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Business weblog basicsManual: Creating and Maintaining a Business Weblog Basics for Small Business is a collaborative project created by users of Smallbusiness.com. You can find more Smallbusiness.com Manuals here.
OverviewRegardless of whether you have a local café, run a catering business, own a printing business, fix cars, edit manuscripts, sell gift baskets, walk dogs, or any other small business, you can enhance your business’s value by using a blog. Ways to use a small business weblogMany small business owners have a few misconceptions about blogs. Some think that blogs are for journalists, political pundits, and techno-geeks. Others think that blogging is for kids and college students to vent their angst with their parents and "the man." Another misconception more commonly held by small businesses is that blogs are strictly for companies selling products online. If your company sells local services and goods, does that mean you don’t need a blog? These same local companies may even have a website, but don’t feel that a blog would provide value to their customers or employees. There are many ways to use blogs for both internal and customer-oriented activities. It is arguably the simplest Content Management System (CMS). Once it is set up, all you need to know how to do is type. Multiple contributors can easily collaborate. A blog will allow you to inform and educate the public and your customers about your company and products; it will encourage dialogue with current and potential customers, and it can drive customers to take action. The potential uses are limited only by ones imagination. Some examples are:
How to get started blogging
If you are an established business then you may already have a domain name. If not, you should choose a name and register it using a domain registration service. The cost runs about $6 to $8 per year. You should purchase it for at least two years, and can consider as long as ten years. While not a requirement for having a weblog, having your own web address is a good strategy for linking your blog's brand with you company's brand.
If you have been in business for any length of time, you probably already have a logo for your letterhead and business cards. This logo can be transferred to your blog.
Using photos and illustration will make your blog more attractive and professional looking (if done properly). There are many places to obtain stock photography that can be used for commercial purposes for a small fee (or even free). Here are a few places to look:
Keeping your weblog up to date with fresh content is important. You or your employees should add new "posts" as often as possible. Weblog software (see below) makes adding new content easy to do. In some instances, a freelance writer can be engaged to help maintain fresh content on your weblog. If you plan on hiring freelance help, there are a few places where you can put a request for bids to have the content created: craigslist.com, Elance.com, and Rent-A-Coder.com. Another great source of free content are the thousands of Article Directories that you can find online. Article Directories are places where authors and content creators can post their articles. Bloggers and webmasters can then use those articles to continually add fresh content to their sites. Selecting a weblog platformManaging a weblog requires a specialized software program. There are many choices today then ever - and not all are created equal. The first big question is whether you should use a *hosted solution* or a solution that runs on a server you maintain. Hosted solutionA hosted blog solution refers to the many available providers that allow anyone to build a blog online - and they host it on their servers, using their domain name (although many of these services offer options that will allow you to use your own URL or domain name). Some of the popular providers of hosted web solutions include: Each of these service is similar in basic features and many are free for the basic service with upgrades available for a fee.
Server solutionA big advantage of using an independent solution is the control over every aspect of your blog, in particular the templates which are used to change the look and feel of the blog. The templates are also modified when using plug-ins and integrating the blog into your overall website. The downside is that you have to be more technically inclined (or hire someone) than in the case of the hosted solution. You also need to find a host provider that will support the solution you choose.
A side-by-side comparison of blogging software can be found on this comparison chart at Online Journalism Review. How to BlogHere are some general blogging guidelines for entries that your customers will want to read:
Promoting Your BlogDo not neglect traditional marketing methods when promoting a website or blog. The URL for your blog should appear on all of your materials including:
Using the web to promote your weblog:
Syndication: When you update your weblog, most hosted weblog solutions "alert" certain services that communicate to those who have subscribed to your blog content using an RSS "newsreader" or service like MyYahoo or Bloglines. Tracking Weblog StatisticsSo now that your blog is up and running, you will probably want to track your visitors and which content is popular. Note that the success of your blog is purely how you define success. Some companies use blogs to promote and advertise their products/services, others it is purely a forum for getting feedback, some do it to generate side revenue (e.g., AdSense), while for others it is to provide hints & tips or provide support and build a solid user community. The nature of the blog will determine how you define success. You may decide success is based upon the number of subscribers (e.g., RSS) you have, or how many comments are entered, or how many sales conversions it brings. Regardless of how you choose to determine whether blogging “is worth it, or not�?, you will minimally want to track site visitors. This will provide interesting intelligence and insight into what your customers and potential customers want. So how can you track visits to your blog? There are several tools and services that can be used in conjunction with your blog, most are free (with fee-based enhancements), while others provide higher-end services for a fee. Some blogging applications, such as HubSpot, pMachine, and others, have these capabilities built-in. Here is a rundown of some of the more popular services:
These tools work by inserting some code (that the sites will give you) into your blog template. That’s it! After about 24 hours you should see some viable data (assuming you had visitors). Here is an example summary output from sitemeter: VISITS Other stats and graphs provided:
If you host your own server and/or have access to the web servers log (e.g., Apache or IIS) there are many free applications and fee-based services that will analyze your web server log. I don’t want to go into a lot on these but will post a few of the most popular, they are:
Whichever service or application you decide to use, you should first sit down and think about which metrics would serve you in determining that your blog is serving its purpose. Here are some recommended metrics:
SourceThe original post was contributed by User:Verusnova See also |
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