lovewebdesign

It’s funny because when I speak with new clients, especially the guys n gals that are newbies to the web world, I try to establish their primary goals and objectives for the site, the purpose for having one, their target audience etc… as in my view any half decent designer would. 

We tend to also take our clients through a learning curve as we go, teaching them that some aspects of their online presence need a regular input.  However, I find that I am becoming particularly bad at keeping this up myself.  I has now been quite some time since my last blog post, and yet I have accumulated quite a large quantity of material.

With the company growing, and being re-branded it has been difficult at times to stay on top of everything.  This for us, is where the social media aspects fail for the smaller company or for the sole trader.

What I am trying to say in this post is as I must learn to practise what I preach, we must all learn to adapt…

a short but potentially useful article for those that do not yet know/understand the purpose or relevance of  the little orange RSS button!

Courtesy of  Stilton Studios – Article Link: Link: What is RSS?

Once again, this is gained through many nights reading and gathering information from all over the web, books and training courses that I too attend in order to try and provide a better service.

Some blogs ARE better than others and read by potential clients who are seeking ideas and resources. Commenting intelligently on blogs can be a very good way to build a reputation in your field of experience, it can also be one of the quickest ways to discredit yourself too!

Make sure that you read the whole post that you would like to comment on thoroughly, and maybe even draft your response away from your screen so that you are not tempted to make a hurried response – this can often result in half hearted comments.

Try to use facts so that over time other readers of the blogs to which you post know that you know what you are talking about. It is always a good idea to keep comments short and to the point.

Guidelines for Commenting on Blogs

It is usually necessary for you to sign in to most blog sites before you can leave your comments.  You are normally asked for your email address and the URL of your website.

Stick to the facts about what you do.

Because of comment spam, many bloggers ask you to register.

If you have a business connection to a product or service mentioned in the blog post, make this clear to anyone reading your comment.

Comment only when you feel you can offer something of value.

Bloggers may shorten your comments. Better to simply write shorter.

When quoting material, ALWAYS be accurate, provide attribution for the quote, including source and URL (if available).

Hope this helps,

Sarah

Once again all my articles are written from my own perspective so some may or may not agree with me but as I develop my own skills in blogging I find that I am asked more often how I go about managing my own blog and these articles are based very much on this – I hope this information will help from an advisory point of view…

When I first started I found I had very little to say and that I struggled to find a topic matter so I just wrote a few “Hi, here I am“ type posts which obviously did little for the blog or for me come to that!

But now as clients, colleagues and people I network with ask more and more questions I find that every spare moment is used writing little article in a huge (now up to 20 pages) word document that when I get time I proof read and then paste into WordPress and then publish.  This saves me oodles of time!

About Writing the Articles…

There seems to be some basic style guidelines when writing blog article which I tried to stick to when I first started writing, I vary a little now – these are:

• Try & keep it direct; declarative is good.
• Link to any other article, book, product, website that you can link to, it provides background/supporting info regarding your subject.
• Write little & often:  You can always comment on responses, but short & succinct is always good.
• Don’t take yourself/your blog too seriously, but never lose your sense of humour:  Don’t get personal; formal writing is for “solicitors”.  Blogs are more informal & friendly.
• Use Simple sentence structures & remember to always read your post out load before you publish it: This helps – honest!
• Bullets are good, so are subheadings, bold & italics for emphasis.

Finally a checklist before you hit the “Publish” button:

• Does the title apply to the content?
• Does the leading para explain what the article is about & why the reader should read &/or care?
• Is it worth reading?
• Would someone who knows nothing about the topic be able to understand it?
• Is it jargon free?  Have you explained the jargon?

Hope it Helps,

Sarah

So, you have gone through all the blurb about blogging that you can find on the web, including mine and you have considered that it could be good for you and that you have a lot you could talk about and the time to do it – so what comes next…

The next thing to do is to decide where you want your blog, what packages or piece of software you are going to use and what you are going to call it! 

Name your Blog:
If your blog is a business blog you can just use your company name; but you may find that it has already gone – so why not think of an alternative; do try to think of something that is relevant and reasonable though – this is much like choosing your domain name.  If you are considering a blog for a successful and long term venture then you need to consider a name that is not going to sound totally ridiculous in say 10years time when you are a little older and wiser/or may have changed your product/service range to something more staid!

Which Software/Platform?
Firstly, you need to understand that this series of articles is a personal view written from my own experiences and potentially will not cover everything.

WordPress: is a free blogging platform, that allows you to create and manage your own blog for free. You are, however prevented from adding some of the plug-ins and from changing the themes from the default ones unless you download to your own webspace and install the self-hosted version – if you do this, you have to update the interface everytime WordPress is updated. Neither can you monetize your blog. The biggest bonus is that WordPress is great for beginners, easy to use and on face value is quick and easy to learn. I have not found anyone yet that uses WordPress that has a bad word to say about it…

Blogger: (a.k.a. e-blogger) is currently owned by Google and is also a free blogging platform. I personally found this blogging software easy initially but then found WordPress and closed by blogger account and moved over.

LiveJournal:  I have recently been told that this is another free blogging platform that is super smooth and can also be switched between public and private modes… I have not heard of this one before, neither have I checked it out yet but maybe it is worth having a look at

Now that was a short brief overview of the software/platforms that I mysefl have had experience of – most will let you create accounts and all you have to do if you do not like them is find the option on the menu that says “close account”, or “delete blog/account” and you will have deleted it.

