Photo: anonymous

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Blink, talks about a phenomenon he calls thin-slicing; an almost instinctual way that human beings filter information in the blink of an eye, by sifting the very few factors that matter from an overwhelming number of variables. To run a successful blog, it is crucial you understand that first impressions count.

First impressions take into account a myriad of elements, but can be best understood if considered from your visitor’s point of view:

(a) What is your visitor thinking while your site/page is loading?

(b) What is your visitor thinking as the page loads?

(c) What is your visitor thinking while he or she is exploring your site?

Today, we’ll take a look at (a):

The impression your blog makes while it is loading

Nowadays, visitors arrive at your blog from a variety of places; search engines, social media sites, or links from other blogs. Usually, the first thing they will see is the URL and title. Very soon after that, if the page takes a long time to load, they’ll start thinking about that too. What about if the link they clicked on is dead? Will you send them to an error page that offers no value? Or will you hit them with a popup or sneaky pop under?

If your visitors are worrying about any of these things before the page they are after loads, they might just hit the backspace key and bypass your site completely. Let’s try and avoid that.

The Importance of Your Domain Name

While I’ve talked about the importance of businesses hosting their blogs on their primary domain in Creating a Blog Strategy, and the various ways you can do this. But, what about businesses that don’t yet have an online presence?

If you’re a business that is young or new, you need to establish your branding immediately. Register a domain name that fits in with your company name, or as close to it as you can.

As you can see with BlogWell, we couldn’t get the domain blogwell.com, and instead opted for blog-well.com. It hasn’t harmed us in search results; you can search ‘blogwell’ blog-well’ or ‘blog well’ in Google, and still find us quickly.

Domain names can include any combination of letters and numbers. The dash symbol (-) is the only other character allowed.

As for the top level domain (com, org, edu, etc.), do everything in your power to get a dot com; it’s what most people automatically think about when typing a URL.

And a final note on domains; make the decision up front whether you want your domain to include ‘www’. While this is not critical for your visitors, it will impact you over time with search engines and ranking in search results.

Once people start linking to you, if you haven’t made a conscious decision on which you prefer, some sites will link to http://www.yourblog.com, others will link to http://yourblog.com. This will just confuse the search engines; they’ll have to split ranking between the two, and this can result in neither receiving the best possible result.

Decide which one you want, and redirect the other to it by way of a permanent redirect ( HTTP Status Code 301).

URL: Pretty vs. Ugly Links

As visitors now come from an assortment of places on the Web, there is a greater chance they will land on a specific page, rather than your home page. It then makes sense to ensure you have clean URL’s. By clean, I mean well structured, ordered, and descriptive.

While waiting for a site to load, you’ll notice a URL in the bottom left corner of your browser that tells you which page is loading. If the URL doesn’t correspond to what you were searching for or clicking on, and if you’re anything like me, a tiny alarm may go off in your head: Am I going to the site I thought I was going to, or am I being redirected somewhere sneaky?

Here’s an example of a pretty link and an ugly link; which is easier to understand?

Pretty Link: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-wimax.htm

Ugly Link: http://radio.about.com/library/bldef-138.htm

The easiest way to ensure you have ‘pretty links’ is by giving your posts relevant and great titles, using blogging software that automates the permalink process (like WordPress), and setting up your permalinks correctly.

Not only does this help your visitor feel more comfortable, but it is also useful to search engines, which will better be able to index your page if it has an easily identifiable title.

Load Time

Advertisements, widgets, and images all take time to load, and who has the time to sit around waiting - especially if you have a slower connection. Your visitors won’t like it, and unless you have a truly unique site that has traffic in the hundreds of thousands, keep these to a minimum to avoid alienating your visitors.

If you don’t know how long it takes for your page to load, visit the Web Page Analyzer for a quick examination. This free tool will let you know how long it takes for your page to load at various connection rates. It will also offer suggestions on how to improve load time if your page loads too slowly.

Bookmark the Web Page Analyzer and make a point of visiting it several times a year - your blog’s community will thank you for it with return visits.

Error Messages: Create a Custom Error Message

What happens when you visit a page that tells you “Error 404: Page Not Found?”

Most people will quickly go back a page to check whether they clicked on the right link.

If they determine that the link is correct, but your site displays an error page, they’ll either go to the next result (if they’re using a search engine), or, if they’re coming from another site that has linked to you, chances are they’ll skip your site altogether.

You don’t want to lose potential visitors this way, and there are a few things you can do about it.

First, create a specific error message page that is a little more gentle (and helpful) than the blunt ‘Page Not Found’ and second, check your site for dead links a couple of times every year.

While it’s easier to navigate around a blog than a website when you come across an error page, it is still worth your while creating a specific page to shows your visitors that you have thought about making their life a little bit easier.

A useful error page may include:

1. An apology of some type explaining why the page may not be there
2. A search box with some text encouraging visitors to try searching on your site
3. A link to your site map that lists all the pages on your site
4. A list of the most popular posts on your site
5. A list of categories on your site

Take a look at the following error pages; you may find inspiration.

http://seo2.0.onreact.com/error

http://problogger.net/error

http://www.apple.com/error

Creating an error page is one thing; making sure it appears on your site is another. Once you’ve created your document, you’ll need to upload it to your server. If you’re unsure how to do this, read this post from The Site Wizard that explains the process in plain English.

If you’re using WordPress, take a look at their Creating an Error Page article.

Pop Ups/Pop Unders

According to Enrique De Argaez, the man behind Internet World Stats, Pop Ups and Pop Unders are rude.

I agree. Just Don’t Do It!

This post is (a) of part six in a series of posts designed to help you blog well.

Part 6 is spread over three sections due to the large amount of information we need to cover in designing the perfect business blog.

If you like this post, consider subscribing to our feed so you don’t miss out on the rest of the BlogWell series over the next few weeks:

If you’ve missed the first five, you can find them here:

• Blog Well Files - Part 1: Should Small Businesses blog? Hell Yes!
• Blog Well Files - Part 2: The Blog Plan
• Blog Well Files - Part 3: Choosing a Blogging Platform
• Blog Well Files - Part 4: Creating a blog Strategy
• Blog Well Files - Part 5 Does your Business Blog have a Personality?

Sphere: Related Content

When considering your blog design, the most important element - and the one too few people consider - is the personality, or the atmosphere of the blog. This is the key factor that determines the success of your blog; it is the also the first impression your blog will have on your new visitor.

