To seasoned internet users, blogging is a household word. To business it’s a new and blossoming addition to their websites bringing new visitors, customers and clients.

Blogging in business is booming in popularity due to them being easy and simple to use, relatively cheap to have installed on a website and an excellent form of communication to share corporate expertise and connect with existing and potential customers.

A great business blog has a continuous stream of fresh and interesting content and helps establish a relationship with website visitors and build a climate of trust. Blogs offer business a chance to build a real community by making it quick for people to post, comment and update posts – essentially making it easy for everyone to participate.

Benefits of Blogging

• Easy to use – simply type your thoughts, link to other websites, add photos, all with simple and quick steps.
• Cost effective – many free blog websites exist across the internet, or you can fully customise a blog into your website between $500 – $1000.
• Quick updates – you don’t require your web designer to update your blog which means no waiting for updates, and no cost ongoing.
• Credibility – share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience, an especially powerful tool for service based business.

Which Businesses Should Have a Blog

Most businesses who have ever thought about publishing a newsletter, or an e-newsletter will find a blog a natural addition to their website. Because blogs are centred around frequently updated mini-articles, they’re essentially little news items and any business which has information they want to deliver to potential customers is a good candidate to have a blog.
Here’s a couple of specific examples for business types;

Consultants & Services

Share your expertise and develop a stronger sense of credibility through your blog.

Consultants and service-based businesses are the most common businesses currently using blogs. People working in these industries spend considerable time displaying their skills within their target market through networking, panel appearances and mentoring. Blogs help to establish consultants as a trustworthy expert and build oneself as an authority or expert in a particular field.

Specialist Businesses

Encourage new custom through in-depth detail on your specialist area.

Businesses which operate in a niche target market or a tight product range are ideal for communicating with their customers through a blog. Use the blog for a knowledgebase of product information or a dynamic frequently asked questions section. Industry specific news and events are

Interesting Product Lines

Keep customers updated with new products and their features as they become available.

Many retail businesses evoke natural curiosity and following from their customers. These businesses especially should consider a blog to keep customers up to date with new and interesting products released.

Real Estate Agents

Announce new listings and keep poignant sales information in the buyer’s eye.

In a fast paced and ever changing industry like real estate, blogs are an excellent way to keep potential buyers informed of market trends as well as industry expertise, knowledge and specific suburb data.

Travel & Tourism Operators

Attract more customers through detailed product knowledge and regular news.

Many tourist operators already publish a reef report or regular newsletter which discusses specific topics pertinent to their product but much of this information is only distributed to booking agents. By publishing regular articles in a blog potential customers researching travel product online will be more likely to book through a company they know more about. This is especially true for travel agents whose business is built on experience with product.

Blogs are not necessarily designed to capture the largest audience and widest readership possible, but rather like most forms of internet marketing it is intended to help convert already interested visitors.

Common Blogging Mistakes

Unfortunately many businesses fall into the same trap with blogs as they do with e-newsletters – and abandon them after just a few months. Blog abandonment happens for lots of reasons, but mostly because in business we just get too busy. Here’s a quick list of common blogging mistakes that should be avoided;

1. Not posting frequently enough.
   2 – 3 times a week is recommended
2. Content is not defined.
   Carefully consider your target audience before you start writing, and continually refine your blog posts to this market.
3. Articles are too long.
   A blog post is a mini-article and best length is between 200 – 300 words.
4. Not linking to other resources.
   An expert in their field is expected to back up with expertise with citations, so make sure you link to relevant websites.
5. Poor spelling, awful grammar and typos.
   Lots of readers will get turned off by these. Proofread your work.
6. No information on writer.
   Blogs readers are curious by their nature, so include a photo and detailed information on yourself within the blog.
7. No information on business products and services.
   The purpose of your blog is to raise your credibility and (hopefully) to make you more money – so make it easy for your visitors to discover what you sell.
8. Comments are turned off.
   Ensure readers can leave a comment about your posts as this encourages them to return and interact further.

Things you might love about a blog

Blogs give you freedom to express.

