Have you recently thought about a blog even though you have a website? What tools do you need to be aware of when you get your blog handed over to you? Are you aware of all the capabilities or are you using just a small portion of what's available in your new blog? There are many new capabilities but first let's discuss the areas you should be aware of? 1. Your Existing Domain 2. Your Existing Links 3. Your Email Capabilities 4. Your Look And Theme 5. Your Marketing Plan 6. Your Security 7. Your Branding Domain -The key areas being your existing domain name are your basic foundation.

That is your domain name and the usage of it. Is it for multiple website or does it house one website. Are you using many sub domains? Linking - You currently have links to other websites, you do not want to lose them. Your BLOG is a content management system and has dynamic page generation.

You don't want to lose your ranking in the search engines so you have to care for your links. Emailing - Then there is email usage. Blog post can generate a ton of traffic. Do you have additional emails with your existing website package? Should you get a free email to handle the additional traffic? Feeling - Next consider your Blog's theme, its look and feel. Currently you have an HTML website which is free form design and developed in Dreamweaver or FrontPage or some other software.

The design is wide open and some Blogs impose restrictions' you need to address up front. Marketing - Then you look at how it will help marketing using your basic tools. After that consider how will BLOG software help with branding and consistency of look and feel for your customer. Don't forget to consider and address security because you can have multiple users. Then when you are done with those issues, consider getting help on your overall marketing strategy.

Security - Consider the existing HTML website is pretty basic. There is one user, you and access is controlled by you and your webmaster. So now you have users who can become part of your community when they comment or log in to your Blog which can't be done with your HTML website. Branding - Finally your website has a whole set of branding capabilities that have been put in place. However there are more built in capabilities that you should be aware of and you need to take advantage of once it is turned over to you.