What Type of Blog Would be Best to Promote a Large Yacht?

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Hi all IM'ers and Bloggers,

I need to know what type of blog (Wordpress, Blogspot, etc) would be best to have to promote a tall 80 meters Italian sailing schooner.

My primary goal is to make the schooner known to the World.

My idea is to have daily updates done, with pictures and the whole lot and get worldwide exposure through the Internet.

This is not going to make me any money at first as I am planning to do this for a friend who is the schooner's captain.

So far they are only using it for events and chartering it regionally around the Med but I think this fantastic boat has so much potential that it deserves worldwide promotion.

Hardly anybody around the world knows Italian. The blog will have to be done in English with possibly later newsfeed in Japanese and Chinese.

The blog will have daily news updates about the schooner.

This is only a rough draft of what I might want to do. Maybe some of you have better ideas. All suggestions, ideas and inspiration will be most welcome.

I am calling on you all blogging specialists for help and advice.

Thank you very much for reading my post and thanks a lot in advance for your answers.

  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    Word Press, by all stretches of the imagination. If he wants to promote - promote a contest with a free cruise for the winner.
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    Sal
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      Originally Posted by HeySal View Post

      If he wants to promote - promote a contest with a free cruise for the winner.
      Happy to have the two of you on board!

      If I was the captain, I would follow on your idea right on but I am only the friend and he is not the owner, he is the captain. The contest with the free cruise is fab but must find what the contest will be about...

      This is quite a large size old style sailing schooner with so much potential... 3,000 square meters of sails...

      Traditional Boats & Tall Ships Magazine: Signora del Vento: where glamour meets technology

      This wonderful boat could be doing so much more than regional cruises around Italy and the French Riviera, corporate parties and weddings. It's a waste to do so little with such a fantastic tool.

      This boat could easily do Round The World travel with lots of stopovers but maybe it is something they are not even thinking of.

      Also my idea is that it needs a much better website.
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      • Profile picture of the author ThomM
        I'd have to sat WP on it's own domain, or if you find or have a different blogging script you are more comfortable with or like better.
        If you go with one of the hosted blogs like blogger or wordpress.com you lose some of the control you have over it.
        Either way it sounds like a neat project.
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        • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
          Originally Posted by ThomM View Post

          I'd have to sat WP on it's own domain, or if you find or have a different blogging script you are more comfortable with or like better.
          If you go with one of the hosted blogs like blogger or wordpress.com you lose some of the control you have over it.
          Either way it sounds like a neat project.
          Thank you. I must have a blog that is easy to work around and manage that will look good though I would prefer that it will have its own domain. Is that feasible with WordPess? :confused:
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          • Profile picture of the author myob
            Most hosting providers come with the WordPress script for free. Or you can download it which is also free and install it yourself on your own domain.
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          • Profile picture of the author ThomM
            Originally Posted by ConcordeWarrior View Post

            Thank you. I must have a blog that is easy to work around and manage that will look good though I would prefer that it will have its own domain. Is that feasible with WordPess? :confused:
            Sure is, just be sure to download WP from http://wordpress.org
            After that go to WordPress › Free WordPress Themes and choose a theme you like.
            Normally if you want tto change the header it's as simple as going into the theme's image folder and finding the current header image. Make your new header the same size and change the name of the original image to header1.jpg (whatever the image name is just add a 1) then name your new header image what the first one was and put it in the image folder.

            The basic stuff in WP are pretty easy, plus there is a lot of documentation and instructions for it.
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            Life: Nature's way of keeping meat fresh
            Getting old ain't for sissy's
            As you are I was, as I am you will be
            You can't fix stupid, but you can always out smart it.

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            • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
              Thank you. I emailed Captain friend with my project. I will wait for his answer and see if he likes my idea. I will need to get regular newsfeed from the schooner to do the blog. It takes two to tango as they say.
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  • Profile picture of the author HeySal
    LOL - Hi sweetie, glad to see you emerge from the cave. How's the weather in Burgandy? Water flowing like champagne at an opening? Are you still in the middle ages or have you rejoined the 2000s?
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  • Profile picture of the author Indiana
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      OK gals and guys. Here are the latest news.

      Mr Captain seems quite happy with the idea of having a blog complementing the boat's site.

      I have decided that WordPress will be my choice.

      Getting to the tech stuff... there are two WP the '.org' and the '.com'.

      As a newbie I think the '.com' will be the easiest to manage. I am not sure if I can do the '.org' without having to deal with html codes and the whole schmeer I don't have time to learn it at this point.

      Also 'signoradelvento.com' is already taken by the boat's site. Having the WP.com mirror name will be a good thing. Just logical, efficient and simple and easy to find.

      Then I will have to deal with the tags for the search engines I suppose...

      I must act quickly and get the blog set up. I already have most of the basic info I need (only need to change it from Italian to English) and there's lots of my own pictures I can use.