Many new bloggers love the feeling that comes with expressing their opinion in a public place. It is especially warming when you receive comments from others that agree with you! A blog is a channel of communication that builds momentum and is ideal for opinionated thought. Many journalists and editors now use blogs through the major media newspaper websites.

It’s online networking.

Blogs which encourage a genuine exchange of ideas are a great platform to network with other industry leaders and further grow your business. The best minds in business often tell us how to attract the right customers with a strong opinion than the lowest price quote.

Cheap advertising.

As with many internet advertising opportunities, a blog provides inexpensive exposure for your business. Allowing customers to interact with you through a blog encourages repeat business.

Quickly gauge public opinion.

Have you checked lately how many people visit your website? For most small businesses it’s a couple hundred people every day. Bloggers post comments at a fiery pace, and you can very quickly gauge the public’s opinion on products, services, events and business ideas. Blogs have most recently been established by political reasons heading into elections for precisely this reason.

Who Has a Blog?

Andrew Griffiths has a great example of a blog which combines marketing expertise and commercialism. Have a look at www.andrewgriffiths.com.au.

When you’re planning a website, you will most likely be asked to write a design brief, or your web developer will write one for you. The process of writing your design brief is a great way to have focus the thoughts of your website project and define the goals you’re trying to achieve. Your design brief will also save you a lot of money in the long run.

Here’s the essential things you consider including in your brief:

Company Background

Write a couple of paragraphs about your business. Think about your company history, current staffing levels and how your product or services range has evolved. Your web designer will be trying to establish what type of business you are, and what style of website would suit you.

Target Market

This is an area lots of businesses struggle to define, but it is important as it sets the mood of your website. When deciding on your target market, consider the following demographics:

• Age – what age does your product or service appeal to
• Income – are your customers high earners, or of a low socio-economic background
• Occupation – which jobs are your customers likely to have
• Intelligence – what level of education do your products appeal to
• Gender – does one particular gender buy your products more than the other

Websites You Like (and Dislike)

Scour the web for similar businesses in your industry, both locally and abroad. Look for aspects of these sites that capture attention and include them in your design brief.

Be sure to pay attention to anything you don’t like, or anything that captures your attention in a negative way.

Promotional Strategy

It’s important for your web developers to know how you plan to promote your website, as they can help you track the performance of your endeavours. Consider including both online and offline promotional activities.

If you’re a bit stuck for ideas download our Website Design Brief, and just fill in the blanks.

Keeping your website fresh is considered one of the most important features of keeping your customers. Have a look at some of the great websites of the world like Amazon and eBay, and you’ll notice they rarely look the same each time you arrive. The only thing they keep the same is the location of the menu.

For most small businesses though, changing your website every few months is usually adequate. If you’ve invested a lot of your time into developing your website and ‘getting it right‘ the first time, it might be hard to think of some new things to add, or what you can change, so here’s some ideas.

Start a File

Open a new folder on your desktop, and inside create a Ideas Word document. This is a quick and easy place to put anything you find on the internet, or thoughts and ideas you have.

Listen to Customer Feedback

“I looked for information on your widget product, but I couldn’t find anything.“

When a customer says something like this write it into your Ideas document, and consider how you can incorporate this into a new page or section on the website. Sometimes you might just need to ask your web designer to make particular aspects stand out more.

When Things Change…

… think of your website. Many of your prospective customers check your website before contacting you, so make sure if a price changes, or you do not sell particular products lines anymore that they are correctly noted on your site. Customers report one of their biggest frustrations as being out of date websites.

This article was written while I was on holiday in California and was inspired by the many great travel businesses I encountered throughout America.

When creating a website within the tourism industry it’s important to keep a strong focus on the needs of travellers. The website ideaologies applying to travel also apply to a broad number of websites selling single products online.

It is much easier to maintain this focus if you have a clear idea of your target demographic. Many businesses fall into the trap of believing anyone can stay in their hotel, or take their tour, but the reality is each product will only appeal to a subset of the travellers visiting any region.

Tourism providers who’ve been in the industry for some time will tell you that the internet dramatically changed the booking habits of travellers and it’s important to realise why this is so.

