Unloading On Compendium Blogware

There is a small buzz going around about a recent blog post by Jeb Banner at SmallBox (a local website design firm) about some of the techniques and tools implemented by local blogging giant, Compendium Blogware. In his post, The Problem with Compendium Blogware, Jeb talks about the merits of the Compendium system and whether or not Google will be punishing Compendium in the long run because of a tweek in their algorithm.

To be completely honest with you, as a small business owner, I think the bigger problem is the fact that Compendium is still selling and overtly offering their service to small businesses that cannot afford a $6,000 blogging tool that they can get for free on WordPress. I don’t want to debate the merits of a tool that is better or worst than WordPress. I don’t want to debate whether or not Compendium has better functions and offerings than another free blogging platform out there.The simple fact is that Compendium is targeting the wrong consumer group for this product.

I will be the first to say that I don’t care about the backend programming merits of one blogging platform over the other (no offense Jeb and Chris). I can tell you first hand and from experience that WordPress works for me. Plain and simple.

I have a corporate blog we just started on our company website Brandswag (using wordpress) and I have the personal blog that you are reading now. Why would I spend $6,000 dollars, which is 10% of my overall revenue, to buy a tool that is free online? I just haven’t seen the value yet. I get great search results on my blog from using the WordPress platform and I can actually tell you the amount of money I have made because of my search rankings and because of my blogging. Why? Because I measure it.

I can understand a corporation using Compendium. Heck, I will refer clients to Compendium if they have the revenue to support the kind of investment the tool costs and if they fully understand the strategy behind blogging. Most small business owners simply should not invest 10-20% of their revenue into a tool when they do not understand the concepts, the fundamentals.

Start small and graduate big.

Start with a WordPress site and get the hang of blogging. Once you understand the value of content and you realize a return on investment make the switch (if you want).

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