A article in favor of blogging for business from google

Here is a great article from google on blogging for business:

http://www.google.com/adwords/newsletters/q207/techbtob/page4.html

Why should you blog? It's an easy and informal way to keep people abreast of company activities and perspectives. While website optimization should remain a core part of your communication strategy, blogs can help you get the word out as quickly as possible. If you think you're ready to jump on the blog wagon, check out Blogger,

Google's free blogging tool. It features drag-and-drop template editing, activity reports, and privacy controls – and it only takes minutes to get started.

Here are a few best practices for all the newly minted bloggers out there:

• Educate current and potential customers about your business – how you got started, what your philosophy is, who your employees are.
• Post breaking news about your products or services when it's hot off the press.
• Make the experience more engaging and interactive with photos, videos, and RSS feeds.
• Feature links to other blogs about your industry – they may even return the favor.
• Include a link to your blog on your website (and vice versa) so visitors can
  access the full range of available information.
• Use Google Analytics to keep track of how visitors are finding your blog and where they're coming from.
• Stick to a regular update schedule.

I think these are all great ideas. I guess the point of my previous post (http://foremostmedia.blogspot.com/2007/05/to-blog-or-not-to-blog-is-blogging-for.html) was do this after you have done all of this on your site. Most of the marketing managers and business managers we deal with barley have time to update their own sites.

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How safe is your domain name?

About once a month we seem to be helping clients sort out issues they have with their domain name registration. Typically their domain name was registered with their previous webmaster and the webmaster set themselves up as the administrator.

Many of the webmasters that from the old days are no longer in business and so the clients domain expires or they need to edit DNS and they can't because technically they don't own the domain.

I guess the point of this whole post is:

If you pay someone to register a domain on your behalf, make sure that they make you the Primary Registrant and the Admin Registrant.

If you don't, you may have to pay a guy like me to help you sort it all out.

Don't wait until your domain expires or you need to make a update to your DNS info. find out who the owner of your domain is today.

You can look up the records of the domain by doing a WhoIs look up.

Here are a few links:

http://www.whois.net/
http://www.dnsstuff.com

You wouldn't purchase a building and put the deed in the contractors name. Don't build a online business that you don't own.

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Adding PDF Documents to your site (File naming structure)

I get this question alot:

I need to load some .pdf files onto the website and currently the files can only be one word and no special characters.
Example: TB030107ADaylightSavingsUpdate(2)[1].pdf

Is it possible to see if the website creators can allow us to use spaces in the file name?
Example: TB030107A – Daylight Savings Update.pdf

I think this would really clean up the look of our file download capability. Please let me know your thoughts.

Here is a great response:

Because there are many variables including different browsers, operating systems, query strings and documents being stored in databases, standard practice is to leave out special characters and spaces from actual file names.

In summary, if you wanted to try uploading files with spaces, we obviously can’t say no. Just keep in mind that erratic behavior in communication between all the different computers, browsers and databases is a possible outcome.

Also, keep in mind that you can change the Titles/descriptions that appear on the front end of the website however you see fit.

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To blog or not to blog- Is blogging for a business a waste of time?

I bet 2 or 3 times a month I get a question like this posed to me-

"I would like to start a blog site on my website. Another company told me they are having a lot of success. Is this something that you can help me with? What are your thoughts about such a thing in B to B??!"

or

"I just went to a seminar and one of the mini sessions was on blogging. They told me every business should have a blog. How do I put one on my website?"

I am sure I will get a bunch of greif for this but here is my take on blogging (Keep in mind most of the websites we build have a complete CMS (Content Managment System) in place that allows the site owner to make changes quickly and easily in a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get).

Personally I think it is a waste of time for most businesses.

NOW BEFORE YOU BLOGGERS GET YOUR PANTIES IN A BUNCH AND LEAVE ME A BUCH OF HATE MAIL CONSIDER THIS-

If it were my site I would just assume spend the time updating the content and performing SEO on my current site then trying to maintain a blog. Most companies don't update their website very often and that is the where I would start. Most of what you put on a blog can be put on your website. If you have all that in place and still have time to blog then blog away. It can't hurt.

This is just my take on it but the primary benefit of a blog is the ease of use. In other words it is easy for non technical people to add content quickly. When you have the skills to add content or you have a site that is easy to maintain, I believe you are better off adding it on the site itself.

I may be wrong and I am sure that some businesses have acheived great results but if you were to compare the time spent improving your site and adding content to the time spent blogging I would propose that the time spent improving your site would offer the best return on investment.

The exception to that rule is if you have a product or service that warrants discussion. Blogs have the ability for people to leave comments (which can be good or bad) but it does add some layer of customer interaction.

(I get this question allot. Perhaps I should post it on my blog or maybe just in my FAQ's on my website)

(Just my 2 Cents)

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