Why A Traveller Uses the Web

The primary reason a traveller will visit your website is to gather information about tourism product. This means more information then the brochure displays or a travel agent might know. Travellers are frequently disappointed when a website contains scant information or fails to answer even their most basic questions.

Essential Website Parts

For a traveller the most important page of a website is your home page. Research suggests most people will visit at least 10 different product websites before making a purchasing decision, and much of their decision to delve further into your website is based on the professionalism and information on your home page.

Your home page should be a three or four paragraph summary of your product which addresses questions about location, rates and sells your products major benefits over your competitors. In addition you should ensure your home page does not load slowly, and avoid flash animations as they rarely display the information required to entice your visitor to go further.

Within the information on your home page, ensure there is appropriate linked text where visitors can find out further information. This is particularly important with rates and calls to action.

The rates themselves should be clearly displayed in a neat table with the fine print or pricing conditions close by. A visitor needs to be able to quickly figure out how much your product costs, so avoid making them fill out a form with their dates and number of people as this is likely to annoy them and generally results in them studying your competitors rates page instead.

A strong call to action leading your visitor to book, enquire or phone should be near the rates data and is nearly always forgotten by less savvy website owners. Be clear about what your potential customer should do next.

Most often a visitor will contact you before booking if your website does not have an automated availability and booking form. You can make this process easy for them by having separate booking and enquiry forms.

Hire a professional photographer and include your most spectacular shots on your home page, and then scatter the rest generously through your website. Include talent from your target market demographic in the photos. This allows people to put themselves in the picture having an enjoyable experience.

Hindrances To Conversions

As the web becomes increasingly automated the time it takes for a visitor to gather the information they require from a tourism product provider will determine which provider makes the sale. For this reason consider investing in a web-based reservation system to allow customers to make decisions instantly. Customers will get frustrated if they need to wait for responses to their reservations and book a competitive product.

Many web users attest their biggest annoyance about websites is not being able to find the information they require to answer their questions. Think about the most common questions your customers ask and answer everyone of them.
The question all customers need answered is the one of prices. Some products mistakenly leave their prices off their website hoping someone will contact them to ask, but this strategy will sooner send your customers to a competitor which does display their prices. Just as bad as having no rates is having confusing rates, so keep them simple.

When a customer has an enquiry request ensure your enquiry form is short and sweet and only asks the absolutely necessary details you need to respond to the customer. Long enquiry forms will put customers off and they may choose not to bother asking.

Be careful with the photos you include as bad photography with small grainy pictures or old shots devalues your product and puts customers off. Avoid including anything blurry, out of focus, or where the photo has too many subjects.

Resources Travellers Use

Think about the online resources travellers use to find product, and ensure you have strong representation.

The first and most important is the search engines, especially Google. If you don’t have good rankings, consider purchasing advertising with Google AdWords to ensure you have good visibility.

Travellers often review prominent, high ranking information sites containing general information about the area. Look into advertising on these sites for more exposure to travellers who have not yet decided their precisie itineraries.

Big for international travellers are review and comparison websites like Trip Advisor (www.tripadvisor.com). These sites give customers an unbiased view of a number of products in an area, and rates them by popularity. Customers trust the reviews on Trip Advisor so encourage your customers to write something about your product.

Similarly travel forums like Lonely Planet’s The Thorn Tree allow travellers to explore destinations and their products through discussion with other travellers. Especially tour product will benefit by participating in online forum discussions and passively promoting their products aand services direct to potential customers. Seek out localised travel forums and ensure you follow the accepted ettiquette for product promotion.

The prominence of travel blogs have seen an increase in product providers being featured in personal stories from customers who have experienced that product. These are powerful reccommendations, and travel providers should consider asking customers if they have a travel blog and encourage their product’s favourable inclusion if so.

Travel websites are by large all about your customer. They need to cut through competition by doing a great job of answering your customer’s questions and being well organised with spectacular photography.

I encountered a very interesting phenomena today when I was asked to present 3 workshops at the Business Liaison Association’s Women and Careers Forum 2008 for International Womens Day Week of Celebrations.