If you’ve ever been on a guided tour, you’ll know that much of your experience, be it good or bad, is based on the guide. Some guides are boring, others are entertaining; some offer interesting and pertinent details, others offer such exhaustive information that your head starts spinning; others still, bore you to tears.

Much like a tour guide, when it comes to your business blog, you are the one that must set the mood and the character of your blog. You are the tour guide, and if you want to be considered a great guide, you must address the needs of your audience.

Fortunately, successful business blogs all begin with similar foundations:

Successful Business Blogs Meet Audience Expectation

Making your design appeal to your target audience is critical. Are you writing to a young, hip, techno-nut? Are you writing to a mom? Are you writing to a CEO?

While you don’t want your blog to be the same as all the others out there, being too different from your industry (imagine an engineering firm dressing up their blog to look like webkinz), will just confuse your audience.

I wish I could give you a template for every industry of the ‘right’ look, but there really is no such thing. You need to do the research to ensure you meet your audience’s expectations. Take a look at our recent post about using Alltop to give you design inspiration ideas.

Successful Business Blogs Are Reliable

A business blog, regardless of how aesthetically pleasing, or well coded it is, if it is not seen to be reliable, it will become useless as a tool.

A reliable business blog is one that is written by a reliable source. As a business owner, you are that reliable source. You’ve had industry experience, you keep up to date with industry news, and you can offer advice - not only about your product/service, but also industry trends. The caveat here is you must write in plain English. Your website can be filled with jargon and industry terminology, but your blog is where you need to use your voice in a way that is understood by everyone.

Another factor that affects reliability is how regularly you post. If you want your blog to be successful; to be represented in search engine results, and to build a community of visitors, you must have continuously updated and relevant content.

Visiting your blog and updating once a month is not enough, try and post at least twice a week; daily if time allows, especially if you want your blog to be used as a reference.

Successful Business Blogs Represent Your Brand Appropriately

When it comes to business blogs, it is not enough to focus on your name or logo as your brand; here, your entire site is your brand.

Everything you put on your blog, words, titles, images, logos, as well as the structure, arrangement, navigation and presentation, all make up the essence of your blog; they give your blog personality.

And the personality of your blog will tell potential clients and customers a lot about who you are, how you work, how credible you are, and what you are capable of. In what light do you want your future customers to see you? Are you a strange, disorganized, angry at the world unprofessional, or, a succinct, reliable, organized, and tuned in expert?

Successful Business Blogs Are Intuitively Usable

Your blog will only be successful if you ensure your target audience can intuitively navigate your site - it must be easy to use.

Visitors, especially first time visitors, don’t want to waste their time trying to work out who you are, what you do, and why you do it. You are the guide of this tour, and you need to guide well. Take their hand and gently lead them in the direction you want them to go, or show them the way to get to where they want to go. The easiest way to accomplish this is to forget using witty or clever words for your pages, categories, and titles; again, plain English is a must.

Successful Business Blogs Don’t Look Spammy

How many times have you visited a blog, only to be met by animated images, smiley faces, pop ups/unders, and loads of advertisements? What was your first impression?

A business blog will be successful if the elements listed above are only used when they fit in with the mission and the vision of the blog. In most instances, there is no good reason to use pop-ups, or flashy, animated, smiley things on a business blog.

I visit lots of sites every day, and each time I visit a site that flashes at me, my immediate reaction is “Where am I, and, is this site doing something horrid to my computer?” I usually leave pretty quickly. This is not the message you want to send to potential customers.

While there are various reasons businesses set up blogs, the majority don’t do it to make money. Mostly, it’s about creating a space for like minded folk to visit, or establishing authority in a specific field, or passing along knowledge. If you are starting a blog for any of these reasons, try to avoid putting advertising on your site.

However, if you do decide to use advertisements, try to keep them discreet and in line with your industry.

These blogs provide good examples of fitting advertising to subject, take a look:

• Read Write Web
• Vanderlay Web Design
• Zen Habits

On a final note, your business blog should offer different content from your website.

Leave all the sales talk and product pages on your website. Link to them of course, but use your blog to let people get to know you - the person - not your product/brand. Business blogs are all about putting a human face to your company.

If you can think of any fundamentals of great business blogs that I’ve missed here, I’d love to hear about them. I’d also love to hear your thoughts. Please consider leaving a comment below.

Next week in the BlogWell Files, we’ll tackle: Designing the perfect business blog and talk about layout, pages, categories and sidebars - the do’s and don’ts.

This is the fifth in a series of posts about how to blog well.

If you’ve missed the first four, you can find them here:

• Blog Well Files - Part 1: Should Small Businesses blog? Hell Yes!
• Blog Well Files - Part 2: The Blog Plan
• Blog Well Files - Part 3: Choosing a Blogging Platform
• Blog Well Files - Part 4: Creating a blog Strategy

If you like this post, consider subscribing to our feed so you don’t miss out on the rest of the BlogWell series over the next few weeks:

Part 6: Designing the perfect business blog

Part 7: Developing an editorial calendar

Part 8: Creating unique content

Part 9: Optimizing for search engines

Part 10: Submitting your blog to blog directories

Part 11: Participating in social media

Part 12: Codifying your blogging guidelines

Sphere: Related Content

I was reading Chris Brogan’s post about Alltop the other day, where he points out:

“Alltop isn’t for you or me. It’s for friends and family and coworkers who aren’t yet surfing at the speed of light with Google Reader…”

It got me thinking.

Yes, Alltop does encourage the mainstream [to participate on the Web in different ways] but it can also serve as an extremely useful tool for new business bloggers; especially during that first scary stage - designing the look and feel of your new blog.

Think about it. As soon as a visitor arrives at your blog, before they read the first word, they react to it in some way.

In that instant, your blog needs to be viewed positively, and the only way this can happen is to ensure that it fits in with what your audience expects it should look like. It must appeal to your target demographic. Sure, the Perez Hilton site may look great and appeal to the younger set looking for celeb goss, but his design doesn’t really make sense for a civil engineering blog.

I wish I could say there is a template out there somewhere of what your blog should look like based on your field of interest, but there isn’t.

However, this is where Alltop comes in brilliantly. Because Alltop is an aggregator of top blogs by topic, it can give you a fair indication of what blogs in specific industries look like.

