Website Words that Work!

Here’s a topic that does not go away. How much should I —  must I –  blog? Last month, in response to a blog by Debbie Weil, corporate blogger, I said, maybe not so much.

Maybe that’s not the full answer, though. Nick Stamoulis, blogger, author, at Brick Marketing, weighs in this week with his thoughts. A must-read! So, surf over there and check it out. My blog  on the topic is still live, and you’ll want to see the comments there, too. Chris McElroy picked up on the resurfacing of the conversation and his 2 cents is for more, not less, blogging, as he says in the comments to my blog.

So, do I have the definitive answer for you on how often to do your small business blogging? We need to keep exploring the topic. And maybe, just maybe, the answer is individual as well as SEO-related: as in, what’s YOUR goal for your blog?

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Marketing Blogs, SEO, Small business blogging by Judith
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Can you use a blog site without ever blogging? Using it as a Website instead? I’ve been asked this question by potential clients who do not want to blog but want to be able to make their own changes to their small business brochure sites. The answer is yes. Absolutely. You can use the software and it is mighty easy to use. That’s one of its greatest assets and what’s made it so ubiquitous in so many professions and fields of business.

Blog software, though, is not the only answer for small businesses. Other content management software might better serve a small business site. And some of it is free, too, just as the popular blog software is. So, if you’re thinking about building a quick blog to replace a static site, we may have a better answer for you. 

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Functionality, Small Business by Judith
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Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Online Content by Judith
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I was at a local meeting of the American Marketing Association (AMA) at lunch and was reminded of all of the links that bloggers create. The speaker, from LeverageSoftware.com, a company that sells online community software, talked about all of her Facebook, MyPlace, and blog connections.

I haven’t personally done a lot of Facebook or MyPlace, but I do have a LinkedIn account, and I was reminded that I had not visited it for some time. Been neglecting it. So I dropped in and I invited a few friends and colleagues to link to me (and me to them). That linking is a valuable part of this whole new Live Web. It plays into the blogging we’re doing. It’s the exciting part where I plug into your thoughts and you plug into mine. It’s that virtual clink, that LinkLinkLink we hear in the blogosphere.

Linking and connecting is the heartbeat of blogging for business.

Ultimately, the idea is to get way way beyond just shooting SEO keywords back and forth to optimize sites; ultimately, Live Web is about connecting and listening to each other’s comments.

Is that listening happening a lot? That’s something I’d like to know, something that will either make blogging a big part of my life and business, or not. IMHO, the jury’s still out on that one, but I’m rooting for success.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, SEO, Small Business by Judith
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Great discussion going on the last couple of days on The Best and Worst Business Books. The list, posted by BNet, points to the 10 most overrated and 10 most underrated business books. I’ve read about half of the books, and I pretty much agree with the lists. I can’t help wondering why The Tipping Point is on the underrated list, though, since “tipping point” has entered the language mainstream as a result of the book. But I’m right with them on the Who Moved My Cheese book — who needs to read a whole book to get that point?

That aside, here’s an interesting exercise for anyone considering starting a business blog: check out David Meerman Scott’s blog and the comments that logged in under his posting. Then check out the Websites of the commenters. And you’ll catch just a glimmer of how a blog convo moves through the sphere.

Go ahead and jump in on the conversation, too. Here’s where your opinion as a business owner counts the most. Those books are aimed at us entrepreneurs, so go ahead and log in your thoughts.

And, ok, a few more opinions from me on those books: Next on my list is The Long Tail for more on niche marketing and then Nickel and Dimed, been meaning to read it since it came out. But I doubt if I’ll read the finance book for Dummies. Boy, am I ever sick of that series!

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Small Business by Judith
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Just when I’m convinced that the gurus are right — you’ve gotta blog every day if you want your voice to be heard in the blogosphere — one of the top business bloggers breaks the rules.

Debbie Weil, who wrote the book on corporate blogging (The Corporate Blogging Book), is blogging less. Why, you may ask, would a leading blogger and marketing expert cut back on blogging?

Life and its hometown joys interrupted, it seems.

One comment to her blog interested me especially –From David Koopman questioning if we need to blog everyday. Search engines reward you if you do, but just between us, maybe that indiscriminate blogging is what got bloggers their rep amongst non-bloggers as narcissistic diarists blogging about what they had for breakfast.

It’s something to think about as you set up your business blog calendar.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, SEO, Small business blogging by Judith
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Back to square one: what is a blog, anyway? 

A friend, who remains anonymous –  but you know who you are! — mentioned that she needed remedial blog training. She was laughing, but seriously so. Jumping into this fast-moving river can scare even the warrior women amongst us away.

So, I googled and surfed a bit and found a solid, fundamental explanation of blogging.

Here ya go: it’s Darrell Zahorsky’s section on Small businesses in about.com. Look to the side of the article, “What a Blog Can Do for Your Small Business,” for a link to the “Anatomy of a blog.” Good info there. Also, scroll down the main page for his samples of well-done business blogs.

And THAT is one of the wonders of the Internet and the blog community: sharing this wealth of knowledge so we can all get a running start before we jump into that river. 

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Small Business by Judith
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Widgets put the fun into the functionality of a blog. 

I’ve been having fun with my small business blog today. Widgets — all those cool things you see in the sidebars of blogs — are seemingly in endless and in endlessly new supply.