The workshops are themed around informing girls about their career options within a number of different fields; law, defence forces, fashion, health, tourism, journalism, engineering, science, hospitality, and of course, IT!

Two of the girls from my office, Emmy Kerrigan and Belinda Vere were also to participate in the workshops sharing their experiences through their study achievements and employment choices they’ve made to get them into their current positions.

Unfortunately, there was not one girl interested in IT. We were due to deliver 3 workshops, and there wasn’t enough interest for even one! Engineering had a similar response, but were lucky enough to have a single interested participant.

So.. what’s the problem here? What is it about the IT industry that turns girls away from considering it as a career choice?  Please share your thoughts.

It’s my humble opinion websites should rarely shake their hips, rattle, roll or hum. Perhaps this is because I’ve spent too many years making professional-grade business websites, and when I’m serious about doing business with a company, I don’t want my eyes distracted my moving parts.

There are an amazing collection of web animators who create fantastic multi-media productions. They’re not my preference, and they’re usually not a customer’s preference either. So, if you want a cool, hip and modern moving feature film on your website, here’s the best ways to implement one.

Movement Draws Attention

People’s eyes are instinctively drawn to anything that moves. Remember with your web customers you already have their attention, as they’re only looking at your website. Unlike when they view a TV advertisement, web customers want to see your website.

What should you draw people’s attention to:

• Anything that makes you money: online specials, featured products, new services
• Photos that showcase your product: portfolio images, regional hero shots, strong venue photos

1. Impatient
2. Information-hungry
3. Control freaks

Remember these three personality traits of web customers, and you’re on track to have a great website.

Interruption advertising plagues our lives; television through loud and crass ads, junk mail in our letterbox and glossy catalogues in our newspapers. We understand and expect these formats.

The web is different though. Commercialisation through advertising has taken a little while to kick in online, and so we’ve developed surfing habits which differ from our interactions with other forms of media.

Surfing is perhaps a bad term for our web habits, it’s a bit more like a sprint. Online we scan, we don’t read. We click before pages load completely. We lazily use the scroll wheel on the mouse to get to the bottom. We focus on pictures, and ignore paragraphs.

You should consider your web customers as time poor – because they simply have so many web pages to get through, and there’s no shortage of interesting things to look at.

Satisfying your online clientele is easy than you think:

1. Most important information at the top of pages (impatience)
2. Don’t leave out the answers to the most commonly asked questions, like prices (information-hungry)
3. Easy navigation, focus boxes for specials (control freaks)

On a website, a link refers to anything you can click on that takes you to another page or another website. In this article, we explore the reasons to link to other websites, and the benefits of having other websites link to you.

Links between websites form the foundation of the web. Without links, the utility of the web would be reduced to a mere collection of discrete websites, instead of the interactive, interconnected resource for sharing information that we all expect.

By embracing the concept of website linking you are not only doing your bit to make the web a more useful tool for everyone, but also gaining some additional market penetration for the online arm of your business.

Why should you link to other websites?

Linking to another website is when a visitor on your website can click a link and be taken to somebody else’s website. In the industry, this is called an outbound link.

If a particular website contains helpful information that would supplement information on your website, consider linking to that website to help your visitors learn more about the topic. For example, if your website sells camera equipment, you might link to sections of the manufacturers’ websites that include specifications of the products you are selling.

Where you feel another website has adequately described a topic, and you do not have the inclination to write similar information for your own website, consider linking to that website. For example, if your website books accommodation in the Cairns region, you might want to describe the local weather for your international visitors. Instead of spending the time to write this information yourself, you could link to a more authoritative website in the matter and save yourself some trouble.

If you wish to express your alliance with another business or organisation, linking to that website will allow your visitors to see the affiliation and learn more about the other business or organisation, thereby boosting your reputation. Where you are a member of an industry organisation, using their logo (with permission) will serve to further reinforce this connection.

In all cases, your web developer should arrange for the link to open the other website in a new browser window so that your own website remains open even after your visitor has finished reading the other website.