If you want to blog about law, take a look at the Alltop law page

If you want to blog about health, take a look at the Alltop health page

If you want to blog about photography, take a look at the Alltop photography page

You get the idea.

Go take a look at the Alltop main page for a topic similar to your field, and start researching the design of your new blog!

If you have any comments or questions, I’d love to hear them!

And of course, I can’t end this post without saying thanks to Guy for including BlogWell on the Alltop Blogging page - so, thank you Guy!

Sphere: Related Content

Photo Credit Demion

This is the fourth in a series of posts about how to blog well.

If you’ve missed the first three, you can find them here:

• Blog Well Files - Part 1: Should Small Businesses blog? Hell Yes!
• Blog Well Files - Part 2: The Blog Plan
• Blog Well Files - Part 3: Choosing a Blogging Platform

While most businesses realize the importance of a blog, too few spend the time putting together a blog strategy before they launch - and this is their biggest mistake.

What results, six months down the track, is a mad scramble with questions like: “Why is no-one visiting?” “Why is no one commenting?” and “Why do we not turn up in Google under our keywords?”

The answer may be as simple as bringing in trainers to educate the bloggers; worst case scenario - a complete overhaul; expensive and time consuming.

Here’s an example. A large corporation (with revenues in the billions last year), recently asked about why their blogs are not turning up in search under specific keywords.

At a glance, there are many reasons:

• They’re using a content management system that makes trackbacks difficult (links, that is - the all important factor in SEO)

• Their blogs are written by many people on different platforms with no language consistency, or blogging guidelines

• Often, blog posts are too short and offer no substantive information

• Their URLs are not clean; i.e. it displays cut off text (imagine this example: http://blogs-well.com/stuff/2008/01/social-me.html - instead of social-media)

• The categories, titles, headings, and content don’t include relevant keywords

• There are too few instances of H2, H3

• They don’t link to relevant and topic similar sites within their field

• They don’t include keywords in their title element

• They don’t make use of meta data (descriptions and keywords)

• They don’t include tags on their Technorati profile (or on their blogs)

• Their domain will expire in less than a year (should be renewed for a longer period of time)

• They don’t make effective use of anchor text

Had this company established a blog strategy up front, they would not be running into problems now. There is no ‘fault’ here, they simply didn’t realize the importance of mapping everything out at the beginning, most people don’t.

The majority of business bloggers fix problems as they encounter them, and this is not the best solution; blogging should be proactive, not reactive.

Creating a blog strategy up front

Your blog strategy needs to address two audiences; visitors and search engines.

You need to consider your visitors, because if you don’t, sure, they may get to your blog, but if it’s not set up in such a way that it is user friendly, they won’t come back.

You also need to consider SEO at this point, because without it, your blog won’t get noticed by search engines, and not turning up in search results equals fewer visitors.

Visitors and search engines must both be able to:

Determine what your site is about - at a glance

Navigate easily throughout your site

Trust that your content will be relevant and useful

Have faith in every link you offer

To cover these four base requirements, you need to examine each of the following elements:

Choose your blogging software/CMS with care

Your choice of content management system or blogging software is important:

If your CMS doesn’t allow for categorization of posts, how can your visitors find topics of interest quickly? How can search engines see your keywords easily as they scan?

If you CMS doesn’t automate trackbacks, does each blogger know how to manually trackback?

If your CMS creates URLs on the fly, is it creating URLs that are good for search engines, that is, keyword rich? Do your bloggers know how to create post slugs so URLs are tidy?

Not only is your choice of CMS important for your visitors and search engines, but it is also relevant to the bloggers who use it daily. If they are having trouble working with it, and don’t know how to manipulate various components, you might consider bringing in a blog consultant to train them, or a blog auditor to evaluate the system.

The best option (if budget allows) is to have a system specifically written/designed for your company. That way, you can build in all the SEO goodies up front.

If your budget doesn’t allow for an individualized CMS, WordPress is your next best choice. The reasons I recommend WordPress are many, but in the main, it comes optimized out of the box, and offers great SEO plugins like the All in one SEO pack.

If you are uncertain of the major differences offered by the various blogging platforms, take a look at part three of our BlogWell series: Choosing a blogging platform.

Host your blog on your own domain

While hosting your blog on a different domain is acceptable for some bloggers, when it comes to business blogging, there is no option. You must put your blog on your primary domain. You’ve spent years building trust and search ranking for your website, why spoil it now by starting anew?

A quick word about domains using WebMama as an example:

This is WebMama’s primary domain: www.webmama.com (the website)

The top-level domain of WebMama is com

The second-level domain is WebMama

The third-level of is www

You have two options when tying in your blog to your primary domain; you can add it as a third-level domain, or to add it as a sub section of your primary domain.

Third level - blog.webmama.com

Sub section - www.webmama.com/blog

Given Barb uses http://blog.webmama.com for her blog and she knows her SEO stuff, I’d say trust in that and use the third level domain for your business blog.

From a visitor point of view, if you’ve built your brand well, the domain you use will help relate your blog to your business. Don’t muddy it up by choosing a different, unique domain that has no relevance to your brand.

Use the same SEO practices for your blog that you use for your website

A lot of companies forget about the title element, meta description and meta keywords when it comes to their blogs. These factors are critical for both search engines, and visitors - in fact with blogs, they may be more important.

By including a decent and unique description for each post, visitors will, when searching for specific keywords, get the description you offer them, not the description that Google determines is right for you.

For instance:

Search on: 100 resources for developers and Google will offer up the following description - a description that I wrote:

“If you’re coding Web stuff, this list gives you the greatest resources out there - saves you from hunting them down yourself. Bookmark it!”

Additionally, it comes up first in Google search (not Google blog search).

Whereas, this post by Brian over at MSDN has no meta description, so Google just pulls out what it thinks is relevant to describe it - from the comments section of all things:

“Mar 31, 2008 … re: Open XML Resources for Developers. @Dave, you want a 100% compliant implementation. As a reference for what you exactly mean with that, …”

I’ve written about title elements and meta descriptions before, but if you want to know more about meta keywords, take a look at Jill Whalen’s post Can Meta tags such as keyword tags bring High Rankings to my site?

