Sally Rauschenfels Creative » Growing your business

Should you have a blog on your website?

sic_admin — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 17:28:12 +0000

If your business would benefit from content marketing, you might consider having a BLOG | NEWS | JOURNAL section to your new website. “Content marketing” is a strategic approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to a targeted audience. It’s also a fancy word for a much simpler concept: blogging.

Are you a thought leader? Are you an expert in your field? Do you have a perspective on your particular expertise that is unique? Do you have information you’d like to share with others?

Maybe you simply have stories or insights you’d like to share — whether recipes, special techniques, artistic images, or musings on various subjects. Maybe you’re a poet and want to share your poetry to a wider audience.

More and more, we’re being told that “content is king” in digital marketing. That having more content on your website is much better than having less.

Keven Kelleher brings a wealth of experience to his role as FTO trainer. He’s passionate about staying on top of trends in educational approaches as well as the challenges facing law enforcement agencies, university security departments, and private security firms. He keeps FTO professionals informed about important trends in his blog, “News from the Field.”

Including a blog function on your site is an easy way to beef up your online content and useful for positioning yourself as an expert in what you know or do.

If you’re a personal injury lawyer, you could provide stories about cases where you’ve had success, or helped potential clients understand typical outcomes with common auto injuries. If you’re a B2B consultant, you might provide professional and helpful tips for your typical client. If you’ve been published or regularly give presentations, you could provide your published articles or recent Powerpoint presentations online. There are many ways to provide fresh content on your website, whether for purely business reasons or for your creative writing pleasure.

If you want to create updated and fresh content on your website, you’ll want a blog.

If having current content is important, then you might consider including a blog on your new site. You’ll need to commit to writing something roughly once a month, have basic writing and grammar skills, and be willing to learn some simple WordPress login and posting skills (or be willing to pay for someone else to write and post your content).

A stagnant blog is not a “blog”—it’s just another page on your website. If you want a blog on your new site, make sure you really want to write regularly, or hire someone who will write fresh content for you.

But let me give you fair warning: there is nothing more unprofessional than starting a blog and two or three years later, having no additional content added to that blog. Without fresh ideas there is no reason for a reader to return. Outdated content has the opposite effect of positioning you as an expert or thought leader — it dings your credibility. So don’t let your blog sit untouched. Make sure you really want to write regularly — or hire someone who will write for you — if you want this function on your website.

Some people have a ton of fun with blogging, and some feel overwhelmed at the mere thought of having to write anything. Know where you fall on that spectrum.

Then tell your designer if you want this function included on your new website. If you do, brainstorm with your designer and staff and get a feel for what kind of content you might write. Remember, you want to provide information that will position yourself favorably to your potential customers and that will enhance your overall website content.

Helpful resources if you decide to blog regularly on your website:

If you’ve decided to write a blog, you won’t have to pay attention to the information about hosts and servers, blog design, or even the technicalities of setting up a blog in the following links (this will be taken care of by your website developer). Instead, focus on the idea of blogging with these links and start developing what your customers want to read about:

15 Reasons I Think You Should Blog, from Becoming Minimalist, a lifestyle blogger

How to Turn One Content Idea into a Fascinating Four-Part Series, online resources from Copyblogger

A Guide on How To Create a Guide That’ll Drive You 361,494 Visitors, and other tips and ideas for “expert” how-to blogging at Quicksprout

When planning a new website, plan a “content first” approach

sic_admin — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 23:24:14 +0000

When I sit down and discuss a new website project with a client, they usually haven’t thought much about the actual text they will use to tell their website story (otherwise known as “site content”). And commonly, clients assume this text will be easy to pull together and will virtually “write itself.” Yes, the text that will actually appear on your site’s pages might be mostly in your head at this point, but you’ll have it ready when I need it…no problem!

In reality, your website content will be a big challenge to pull together.

You’ll need home page text, professionally written bios, product descriptions, services offered, calls to action, blog posts or feature articles, compelling messages, etc.—and you’ll need it written well.

Your website is your online branch office, your 24/7 service center, and it needs to be the very best salesperson you’ve ever had.

Have you spent time yet at your computer sketching out your site outline (page names) in a Word document? Have you drafted some sample page text? If not, and you’re ready to start on your new website project, you need to start now.

One of the things that stalls (or even derails) a new website project most easily is when the client doesn’t make content a priority.

Before starting your website design, I’ll need your content.

Even if I sketch out or design the home page based on our discussions, or know the page names that will be used in your main navigation area, or have images from you to use on the site, your new website still needs actual page text.

Words inspire design! And when content is delivered first, a web project is more likely to launch on schedule. (The most common delay I experience for getting a new website live is lack of page content provided by clients.) We may completely map out your site and even start the design, but the project will go nowhere without descriptive text written for each page.

Start by outlining the pages you’ll want on your site.

