lack of control over the final result, and the fact that your blog is not really yours.  Practically speaking, this doesn’t matter much — and if you are using your blog as a marketing resource, I would advocate using the off-the-shelf services to get started (unless you want to spend much time learning, or pay significant fees for expert support.)

But if you are serious about blogging, and the blog has become a significant business resource, there comes a time to make the switch to the self-hosted model.  This is harder to do, in some ways, than getting it right from scratch, especially if you have built up a strong search engine ranking in your original site (like I have).  The answer for me is to make the change gradually, then complete the switch over when you have some time for the extra technical stuff.

This is why the official “launch” of this WordPress blog won’t happen until Christmas Break, and will coincide with the announcement and voting of finalists for the Best Construction Industry Blog contest for The Design and Construction Report.

(If you are here now, and wondering what this is all about, don’t worry.  For really useful construction marketing ideas, simply visit http://www.constructionmarketingideas.blogspot.com — at least for the next few weeks.)