When including meta data don’t forget:

• The title element must be on-topic, short and catchy (for readers), they must also be optimized for search engines
• The Meta description - same as for websites (160 characters max)
• Keywords - (10 max) - not too many - looks spammy

Make use of headers (H1, H2, H3) in your post

Each post should be written with thought given to the main heading (H1) or title of the post (not title element - which I’ve mentioned above - and yes, they can be different), as well as subheadings within the post itself.

By breaking up your posts with various subheadings, it makes it easier on the eye for your readers; they can scan and find what they need easily.

Too few bloggers use subheadings when in fact they are amazingly good for SEO. By making headings bold and larger in font, by way of H2, H3 headings that are keyword rich, you are telling the search engines, “Hey, this is important.”

If you have a company with various bloggers, give them a list of predetermined keywords to ensure maximum impact. But teach them to use keywords effectively - too many and suddenly all you have is a spammy looking site that no one wants to visit.

Categories need to be prominent on your blog

Categorizing well on your blog helps your visitors find the topics that interest them quickly. If they need to search your site for that one post about “Green technology” they better find it quick or they’re off to the next blog that is categorized better.

Because of this, categories need prominence in your sidebar. M ake categories understandable - don’t use jargon - to help your visitors, and make them keyword rich and near the top of your site (search engines scan from top to bottom and left to right) for search engine spiders.

‘Keyword rich’ and ‘in plain English’ can coexist - you just need to pull out your trusty thesaurus and expand your vocabulary.

A great example of category placement, with the right mix of plain English and keywords can be found at Dosh Dosh

A final word about categories:

Do not confuse them with Tags (more about tags below), and only submit each post to one category - otherwise you can end up with the dreaded duplicate content that Google hates.

The importance of Tags on business blogs

Tags are a major factor in blog SEO. Most content management systems will let you tag easily, and each post needs to include as many relevant tags as possible. Again, these should come from a predetermined keyword list.

Tags can be made public or private - either way it doesn’t matter - the point is to let Google know that this post is about business blogging, or social media, or SEO2.0, or all three.

Once Google knows about your post, it can send visitors that are interested in what you have to say. There is no limit to the tags you can use, but I’d limit it to 10, much like meta keyword data per post.

Additionally, you should claim your blog at Technorati if you haven’t already, and include keyword rich tags. Some CMS will automate the pinging process (WordPress), with others you may need to do it manually.

Regardless of the CMS, make sure you ping Technorati regularly, and that your bloggers know how to.

Your commenting strategy

Commenting on other blogs, and allowing people to comment on yours, plays a large part in how successful your blog will be.

Regardless of your industry, there is already an active community somewhere online talking about the same subject that you are. If you want to be part of that conversation, you need to contribute to that conversation, by adding useful, related comments.

If you comment well, and adhere to basic comment etiquette, you open up the opportunity for people who haven’t visited your blog to see how you think; if they like what they see in your comment, they’ll follow the link back to your site, and voila, a potential new reader for you.

Commenting Caveats

When you leave a comment on someone else’s blog:

1. Use your real name, don’t use the name of your brand/product/company.
2. Leave a URL that points to your blog, not to your landing page or press release.

Take a look at Remarkabloggers Blogging Ethics 101b - Commenting for a more detailed explanation.

Comments on your own blog

Some people advocate not allowing comments until you have a respectable following, and others say don’t allow comments at all, the logic being if people want to comment about something you write, they’ll write a response on their own blog and trackback to your post. My recommendation is to let people comment up front.

Blogging is part of social media, and commenting is all about being social.

And don’t forget the best advice, from Lee Odden’s What Not To Do With Your Business Blog:

“If you are gracious enough to allow readers to make comments,

perhaps responding to a few might be a thought?”

Link Well and Link Often

Linking to others within your niche shows you are willing to share information; this is what good business blogging is about.

While many people avoid linking out (fear of losing visitors to others), it usually has the opposite effect. It shows that you are willing to provide useful information regardless of where it lives, or who wrote it. Your visitors will come back to your site because they know you offer comprehensive information on any given subject.

Of course, you can link out too much, but common sense should prevail. If you make mention of a commonly know site or product, there is usually little reason to link to it. If you are talking about a specific post or person, it may be useful for your readers to know, with one click, what or who that may be.

Another common mistake many bloggers make is that they don’t link back to their own posts, i.e. link internally. While you don’t need to link to every post you have written, if you’ve written about a topic that comes up in a subsequent post, it makes good sense to point to it; both from a visitor point of view (they may not have seen it in the past) and from a search engine point of view - (if you’re pointing it out in a link, much like headings, you’re telling the search engines: “this is important”).

Find your blogging Voice

Unlike a website, a blog allows for natural voice, and natural conversation. You are not trying to win a client - that’s what your website is for - here, you just want to open up any opportunity for a free exchange of ideas.

Finding your blogging voice can be tricky, but as long as you remain true and focus on writing well, both visitors and search engines will love you.

Only one word of warning:

Don’t write when emotive. Whether you’ve just lost your job, broken up with your significant other, or swallowed a pitcher of beer, walk away from your computer before you do yourself harm. Once it’s out there, it’s pretty tricky to take it back.

Understand how archives work

While some people recommend posting the complete article in your archive, I don’t. Not only is it annoying for users that are looking for specific information, it can be a disaster for search engines if you don’t set it up correctly - again, it can be seen as duplicate content.

Archives need to be scannable, much like a site map, and good ones will include a search box. A great way to set up an archive page is to use the ProBlogger Archives page as a guide.

If you’ve created great titles for your posts, that should be enough to help readers find what they are looking for. If you must include your post in the archives, consider using only an excerpt.

Business blogging requires strategy from the start, and I hope this post has given you something to think about. If you’ve already started a corporate blog, reworking it with the above strategies in mind should help you get ahead of your competition. I wish you luck, and if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

If you like this post, consider subscribing to our feed so you don’t miss out on the rest of the BlogWell series over the next few weeks:

Part 5: Blog Layout and presentation: First impressions count!

Part 6: Developing an editorial calendar

Part 7: Creating unique content

Part 8: Submitting your blog to blog directories

Part 9: Participating in social media

Part 10: Codifying your blogging guidelines

Sphere: Related Content

Credit: Capt Kodak

This is the third in a series of posts about how to blog well. If you’ve missed the others, you can find them here:

• Blog Well Files - Part 1: Should Small Businesses blog? Hell Yes!
• Blog Well Files - Part 2: The Blog Plan
• Blog Well Files - Part 4: Creating a Blog Strategy 

Blog Well Files - Part 3: Choosing a Blogging Platform

Once you’ve made the decision to blog and created a blog plan, the next question you need to consider is:

Do you want to host it yourself, or do you want someone to host it for you?