Keep in mind that original, up-to-date and helpful content on your website is better than simply linking to another website. By having more content on your website, you will have greater opportunity to be listed in search engines for keyword phrases that you include in that content, and visitors will also feel you are a more knowledgeable and helpful business when they see you have written the information yourself.

How do links from other websites help you?

Having a link from another website is when a visitor on somebody else’s website can click a link and be taken to your website. In the industry, this is called an inbound link.

Having other websites link to you will bring you more visitors and broaden the number of ways in which you can reach your target market.

Visitors who come from other websites can often be more valuable than visitors who come from search engines, particularly of the other website has given you a glowing commendation together with the link.

Having a link on a well-respected website will add trustworthiness to your business, as visitors will assume that a website they respect will only link to reputable businesses and worthwhile websites. When another business links to you from their website, it creates the perception of that business recommending or endorsing you.

Search engines consider that if another website links to yours, then your website must contain some valuable information, and will therefore list you higher in the search results for keyword phrases you have included in your content.

The quality of a link from another website matters greatly to the search engines. If the website linking to yours is itself linked from many other websites, the search engines will deem its endorsement of your website to be more reliable, and will thereby further increase the position of your website’s listing in the search results. For example, a link from a university’s website will be more valuable than a link from a friend’s personal home page.

Search engines will not place as much importance on a link from another website if your website also links to theirs — known in the industry as a reciprocal link. This is because the search engines assume the links were arranged for mutual benefit, rather than a genuine endorsement by one website to another.

How can you encourage other websites to link to yours?

Over time, you will find other websites linking to yours for various reasons: somebody bought something from you and posted their experience to their personal blog; somebody reviewed your product; or a local organisation listed you as a member.

To accelerate this natural process of acquiring links from other websites, try some of the ideas below.

Others will be more likely to link to your website if you have unique, informative and well-written content. Therefore, consider what information your visitors might be interested in that cannot easily be found on other websites, and add this content to your website in a logical, well-organised manner. As owners of other websites seek out useful information to supplement their own, your original content will be of interest, and they will consider linking to your website as a result.

Write a series of articles about a topic relevant to your industry and about which you have extensive knowledge. Add a note to the bottom of each article that you grant permission for other websites to reproduce your articles, provided they acknowledge you as the writer and link to your website.

Search for online directories — organised collections of websites, such as www.dmoz.org — and suggest your website for inclusion. Directories that are specific to your industry, location or target audience will result in more relevant traffic. Perform a web search for travel directory as an example of how to find industry-specific online directories.

Write testimonials for companies with whom you do business, including suppliers, clients and associates. Give permission for your testimonial to be used in that company’s marketing literature, which could include their website and result in a link to yours.

Understanding the importance of links — both to and from other websites — and how to use them to increase the effectiveness and visibility of your website is an important part of the process of developing and promoting your online presence.

This article was originally published in the February 2008 edition of In Touch In Business magazine. You may also download The Right Connections article as it was printed.

I spent my birthday in Paris, which was wet, miserable and cold. But, I’m used to the crazy weather now. In fact, I’ve concluded the weather is Paris is why French ladies always look great.

First of all, there’s something just perfect about the humidity. Every day was a perfect hair day, even without my GHD. Make up stays in place, and lasts longer somehow. Since it’s really cold a spring in your step is necessary to keep warm.

We stayed in a hotel near the Louvre, which was great because we walked all over. The taxi to get to our hotel was 55 euro though, so about $70! It seems the airport is far out of town.

It’s weird to see that the Parisian equivalent of our Holdens and Fords are Mercedez. Both taxis we caught were seriously plush and luxurious vehicles with all sorts of great gadgetry like headlight washers and ipod docks.

The shopping in Paris is obviously a great drawcards, and there was soldes everywhere. Just about every second shop is a shoe shop. Control was therefore difficult, and I was pleased for the first time that my bags were already full because I could have fulled an entire suitcase with adorable boots. However, not that practical at home.

During the day the streets are abuzz with local folk buying food and going about their business. There are lots of people walking around with breadsticks, so the movies are all true. The food is amazing though, all the stuff I crave at French restaurants was readily available everywhere.

