by Karen on April 17, 2009
Whenever a client wants to have a blog on their website, I caution them that they need to set a schedule for posting to that blog because one of the first things I look at on a website is the date of the last blog entry. Theoretically, if that date is well in the past it’s an indication that the website is stagnant (and possibly the business is dead or dying).
Trying to keep up with my own blog when I’m very busy made me re-think what a stagnant blog may really mean. I haven’t felt like I had the time to post because I’ve been working so hard.
But it hasn’t changed my mind about needing a regular schedule of posting to the blog. I still think that people will look at the dates of the blog entries and even if it means that the company is busy with off-line work, it can still be used to indicate whether the information on the website is up to date and accurate. If they haven’t had time to post, they probably haven’t had time to update their hours or put up their newest specials.
So, you still need a regular schedule for blogging. It keeps you hooked in to the world wide web, it puts more stuff out there for Google to index and people to find.
by Karen on April 16, 2009
I’ve been listening to a few different marketing podcasts lately and one of the recurring themes is that you need to be different (this is aimed at small businesses). There are lots of people out there who offer the same services or products that you do (welcome to the World Wide Web) so you need to differentiate your business from theirs.
Okay, sounds like a good idea, but how do you really go about doing it?
Well, one blogger has some ideas, though he calls it being interesting. There’s a good post on his blog (Hello, My Name is Blog) called 30 Ways to become the Most Interesting Person You Know. I have to admit, I haven’t read all the ways (and I heard him talk about some of them on an episode of Duct Tape Marketing, good marketing podcast). My attention span just wasn’t up to 30 different things. But one of the ways he mentioned really sounded good to me and I think I’ll start using it in the planning phase of my website projects.
He calls it ‘Avoid the Always/Notice the Never’ and he has a quick exercise you can do to get started. Basically, start by thinking about what people say about your industry (not your business in particular, but in general and we’re talking stereotypes here, they won’t always be true).
So, say we’re talking about web designers. We’d start by writing down all the things people say that start with ‘Web Designers always …’
I might come up with a list like this:
Web designers always use a bunch of technical talk that I can’t understand. Web designers always charge too much. Web designers always think they know more about my business than I do.
Then do the nevers:
Web designers never finish anything on schedule. Web designers never give any support for the website once it’s finished.
Now you have a list to look at to see how you can be different. You’ve just brainstormed what’s normal for your industry/business. You can pick and choose some of the statements to focus on and show how you do the opposite.
And it can help me as your web designer get a quick look into the industry and the competition and what people think of it.