There is never any harm in trying these things out – the most you will have lost in the short term is time and effort and if you are prepared in start a blog this effectively will be tyhe time and effort you will be investing in your blog in the future – so why not start with the research…

My article this week may seem a little disjointed, but the aim is to get you to go out and try these things for yourself not for me to tell you what you do and I do hope that you will try…

It is also worth having a look at your own hosting packages for your website if they are not the cheaper ones to see if your packages already includes blogging software – some do and some do not, but again it is always worth a check.  If you have access to your control panel you can check there, if you have a hosting company you can always raise a support tickets and ask them.  Most Hosts undertand that not everybody know whats they are purchasing

That’s all for today folks!  More next week…

Sarah

Following on from my little “blurb” about blogs I decided to try and write something about what to consider when thinking about starting a Blog – but do remember that this is ONLY based on my own experience and that of those I have spoken with in my own social networking circles…

If you don’t agree with me – that’s fine and if it helps any – that’s brilliant!

So what did I do? The first thing I did was asked everyone that I knew what exactly a “Blog” was? Just because I design websites doesn’t mean I know everything – these were the most common answers I got back:

• It is a diary of someone’s thoughts and associated linkage
• A web log (blog for short), is a sort of journal that is published and available for all to see on the web and is kept up-to-date by the owner (also known as a blogger)
• A Blog is a fun guide to the bloggers life, it can develop a life and relationship of it’s own with its very own audience
• A Blog can be a useful business tool, set aside from the usual information you would find on a website and can provide and informal tool for everyday hints, tips and support that you can find free on the Internet

The next thing I did was to ask the very same people how they set it up, what software they used and how easy was it to use and do? Oh and how much time would I need to spend “blogging” most importantly.

The response for the software question was either “WordPress” – which funnily enough is the software I am using now – mainly because you can set it up free on the WordPress site initially and then when you become more confidant and you know what you are doing you can download it, install it and move it to your own hosting space.

The second answer I got was “I don’t actually know what it is called it came with my hosting package”, which didn’t help much but got a lot of information in that it told me that if you look hard enough at your hosting package you may find you already have the functionality there.

So was it easy to do? Most people I asked said once they understood the terminology and the differences between “feeds”, “posts” and knew what “moderating” was and how it happened, although most admitted that they didn’t realise this until it happened for the first time . They were okay. It was simply a case of following the prompts…

Most admitted that they had changed their styles of writing once they had gotten to grips with managing their blogs and had actually tailored the sorts of thing they had wanted to write into a more focused approach for the business.

Time was the issue for everyone though – everybody I spoke to said that they would love to write more but just couldn’t find the time… Everyone was putting in around 2hours a week on a half hourly basis and forgetting a couple of days due to work or family commitments and then having the moderation comments processed in their daily mail routines, with little or no feedback comments being posted.

Other Considerations which were posed to me by my friends/colleagues:

Have you got a thick skin?  Blogging is a public activity and the plain fact is that if you have a blog it will be found and read by others and whilst you are receiving positive comments and feedback this is all wonderful, but every now and again you will receive harsh or negative comments and criticisms either about your work, products, services and sometimes even yourself! You do need to have a bit of a thick skin and to be able to handle the criticism.

You will also have to consider whether you want to put yourself into the public eye, on the forefront of the blog – if not consider whether there is someone that you can submit this work to who will run a blog on your behalf.

Do you have staying power and are you consistent?   Most blogs need a long term approach to be moderately successful. There are but a few that are overnight successes. One of the main reasons for this is that people change their approach to writing and blogging too frequently.

I have been told that one common mistake is that the blogger will themselves lose interest but not quite lose the commitment and their writing style becomes boring and general;  their readers then lose interest and stop coming back for the updates!  Your audience comes to expect a certain standard and a certain quality – stick with it!

Are you organised?  In most bloggers lives there comes a point when it all gets a bit too much – email here, feeds there, work taking over and where has the time gone? The blog gets pushed to the back burner and the audience you had loses out a little.  This is all too common from the reading I have been doing lately on this topic – the common message that appears to be coming across is when you are organising your day why not include your blog in that organisation routine?   Add a little more time into your admin schedule again for reading the blog comments, emails and feeds etc… Set yourself one hour a week for blogging articles – either reading, writing or responding – possibly even networking with others.

Face-to Face or Online?  If you are more of a face to face person then you might want to consider Networking instead of blogging.   Blogging although you can engage and interact with your readers through comments and emails, unless you organise an event you rarely get to meet with them.  You do, however always have to be careful with developing an online relationship, for safety reasons things will not always be what they seem, remember never give out your personal or financial details online.  Developing an ability to figure out if people are who they say they are is a skill and very hard to come by online.

Very Important – Do you Enjoy Writing?  Blogs are written and are more often than not updated on an almost daily basis – I have seen blogs updated daily.  If you do not have a love for writing then this is potentially something that is not for you.

Do you have a Message to Communicate?  A blog without a message is like a newspaper with no news! You wouldn’t read it!  Think about the message you have to communicate to your target audience, do you have something to say? Often blogs contain people’s opinions and personal thoughts, or from the business point of view contain information about products,  support, technical information that may assist the users when configuring particular products or information guides like this one – aimed at helping users make informed decisions (hopefully!).

DO you HAVE a Target Audience?  Often people consider that if there is not an article, product or service “in the wild”, then it will be a good idea to write, develop/create or sell one – this is not always the case.  Do your research properly – sometimes there is a reason why there is a gap in the market; for example, this is a product or service that does not sell, is it something that has a high manufacturing cost; or something that simply people love the idea of but would not buy, even something that has been written about sooo many times there is not much left to say.  Try to make sure you have an audience – this does not just apply to Blogs but to web sites as well…

-oOo-

I have lots more to write about for both Websites and Blogs but for one day I think this is enough for anyone to take in and I am aware that I have a “natural” ability to waffle

So for now…. this is me signing off