We ate fois gras first night at a cute little restaurant, and I thought it’d be a midget little portion like at home, but now, we got two huge slabs of the stuff! While we were slowly making way through our entree, I didn’t care how they brought up the bird because the result was spectacular. We should all try force feeding more geese. So at the airport I bought some to bring home, since it’s canned quarantine shouldn’t take issue. I hope. It costs a fortune.

Things generally are fairly pricey, perhaps people here earn more. I’m not really sure. The exchange rate was ordinary too. Weirdly, champagne was cheaper at BevMo in the USA, so I should have stocked up there. Even the vintage champas was cheaper at BevMo. Jill… we need a BevMo in Cairns.

Nicky at Napoleon’s House

The Louvre was great, just like it is in the Da Vinci movie. We saw loads of paintings and got really sore feet walking around all day. The building itself was really spectacular as well, and that surprised me as I wasn’t expecting it to be an attraction in itself. I loved the Napoleonic Apartments the best, which are a recreation of how Napoleon lived in the same rooms that he originally slept in. They were opulent and in some places garish.

I’ve enjoyed Paris because it seems glamourous, but it has a lonely and grumpy feel to the place.

There are so many weird things about the USA. They mostly seem weird because I came from a Spanish speaking nation where you expect things to be different, but when everyone around you speaks English you sort of expect things to be the same.

First thing that’s different is Americans know the meaning of customer service. They’re seriously good brown-nosers! They’re chatty, friendly, full of personality and absolutely ready to give you ketchup with anything you please. Of course, it’s because they get paid like shit and they’re hoping you’ll tip them during the translation, so they put on a good show. We have much to learn by their vibrancy and enthusiasm for service. My glass was never empty, coffee is always flowing, they’re intuitive about cutlery and napkins and I never once had to ask for the dessert menu. But then, I didn’t eat one dessert in the US and this brings me to my second weird thing.

Portion size. It seems American restaurants believe they should not only be serving you dinner but also plenty for breakfast and lunch the next day. The serving sizes are ridiculous. I never finished a single meal, and I learnt quickly not to order entrees. Of course they also give you mounds of free bread, and often you’ll get free soup and salads as well. It seemed absolutely crazy to me!

Bacon is a different breed here. I always buy shortcut bacon, which has that big round bit with no grease on it. Well.. It seems the Americans have bred that bit out of the pig, because I’ve looked in 3 supermarkets for shortcut bacon and I can find is the evil fatty bit that I usually throw away. I am desperately looking forward to bacon and eggs at home.

While here I stayed with friends in Sacramento, Jillian and Brad, who very kindly put up with my curiosity and constant badgering about odd food and customs. They were both great sports and very fun to be around. They even laughed at most of my jokes, but perhaps they were just being polite. They’re a unique pair because Jill is a fiercely independent girl who is almost completely blind and Brad is a tall lanky black geek who is remarkably similar to Kaj in an absent-minded professor and metrosexual kind of way. According to Jill, Brad is the whitest black man alive, and I tend to agree.

Brad gave me a driving lesson in his car so I could drive to the Napa Valley and go wine tasting in a rental car the next day. He was a great sport because I almost scraped the passenger side of his car against another car twice as I had troubles with the wrong side of the road thing. Our Napa adventure largely went without incident, just on the way back I missed the exit and ended up in downtown Sacramento on the way to Reno.

Jill and Brad took me to the Jelly Belly factory which is near their house and we were able to tour the factory and see all the beans being made. It was really awesome, and at the end you could taste them all! You could even taste the new Harry Potter series with flavours like vomit, dirt, grass, soap, earwax and sardines. I almost chucked my lunch on the earwax one, it was awful. I found a great gem there though; belly flops. These are the not-so-perfect beans, so I bought a few huge packets for our not-so-perfect office!

I especially loved the time in the USA, and will really miss it. Out of all the places I’ve visited in the last 7 weeks this is the only one where I actually thought I could enjoy living. There is an amazing variety of product for sale, and producers, service providers and store owners seem to try that little bit harder than at home. It was incredibly helpful to be staying with some great locals who could teach me the way of the land too.