Self Hosted Blog Platforms/Blog Software

With a self hosted blog, you’ll need to download the software and host it yourself.

The two most popular blog software products are WordPress and Movable Type.

Both require some technical ability. It is essential that you are familiar with FTP and databases. You will be in charge of installing updates, making backups, and ensuring anti-spam plugins/add-ons are kept up to date. A basic understanding of CSS and PHP is useful too.

Although more technical skill is required, self hosting your blog gives you complete flexibility and control.

Hosted Blog Platforms

With a hosted blog there is nothing to download, and you don’t have to worry about any of the backend stuff because it is all done for you by the host. The most popular blog hosts are WordPress, Blogger and TypePad.

However, by not fully controlling the back end, you’ll find each platform has its own limitations. For instance, Blogger won’t let you have pages, so no about page or services page; TypePad offers no free service, and WordPress won’t let you run advertisements.

Blog Platform Comparisons

I’ve created two tables to help you figure out what is best for you. The first compares WordPress, Blogger, and Typepad, and the other details the differences between WordPress and Movable Type software products.

If you decide you want to go with a hosted platform, my only recommendation is to buy your domain name through the host, or pay to redirect it to your own domain. That way, if you choose to host it yourself in the future, you will keep all the links you amass, and from the outside, it will look exactly the same.

Download Blog Platform Comparisons (PDF)

The decision on which blogging platform to use should be made now. Not because you can’t change your mind later on - you can - but changing brings other problems down the track.

I started blogging with WordPress.com, and then decided to use WordPress software on my own domain. All of my rankings tanked and I had to start building them back up. I’m not saying it can’t be done; I just want to warn you that it does take a lot of time and effort to do. If I had known then what I know now, I would have seen no effect on my rankings when I moved to hosting it myself.

This post is in no way the definitive guide on blogging platforms, and while no one can help you determine what is best for you, I can tell you that I’ve tried WordPress (both self hosted and hosted), Blogger, and TypePad and still lean heavily toward WordPress. I find that it is easier and simpler to use, offers more options for customization, has a huge community that welcomes any newcomer, and is amazingly quick to help when you get stuck.

I invite you to share your own experiences in the comments below so that we can all continue to learn and hopefully help others avoid making the same mistakes that we did.

Related Posts:

• What is WordPress
• Moving from WordPress.com to hosting it yourself

Other useful resources:

• Where to start with WordPress Software
• Where to start with Movable Type Software

• Getting started with WordPress.com - About and Features
• Getting started with Blogger - Tour
• Getting started with TypePad

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Photo Credit: Studio Y?

In part one of the blog well series, I asked and answered the question, Should small businesses blog? – Hell yes! Today I want to take a look at the things you need to think about before you start your business blog. At the end of this post, you’ll find a link to download the blog plan – print it up, work through it, I promise, once you have a firm idea of where you are going it will be a lot easier to get there.

Stuff to think about:

• Once you have your plan on paper, keep it close, you can refer to it, modify it, and expand on it – it is your game plan.

• Google’s Search Evangelist Adam Lasnik, recommends allowing comments on your site to start a conversation with your visitors: “They love to ask questions and get feedback, particularly from people that are important to them – and you guys are” ( Adam’s Interview). This enabling of conversation has a natural side effect - it strengthens community.

• Make sure you don’t make basic mistakes; read Remarkablogger’s: 25 Reasons why Your Business Blog Sucks!

• Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress recommends: “Get to know what others in your field are doing by reading other blogs and news; you’ll know soon enough whether you have anything useful to contribute to the blogosphere” ( Chat with Matt). If you don’t know where to start, go to Technorati (blog search engine) and type in your keywords. You sell tea? Type tea and its variants in.

• Avoid putting flashy and obtrusive advertisements on your blog.

• Once you have a plan, don’t get complacent. Invite comments and participate in the conversation, and be flexible enough to modify the plan if change is required.

Blogs encourage communication, help establish your online presence, promote information sharing, and are contributing to the growth of the semantic (meaningful) Web.

As a result, the planning of your site’s content, design, and navigation structure is crucial to your success.

The blog plan is one of the essential elements most people miss out on when they start blogging - don’t be one of them.

Download The Blog Plan now. (PDF)

This is the second in a series on how to blog well called the Blog Well Files.  If you’ve missed the others, you can find them here:

• Blog Well Files - Part 1: Should small business blog – Hell Yes!
• Blog Well Files - Part 3: Choosing a Blogging Platform
• Blog Well Files - Part 4: Creating a Blog Strategy

 

 

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Photo Credit: David Paul Ohmer

B. L. Ochman recently wrote a post titled Should Every Company Blog? Hell No!

While I understand her logic that the larger corporations need to think about this very carefully (she deals predominantly with Fortune 500 companies), my take is, if you’re a smaller business, especially a bricks and mortar business – Hell Yes!

Most small businesses don’t have a Web presence. This is largely due to the misconception surrounding blogging in general, and the misconception of the costs and tech skills needed. But, the Web is moving forward at such an amazing pace, that every small business today can have a site up and running within hours - for minimal cost.

This article is the first in a series about small business blogging. I want to try and convince you to at least take the time to understand blogs better, and show you how useful they can be to your business.

Over the next few weeks I’ll talk more about creating a blog plan, the software/designs available, what to include, where to get content ideas from, how to generate traffic, and how to make sure you really start a conversation with your customers. Today, I just want to talk about why blogging is so important.

Small Business Blogging – A Must!

Blogs today are nothing like the blogs of five years ago. Today, some blogs even look like traditional Web sites, so much so, that recently, after showing a blog to an administrator at a local elementary school, she replied: “Oh, no, that couldn’t possibly be a blog; blogs are just for people who want to talk about what they ate for breakfast.” (And I live in Silicon Valley.)

Blogs have matured. Just take a look at some of the biggest sites out there – all of them running blogs: Wall Street Journal (Hi Walt), New York Times - (Hi Jeremy) Harvard – none of them talks about bacon and eggs, or their cat; they do however, provide really useful information.