At the very least you’ll probably need the following pages:

Home page—the entry point to your website where it’s essential to grab your visitor and inspire them to stay on your site by clicking further. Help them learn more about you and what you offer and make sure viewers know they are in the right place. The Hibu blog has a great schematic that helps you understand what your web visitors should see when they land on your home page. Make sure you include these elements on your home page. Click over and read about home pages in detail on How to develop an effective home page on your website.
About page—where you share your uniqueness with the world. What makes you different? Why are your services the best? What inspired you to create your widget? The content on this page should really be more about engaging the potential customer than about you. Confused? Read 3 Core Reasons Why the “About Us” Page Matters on the Psychotactics.com blog.
Services page—lists what you do, who you work with, and how a visitor can engage with your services. Rather than including a laundry list of everything you could do, focus on your specialty, your niche. What services do customers most commonly come to you to solve…what problems do you best solve…and what do you most love to do?
Work/Portfolio page—examples of what you do in either a descriptive or visual format. It also might include rave reviews or testimonials to your great work.
Contact page—A viewer is interested in you; how can they most easily get in touch? If you’re not around a phone much, then use your email address for business. And if you’re never at a computer, list your phone number instead. If you offer free consultations to potential customers, remind people here and describe this service. You could provide links to your professional Facebook page, your LinkedIn profile, or a Flickr gallery of product images and viewers can learn more about you. Be as thorough as possible on this page and make it easy for potential clients/customers to reach out and connect with you.

There might be dozens of pages you’ll potentially want on your site. Do you want to write and update a blog or news articles regularly? Do you want a gallery of photos?

Do your thinking early and sketch out what these pages might be for your designer. Then, get busy writing them.

You’ll want to write your text with a clear set of goals.

Writing for websites calls for a special kind of writing: clear, concise headlines followed by targeted, shorter paragraphs. You’ll want the reader to be able to skim the page and find the answers they’re looking for without having to spend too much time on the page. In other words, if visitors immediately see they’ll find answers on your website, they’ll stay there. If you make them work too hard, they’ll leave and look somewhere else.

Make sure you consider these points when writing your content:

Who’s visiting this site?
What does she want to know?
What does he want to do?
How do I want to make this user feel?
How would I carry on a face-to-face conversation with him?

And if this is all too overwhelming and you aren’t able to generate website content yourself, I can suggest a great writer for the job.

If writing every word on your new website is a daunting task—one that might even prevent you from developing a site altogether—consider hiring writing and/or editing help. Good website writing is a great investment. When done you’ll have great headlines, a useful tagline, a killer professional bio, and effective descriptions of your products and services that can sell. It’ll be easy to transfer web text to a new brochure, your business’ Facebook posts, LinkedIn descriptions, and all other professional promotional venues. Writer Gail Trowbridge shares an office with me and is available to transform your rough or specific ideas into effective, targeted web text.

We usually work on websites together, integrating the writing and the design, and vice versa, to create a site that tells your story.

Your website is only as good as your written content. And the world doesn’t need any more slick and shiny-looking websites that fail to deliver on good content.

By developing a “content first” approach, you won’t underestimate how much time and effort it will take you to prepare good website content…and you won’t stall your new site.

Using QR codes? 6 simple strategies to boost their effectiveness

sic_admin — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 21:19:52 +0000

There was a time when everyone was crazy about using QR codes in marketing materials. And just by using them, you were guaranteed advertising success. You were cool. Your business was on trend.

Except it didn’t work this way. Most advertisers weren’t using them properly and therefore weren’t experiencing success. To reap benefits from integrating QR codes into your advertising, keep reading.

QR stands for “quick response” code.

QR codes are two-dimensional barcodes which can quickly and easily be scanned by most smart phones. They’re free to create and easy to use. They can perform all kinds of useful functions when scanned, from directing you to a web page, to dialing a phone, to hosting an image.

Businesses rarely take full advantage of the QR code’s graphic placement in their message.

Just plunking your QR code into your ad is wasting a potentially valuable marketing message. Let’s take a moment to learn from the Flor product catalog — and take advantage of two strategies used here to boost your QR code marketing effectiveness.

1. Include your web link in small print underneath the QR code.

Remember, not everyone uses a Smartphone yet…or wants to pull it out and snap your code at the moment they’re reading your ad. Why waste your message? In the Flor example circled in pink, Flor has included their web address just below their QR code. You should do that, too.

2. Use a call to action next to the QR code.

Give viewers a headline or some kind of message that provides a reason to use the QR code or visit their website. Entice me, invite me or make me feel like I simply must check out what you’re offering. Flor uses an orange burst with the text “see what makes Flor different.” They also include the text “Keep the inspiration coming” above the QR code (which links people to their catalog subscription page). This approach is so much more interesting and inviting than using a “naked” QR code.

3. If needed, shorten your web page address.

There’s a trick for shortening those long URLs so that you actually can include them below your QR code in tiny type. Many of us are stuck with a very long string of characters and numbers on our page URLs — and they are too long for practical use in small advertising spaces.

Shorten your long website page address into a very compact one with these free services:

Try http://tinyurl.com/. This one is just like the name says: turns your long URL into a tiny URL.
Or try https://bitly.com (“shorten, share and track your links”).

In the FLOR page sample, Flor shortened their QR code page address from http://www.flor.com/catalogrequest/index/catalogsubscribe?utm_source=catalog&utm_medium=%28none%29catalog&utm_content=catalogrequest&utm_campaign=fall2011qr&rcode=catalog to http://good.gl/nMBgr. The shortened URL is easy to write down or type into a browser.

4. Make your QR code large.

If the code is a central feature of your business card design, rather than squashed into a corner, viewers will have no choice but to scan the code (assuming they have a Smartphone).

5. Be creative and thoughtful.

Have your code take viewers to a clever video introducing yourself or your services, to a web page to win tickets to your next event, or to a specific product you’re selling via ad or brochure. This last idea can be really useful for nonprofit organizations seeking donations — have the code take donors directly to the secure web page for entering credit card data.

6. Optimize your website for mobile devices and set up Google analytics to track your QR code web traffic.

Remember that wherever your code leads, it has to be easy to look at on a Smartphone, and therefore should link to a responsive website.