      This will be many hours of work already. From there I can proceed with news updates.

      I need to find help on doing the tags. Any web page you recommend for that? Any other ideas or suggestions are always appreciated. Thanks in advance.
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      • Profile picture of the author ThomM
        It sounds like starting with wordpress.com would be the best place to start for you CW.
        If in the future you decide to go with wordpress on your own site you can transfer the posts over at that time.
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        Life: Nature's way of keeping meat fresh
        Getting old ain't for sissy's
        As you are I was, as I am you will be
        You can't fix stupid, but you can always out smart it.

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        • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
          Originally Posted by ThomM View Post

          It sounds like starting with wordpress.com would be the best place to start for you CW.
          If in the future you decide to go with wordpress on your own site you can transfer the posts over at that time.
          This is very good. I had no idea that a transfer from one to the other was feasible. Thank you.

          I will come up with more questions along the way I am sure and this will be a good learning experience. Once I get this one running then I can get into more sophisticated stuff.

          I will have to make sure it gets picked up by the search engines (Google, Yahoo...) fairly quickly. That's another job there...
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  • Profile picture of the author Roncham
    Another option for you is to have the owner, or you, add a folder named blog on the signoradelvento.com site (signoradelvento.com/blog) then install Wordpress into the blog folder. Then your blog is on the same domain as the main site. Your login to the blog can be different than his for the main site login if the owner wishes.

    Wordpress is very easy to install using Fantastico which comes with most cpanel hosting accounts.
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      Hi Roncham,

      This is an idea, yes, but I prefer to have my own work done independently from the site.

      The owners are a maritime company in Italy I don't want to have to look them up and have to write letters to be authorized and the whole thing.

      If Mr Captain was the owner it would have made everything a lot easier.

      Maybe this can be done later if they see that the blog is more successful than the site. Then they will want it for sure. In the mean time I have to get to work and show them what is possible to do.

      It's like the Beatles song,
      gonna try with a little help from my friends...


      Originally Posted by Roncham View Post

      Another option for you is to have the owner, or you, add a folder named blog on the signoradelvento.com site (signoradelvento.com/blog) then install Wordpress into the blog folder. Then your blog is on the same domain as the main site. Your login to the blog can be different than his for the main site login if the owner wishes.

      Wordpress is very easy to install using Fantastico which comes with most cpanel hosting accounts.
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      • Profile picture of the author Paul_Kuhn
        Originally Posted by ConcordeWarrior View Post

        ... The owners are a maritime company in Italy I don't want to have to look them up and have to write letters to be authorized and the whole thing.
        But by promoting their schooner you are doing their job, don't you?
        Originally Posted by ConcordeWarrior View Post

        ...My primary goal is to make the schooner known to the World....
        Ahoi!
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    • Profile picture of the author Loren Woirhaye
      Originally Posted by Roncham View Post

      Another option for you is to have the owner, or you, add a folder named blog on the signoradelvento.com site (signoradelvento.com/blog) then install Wordpress into the blog folder. Then your blog is on the same domain as the main site. Your login to the blog can be different than his for the main site login if the owner wishes.

      Wordpress is very easy to install using Fantastico which comes with most cpanel hosting accounts.
      I think I read something from Matt Cutts stating that Google
      likes to rank blogs well when they are set up in a /blog subdomain;
      an added benefit is this approach allows you to alter and
      play with the main page without disturbing the blog hosted
      in the subfolder.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    After you get the blog set up, think video. You want to create and promo as many videos as you can, about the boat itself and any and all desinations/ports of call.
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    • Profile picture of the author ConcordeWarrior
      Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

      After you get the blog set up, think video. You want to create and promo as many videos as you can, about the boat itself and any and all desinations/ports of call.
      Oh... this is one wonderful idea... Thank you!
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      • Profile picture of the author Kurt
        Originally Posted by Kurt View Post

        After you get the blog set up, think video. You want to create and promo as many videos as you can, about the boat itself and any and all desinations/ports of call.
        Originally Posted by ConcordeWarrior View Post

        Oh... this is one wonderful idea... Thank you!
        I woke up a little too early this AM...Let's go into a little more detail...

        Create and market as many videos as possible, using Tubemogul, Heyspread, etc.

        Also take plenty of still pics. Create tons of galleries of this at Flickr and all the others, linking back to your blog.

        Take some of the best pics and create screen savers...Submit to all the various screensaver directories to build links back to your blog.

        You have tons of content topics...The boat itself, similar vessles, the history of similar boats, each destination, etc. Add to blog, submit the blog's RSS, ping, and bookmark all the videos, galleries, etc.

        You could benefit from press releases. Every time the boat is getting ready to leave, send a Press Release and include a picture or two of the boat and destination, etc., along with the basic info.
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Motley
    WP.

    If you are interested, i have unlimited domain support/emails/sql database on my host and im nowhere near using even a fraction of the offer
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  • Profile picture of the author wallsinn.com
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