But why should a small business have a blog? Because it is a LOT easier to create than a traditional Web site – and in today’s world of all things Internet, you know you need an online presence.

Picture it:

We moved to Silicon Valley over two years ago. I hate shopping. When I shop, I want to buy what I like, when I like – in and out – no more than half an hour. I don’t like walking from store to store, or spending a day in a mall – ugh!

My taste in clothing is very simple. I like Indian inspired clothing. In Australia, I knew exactly where to find this stuff; here, it’s driving me nuts. It took nearly two years for me to find one store that had this type of clothing. What I couldn’t understand was if the owner had spent a day setting up a site, I could have found her years ago, and given her much of my hard earned cash.

I asked her about it. She said she wants an online presence, and she knows she needs an online presence, but she just doesn’t know how to go about doing it easily and with minimal cost. Well the answer to that is – blog. Sure, it will take a day or two to put it together, and an hour or so a day to maintain it, but the benefits can be huge – no better free publicity for her store!

Over the past few months, I’ve been helping people start blogs. And although their reasons vary, the bottom line for all of them is they want an online presence that is cost effective.

Blogs are cost effective

If you hire a programmer to build a Web site it is going to cost you anything from $2,000+. The biggest problem (other than cost) is you need to pick a great developer, one that has some SEO knowledge, and basic design skills. If you don’t, you might get a really nicely coded site, but it may look a shocker to your visitors - and it may not get the Google juice you’re after.

Your option then, is to hire a designer to make it visually attractive (add another $2,000), an SEO/SEM firm that can get results (most of the reputable start at over $10,000), and a brilliant copywriter; someone who knows how to write copy that sells (add at least a couple of hundred per article).

So, as you can see, with a traditional Web site, the costs are huge just to set the thing up; let alone maintain and update it.

With a blog, your biggest costs are the domain name [$10] and hosting [$50-100/year]).

If you use WordPress software, your code is free. You won’t need a developer to write the code, it’s already written, ready to go. You don’t need a designer. If you choose to have WordPress host it for you, they have in excess of 60 designs to choose from; if you host your WP site yourself, there are hundreds if not thousands of designs ready and waiting for you.

Blogs get you into search results quickly

While optimizing your site to ensure you turn up in Google’s results page can be a costly and time consuming effort, most small businesses are not that concerned with keywords –yet. Right now, they just want to turn up in search results when someone types in their name or business name.

Blogs, unlike traditional Web sites are updated frequently, and Google likes nothing more than fresh content – so getting into search results requires no great effort from you. If you name your site well, and ensure your name is associated with it, you will appear in Google’s results within the day, if not the hour.

I have done very little to optimize this blog, but go to Google, type in blogwell and you should find this site pretty easily.

If you’re a small business that only wants an online presence, one that lets you showcase your products/services and lets you interact with customers, blog well and blog now. It just makes good business sense.

Many businesses fail when it comes to blogging because they don’t spend time planning before they jump in. Don’t be one of them. Read the second article in the blog well series: The Blog Plan

This is the first in a series of posts about how to blog well. If you’d like to see the next two, you can find them here:

Blog Well Files - Part 2: The Blog Plan
Blog Well Files - Part 3: Choosing a Blogging Platform
Blog Well Files - Part 4: Creating a Blog Strategy 

 

 

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I often get questions about creating, maintaining, and optimizing an online presence from small businesses and non profits; how to get into search engine results, how to redesign an old site, what tools are available that are useful, inexpensive or free.

If you know of any tool or resource I have not listed, that is particularly good for small businesses, please take a moment and leave it in the comments below.

Before you Launch your Small Business Website

Before you Launch that Local Small Business Website

Read Rae’s tips on what you need to think about before you launch your small business website - particularly good if you have yet to begin your online presence.

Your Domain Name

If you want to create a professional and credible site, one that enhances your product, service, or business, it is imperative you choose your domain name with care. Problogger Darren Rowse explains how the right domain name can make or break your business.

10 Tools for Researching Domain Names

Not only is it important to find the right name, it’s imperative to make sure that the name you decide on doesn’t have any bad history associated with it. Steven explains it best and offers 10 tools for you to use in your research.

Blog Dammit!

Duct Tape Marketing author, John Jantsch, provides number five in a five part series, Blog Dammit! and explains why you must start and grow a blog in 2008 if you haven’t already.

WordPress: Not Just for Bloggers Anymore

Did you know that WordPress lets you build an entire website; one that is optimized for search, easy to setup and maintain, and requires very little technical nouse? If you don’t, read this article by Barry Ochsner

Creating and Maintaining an Audience

How to Get Repeat Visitors for Your Website

There are two types of visitors to a site: new visitors and repeat visitors. In this article, Maki provides insight into how to create an online place that people will want to return to.

Give Your Readers Room to Participate in Your Blog

If you are having a hard time getting visitors to leave comments, read this article by Problogger Darren Rowse that explains how you can gently encourage and engage your readers, and build a reputable online presence.

10 Free Ways to Get Blog Exposure, New Readers and Success

There is much you can do if you want to spend money on getting exposure on the Web, but what can you do to increase exposure without having to pay one cent?

Analyzing Your Site

Analytics On The Cheap: Six Free Stats Packages for the Startup or Small Business Owner

If you’re not analyzing your website, you should be. Tamar Weinberg describes six free statistics packages and explains how they can help your business.

Competitor Analysis to Build Traffic and Links

Having an analytics package isn’t enough. You need to understand how they work so you can perform competitor analysis and use the results effectively to grow your own site.

Website Grader

Website Grader measures your site’s marketing effectiveness. It gives you a score that incorporates information from Alexa, PageRank, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and offers information about the health of your site (how many links in, from where, etc). Good for an overview, but will never replace a professional SEO audit. Read Michael Gray’s post Why Website Grader is a Bad Idea for more information.

Check your Google PageRank

Type in your URL and your Google PageRank will be displayed.

Google Webmaster Tools

See how Google crawls your site and any problems it’s having; you can also see how your site is performing here.

DNScoop

DNScoop attempts to estimate the value of an established website or a domain name, by using factors such as; links, popularity, age, pagerank and traffic of the domain.

Business Blogging

Business Blogging 101

Darren Rowse gets you thinking about how businesses should use blogs, and gives you the basics in plain English if you want to start blogging.