I added one, a tag cloud, which you’ll see at your right. It’s much more fun than a prioritized list of categories, I think. (I left the categories in on the left, though, just to help slake the thirst and need of the more buttoned-down client. There’s bandwidth for all on the Web!)

I’ll put the calendar back up tomorrow. That’s a widget that used to live where the tag cloud is today. I moved a few of the other widgets around, lowered the search bar and raised the blogroll. Other widgets I’ve been exploring that might be appealing to you include links, contacts, forms, videos, photos, weather, and so much more! I bet you can find a widget to do almost anything you want for that sidebar of yours.

It’s easy to add one, too. It’s a matter of downloading it, uploading it onto your host, and clicking it to activate. It’s that easy in my software, Wordpress, anyway. And I don’t think it’s a gamble to bet that it’s easy in other blog software products, too. Most of the software is designed with non-techies in mind. That’s one of the aspects that makes blogging so enticing for content producers and small business entrepreneurs; it’s an end-run around the need for a full-time techie to be involved in the day-to-day upload process. Saves the techie budget for the big stuff.

Tags: Blogging, Functionality, Small Business by Judith
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Here’s a best practice I can already share: As you start building your site, build with relevant tags. 

I’m breaking away from my focus on the why’s and what-for’s of blogging for small businesses — all things I believe you have to be certain of before starting a blog — to look at one the tools of blogs: tags. You just can’t blog for long without a bit of insight into tags.

At first, I have to admit, I thought tags were just a formality. A nicety. Even an extra. But, oh, they are so not extra. Tags are the signposts of the blogosphere. Tags are some of the prime markers that search engines look for as they roam the Web seeking info for the customer who has just typed in keywords for your business and pushed the search button.

They’re your blog’s metatags, keywords that identify the content on your blog. To me as a content producer, the big difference between blog tags and Website metatags is simply where I put them. On a Website, I’ll have a list of keywords (metatags) that sit in the html code on every page that I want a search engine to land on. In my blog, those metatags are upfront as well as in the code. You’ll find them at the end of my entries.

And when you post a comment, you’ll see a list of categories to check off. These are your tags; by checking which ones apply, you’re flagging down the search engines. Oh, here’s another point: on my blog, the categories are also the tags.

Just for fun, check out Technorati, one of the biggest blog search engines of the moment. There’s a cool tag cloud on the right. You can tell immediately which tags are getting the most clicks; they’re the ones in bold and bigger than the rest. And then go to Del.icio.us to see how they list their top tags.

The next step is to do a bit of research to determine which tags in your field are coming up most often. Very simply, you want to have those tags on your site so you come up, too. The first thing I noticed is that my inclination to put blogging as a primary tag on my site was not so well-thought-out. Blog and blogs came up more heavily for me than blogging. So, I’ll be switching out my blogging tags to blog. But I’m also rethinking that one: do I need a blog tag on a blog? I’m also noticing that customers are typing in content producer more often when searching for professionals in my field than online content.

Tags are just the snow dusting the top of the iceberg when it comes to optimizing your site. But here’s a best practice I can already share: As you start building your site, build with relevant tags.

Later, when I get around to search engine optimization (that SEO you hear so much about), I’ll look into this subject in more depth. (I have to keep reminding myself that this is a work-in-progress, and stopping myself from jumping ahead.) When it’s time, I’ll be calling on some of my SEO expert pals to fill me in on that end of it. It’s a subject that can be as complex as you’re ready to take it. Or, IMHO, need to take it.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, SEO by Judith
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Small business blogs are conversations and relationship builders, part of social media. And that’s different from old millennium Websites. 

You’d think the toughest part of getting a blog up would be the software, the techie side. But that’s the easy part. And fun to puzzle out. (I realize I may be somewhat alone in this enjoyment of the techie world, but stay with me on this.) The hard part is rethinking what the Web is and can be. Blogs are not Websites.

Blogs are ever-changing.

Most small business Websites that I’ve seen are static presentations of the business — online brochures that include the mission statement, the product descriptions, the seminar listings, the contact information, and such things that would also go well in a hardcopy brochure. Mine still is. After all, we’re just trying to tell people what our businesses offer and customers can contact us to learn more.

Blogs are conversations, and blogs build relationships.

They’re two-way communication, and even if no one ever talks back to you, the place you have to come from on your blog is a place of open communication and informal conversation.

That idea of ‘open communication’ brings up a whole discussion of transparency and expectations in the world of social media (which includes blogs). We can get into that at a much later date, but for now, I’m focusing on the relationship aspect of my blog.While my Website is my formal presentation of my business, my blog is my personal contact with you. (Hi there; how’s it going?)

I get to know people and people get to know me on blogs. It would seem that since I’ve been a writer all of my life, this would be easy, but it’s a riskier position even for me. It’s more exposed, less protected by the formality of journalism or of a corporate persona.

And here’s a stop that I’ve already discovered. If you can’t open the window into your world and your business thoughts, then blogging’s not for you. I had to think this one through before I slapped my photo up on the Web and invited everyone in to watch, join me in my struggles, and learn with me as I build my small business blog.

But isn’t that how it is in non-Web relationships? We meet over lunch, chat about our latest business challenges and share insights. Sometimes I help pals wrestling with PR issues; other times pals help me in my battle with corporate accounting. And along the way, we build a web of relationships.

Tags: Blogging, Small Business by Judith
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