Choosing a blog platform

There are many blogging platforms around, some requiring technical know how, others not. Read this post if you are not sure which platform suits your needs best.

WordPress.com

For an easy to use, non-techie approach to blogging, WordPress will give you more than other platforms. Ad-Free, customizable, and optimized for search, Google loves WordPress, so will you. If you are tech inclined, you can run WordPress software (free) on your own site. See also, WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org for more information about the differences.

How to install WordPress software

Ten video tutorials from Stefan Mischook on how to install and configure WordPress if you want to give it a go yourself.

Ninja Blog Setup

If you decide to go with WordPress software and host it yourself, but don’t want the headache of setting it up yourself, these guys will set up a blog for you, for free. They make their money by providing hosting partners.

Small Business Blogging: What to Blog About

If you’re not quite sure what to write about, read this post by Dan Bricklin that offers practical advice for small businesses.

Legal Guide for Bloggers

The Electronic Frontier Foundation offers a basic guide to laws surrounding bloggers.

De Clutter your Blog

If your blog looks cluttered but you aren’t sure which components you should remove, read this. This is particularly interesting for those who cannot work out the ‘musts’ in a sidebar.

10 WordPress Plugins that Encourage Visitors to Return

If you want your blog to be user friendly, there is no nicer way than to offer visitors options that are useful and helpful.

10 Things CEOs should know about Web Design

Anita Campbell points out what works and what to steer clear of when it comes to Web design.

Design decisions that annoy readers

Things to think about and not do when designing your site.

9 Ways to Gauge Your Visitors’ Experience

Vandelay Design helps you understand the opinion of your visitors, and explains why you need to take the time.

Signs it’s Time to Redesign your Website

Erin Ferree points out seven ‘tells’ that will let you know it’s time to redesign.

Does your Web Site Suck?

Two checklists from Vincent Flanders, author of Web Sites that Suck to help you determine whether you need to overhaul your site. Fill them in, learn from them, and then use this page to help you fix things.

How to Redesign a Website

You’ve made the decision to overhaul your site, now what? From .net magazine, the things you might want to consider.

How to evolve your irrelevant corporate website

Jeremiah Owyang, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research explains why your website may be irrelevant, and gives tips on how to rebuild to stay relevant.

Best Premium WordPress Themes For a Non-Blog Look

If you don’t like the blog look, but want the advantages that a blog brings, take a look at Donna’s post.

Cream of the Crop: Six Cutting-Edge, Minimalist WordPress Themes

According to Skellie, these six themes are at the forefront of modern, minimalist, typographically interesting WordPress theme design. She also tells you how to tweak them for maximum impact.

Content for Your Small Business Website

The Seven Deadly Sins of Website Copy

Michel Fortin shows how simple copy changes to your site can transform an average site to a great site.

The Power of the “About Us” page

Do you have an “About” page? Was it just thrown together, or did you spend time putting it together for maximum impact? Bryan Eisenberg gives expamles of the most common mistakes.

Building More Effective “Contact Us” Pages

When putting together a site, not many people think about their contact information. It’s time you did and Bryan Eisenberg shows you how.

Forms that Work: From the book Web Design for ROI (Sample chapter PDF)

If you have forms on your site, read this and make sure you don’t annoy your visitors by making your forms too tricky

Page Not Found: Error 404

What makes up a good error page? Have you even thought about it? If you haven’t, it’s time you did. WebMama shows you what to think about.

The “Coming Soon” page

While not everyone agrees you should have a coming soon page, if you decide you need one, take a look at this first.

A Complete Guide to Finding and Using Incredible Flickr Images for Free

Skellie shows you how to make your site more interesting by incorporating great imagery. It doesn’t need to cost much; oftentimes it will cost you nothing more than time.

Search Engine Optimization for Small Business

SEO Jargon Buster

A complete glossary of essential SEO jargon for beginners.

13 Ways to promote your local business for free

Small businesses take note. Michael Gray gives you quick and easy tips to get noticed in search results, that can bring more traffic to your site.

10 Tips to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

Mike Busson explains that search engine optimization is not rocket science; you just need to be aware of the basics.

7 Steps to Get Your New Site Indexed in 24 Hours

There are ways to speed up getting noticed by the search engines; you just need to know what they are. Michael Jensen explains.

7 Simple Ways to use Universal Search to Appear on Top of Google

Tad Chef walks you through the various components that make up Universal Search and how to use them to increase your chances of being included in Google’s search results.

What is the First SEO Question? What is the Second SEO Question?

The first two questions you should ask yourself before you embark on an SEO program, and a third on the way from WebMama.

Introduction to Keyword Sniping

How to choose keywords, and how to use keywords; one of the most important articles you can read from Courtney Tuttle.

All about Permalinks

Mark Blair explains permalinks, and why it is important to get them right if you want search engines to like your site.

All about Title Tags

Title tags make up the text that appears in the top left hand corner of your browser when you visit a Web site. Did you know that you can choose to put your own words there? Jill Whalen offers the ultimate in title tag explanations.

All About Description Tags

Rand Fishkin shows you how to make the most of your meta description tags. If you don’t know what they are, you will by the time you read this.

Optimize Video for Search Engines

Video is getting bigger on the Web every day. If you decide to use video, Jody Nimetz gives you tips to optimize them for search engines.

Optimize your Website for Google Image search

Maki explains how to optimize your images, make your site more visually attractive, and attract search engine traffic at the same time. If you’re not doing anything but uploading pictures, it’s time to understand how it all works.

Linking Strategy for Small Business

The Ultimate guide to building the perfect link

The biggest problems small businesses face is getting links to their site. Matt McGee walks you through types of links, how to approach them and what not to do.

102 Ways to get backlinks

Written in the order they need to be done, Courtney Tuttle walks you through how to get links to your site the right way.

Link to Yourself Using Anchor Text

Anchor text is extremely important if you want search engines to notice you under specific key words, Darren explains why and how to do it.

20 Ways to Get Legit Links Without Getting Penalized by Google

If you don’t want to annoy Google, but want people linking to your site, try Tad’s recommendations – they work.

Link Buying Guide: Directories, Ads and Reviews

If you want to buy links, buy links that don’t jeopardize your online presence. Loren Baker lists his favorites.

PR and Marketing

Blogging’s a Low-Cost, High Return Marketing Tool

From the New York Times, a recent (Dec 07) article explains how, for some small businesses, blogging is the way to go if they want a great tool to raise the company profile and build their brand.

Ways to Market your Business Online

You can’t expect to compete as a small business today without choosing from a growing arsenal of online marketing tools. Here are four ways to get your business noticed on the Internet from CNN Money.

I am Clueless About Your Product: Sell it to Me Correctly

Tamar Weinberg points out the importance of using everyday words on your site if you have a product to sell. Use the KISS method, easy but often forgotten.

The Etiquette of E-mail

Good business means communication, and although e-mail is used a lot, it’s not always used correctly. Gina Trapini shows you how to do e-mail right.

Features Vs. Benefits: The Showdown

Do you know the difference between the features and the benefits of your product or service? If you don’t, you should. It makes marketing your small business oh so much easier. Naomi explains.

Lowdown on press release optimization

Lee Odden shows you how to write a great press release, and offers a list of wire services you can use to distribute them.

How to Advertise your Website or Business: 8 Paid Advertising Models

Advertising is one of the fastest and easiest ways to bring traffic to your site—if you do it right. Read this if you want to understand the various types of advertising, and how to work out the best places to advertise.

How to Get News Coverage

A beginner’s guide to getting media coverage, particularly useful for those with small budgets.

Reputation Management and PR for Small Business

Online Reputation Management for Beginners

Andy Beal walks you through the importance of online reputation management. Did you know there’s a good chance that your name, your company, or your brand is out there somewhere on the Web, quite possibly put there by someone you may not know?

Search Engine Reputation Management Techniques

If you’ve ever come across your name (or your company name) on the Internet, in an unflattering light, try these techniques and turn the bad press around.

Want Your Business to be Featured on CNN? Send an I-Report

Share your tips in with CNN and you could be featured on television. Just fill in the form and you’re set.

Social Media for Small Business

Ten Reasons to Use Social Media

Tad explains the importance of using social media; why and how it can benefit your online business.

Strategies for Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

Charlene Li, senior analyst at Forrester talks about what business objectives and results can be achieved with Web 2.0 technologies and how social technologies will transform your business in the future. Audio and Video available (approx 1 hour) at PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre).

The Importance of Social Media Marketing

Maki explains how social media marketing is a low cost way of promoting your site that will get you links, attention and lots of traffic.

Online Networking and the Professions That Use It

If you haven’t been networking online, it’s time you start. Muhammad Saleem points out networks for the medical profession, musicians, educators, photographers, and business folk.

What is StumbleUpon?

Garrett Camp, Founder of StumbleUpon talks about what StumbleUpon is, how it works, why it works, and what they have learned over the years. A presentation for PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) Audio and Video available (approx 1 hour).

What is Facebook?

According to Sugarrae, this is the updated, unofficial and smartass guide to using Facebook. If you’ve always wanted to know more, here’s your chance to find out what it’s all about in a fun way.

Facebook Ads and Will They Work For You?

Facebook advertising isn’t for everyone, but advertising on Facebook may work for you. This article explains how.

Ways to use Twitter

17 ways you can use Twitter: A guide for beginners, Marketers, and Business Owners from Maki

The Big Juicy Twitter Guide

A seven part series on what Twitter is about from Caroline Middlebrook

Effective Marketing on LinkedIn

If you’re using Linkedin and are not quite sure why, Helen shows you how to effectively market yourself with this business networking tool.

Useful Tools for Small Businesses on the Web

Blidget

Create a blidget; a widget that sits on your website and pulls in the latest entries from your blog. Customizable and free

Browsershots

Browsershots lets you test how your site looks in different browsers; Firefox, Opera, IE, Safari, running on different operating systems; Linux, Windows, Mac.

Colour Lovers

If you are planning changes to your Web site, Colour Lovers helps you work out what color schemes work well together. It also gives you RGB and Hex reference numbers if you want to pass them on to your site developer.

Contribute

If you are paying a programmer for each tiny change to your website, it can get expensive, and quickly. Contribute allows you to easily update pages on your site using your browser; no technical knowledge required and can save you tons of money in programmer fees. From Adobe - $169 with free trial period available.

Decluttered

How to declutter your desk. Not so much a tool, but a how to on making your desk neater; always good for business – and cheap and easy to do.

Deyey

Design your business cards online for free; then save them on your own PC and print them up. A nice alternative to better design without the cost.

Favicon Generator

A favicon (favorite icon) is an icon that is displayed in the browser address bar before the site’s URL. If you don’t have one, but want one, upload an image and the favicon generator will create a favicon for you to use.

Fax Zero

If you’re in the US or Canada and don’t have a fax machine, go to this site, upload your document and send your fax for free.

Feedburner

Feedburner is a free media distribution service for blogs and RSS feeds. This means you can automate the process of sending your news to your audience via e-mail or RSS. It also allows you to track who is reading your content.

GIMP

Gimp is a free powerful, full-featured photo editing program, comparable to Photoshop. Available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

Google Alerts

If you want to know what is being said about you or your company online, Google Alerts offers you an easy way to keep track. Type in the words you want monitored (your name, your business name, your competitor etc.) and let Google e-mail you each time that word appears in search results.

Goog 411

Instead of calling 411 for information call 1800 Goog 411 ( 1 800 4664 411) and get a street address or phone number for free.

Icon Buffet

You need an icon, but where to get it? Become a member and get free icons sent to you, or buy your own packs here. The philosophy is quite neat. They give away free icons every month, but not everyone gets the same ones. The idea is to swap them (sorta like swap cards) and use what you like.

Icon Factory

The Icon Factory offers great looking icons you can use for your site as long as it is not for commercial use (then you have to buy them). But, for non profits, this just might be the way to go.

International Time

Does your business deal with customers internationally? Make it easy for them to contact you by adding a link to local time on your contact page–customizable.

Jott

Jott is a free service that converts your voice into text and sends it to you via e-mail or text message; great if you need to record something but don’t have a pen handy. (US only.)

Media Convert

You upload one file format, and Media Convert will convert it to another file format. Works with most formats of documents, spreadsheets, presentations, video and audio.

Montastic

Montastic monitor your website and send you an e-mail if it goes down. This free service can check your site every ten minutes, and saves you the trouble of visiting your site as often.

Open Source Web Design

Over 2000 fre