Web Design Podcast (11) – Benefits of blogging
Posted in Podcast on: Monday, October 31, 2005 by Paul Boag
This week we look at blogging. Is it just a cheap form of therapy for those who feel a need to unburden their emotional problems, or is it a powerful marketing tool for increasing your businesses exposure.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (16.8MB)
Below is a brief outline of what was covered in this show as well as links to more information where appropriate
News
This week on boagworld.com…
A new web feed is added
If you can’t get enough of Paul’s pearls of wisdom why not subscribe to his "best of the web" feed which includes links to useful web design content…read more
Boagworld.com goes flickr crazy
We have created a flickr group that allows you to discuss web design, post examples of good and bad design as well as get your own designs reviewed…join the group
Web design podcast Directory
One of our podcast listeners (Jonas) has been kind enough to compile the ultimate list of web design podcasts…see the list
Blogging – the benefits to business
Why blog?
- Blogging adds content rich in keywords to your site so increasing your ranking on search engines
- Blogging encourages the creation of non-marketing content which people will actively want to link to. The more links, the better your search engine ranking.
- Blogging ensures your site always has fresh content that in turn encourages repeat traffic.
- Blogging builds a personal relationship with your readers and fosters trust.
- Blogging provides you with the opportunity to demonstrate your experience in the sector you are trying to reach.
- Regular blogging increases the amount your site is spidered by search engines so ensuring your content appears on them faster.
- Blogs are indexed and listed on exclusive blog directories so exposing your site to a wider audience.
- Blog software also produces web feeds, which come with their own unique set of benefits.
Objections to blogging?
- You cannot customise your blog to integrate with the rest of your site.
This is simply not true if you select the right blogging software. Do not settle for second-rate blogging applications just because they are free. - It’s too much work to maintain a blog.
Yes, it is true that a blog takes time and effort, but then so does every other form of marketing. If you spend the time to blog regularly, you will see a return on investment. - We expose our trade secrets to the competition.
This is true but you also expose your knowledge to potential customers. The benefits of one, outweighs the other.
Many of these points are expanded the boagworld.com post on the benefits of articles.
11 Comments
Comments are for the discussion of this post. If you have other questions / comments then post them to the forum or send me an email
Ah! I sent you an e-mail, but seeing as this podcast is about blogging, what do you use to post blogs to this site? I like the simplicity of the commenting area.
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Scott
Movable Type
Sorry about that. I posted this before I finished the podcast. :)
Thanks Paul!
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Scott
Another good podcast. I’m a bit concerned that pop-ups might be spreading to podcasts though!
Just something to think about with blogs: Perhaps just like a web site, just having a blog won’t necessarily be enough, in the same way that just having a web site wouldn’t be enough. A company/individual would still have to put work into it to make sure it is doing what they want it to.
There are also pitfalls that may be unique to the blogging world. The article lists some of these. Maybe you would like to comment on this?
Sorry, but I didn’t liked the American guy (whatever his name was). He really had _almost_ nothing to say.
It was a little OTT, yes? Leave it up to us goofy Americans. Paul – Yes, the truck had satellite internet onboard. Let me say — I was amazed at the speed. He claimed it was as fast as any corporate network. We had considered sat. a few years back, until the gods of DSL shined upon us.
The thing that stands-out the most to me is the low cost of all the components involved. Everything used to be out of reach.
I also heard about the $100 portable. More power to them! [Although, consider how many year's salary that is in remote parts of Africa.]
Hi Jonas,
fair enough. We cannot all like the same thing. Nevertheless I am keen that other people can be involved in this podcast and contribute. It will be interesting if Alan having the guts to contribute something will give other people the push they need to send things in too.
Hi Ed,
generally speaking I agree with everything Jakob Nielsen says in his article on blogging. Probably the only two points I have problem with are his comments about publishing frequency and that of writing for your future boss.
Jakob, bless him, needs to loosen up a bit and those two points are classic examples.
I don’t believe you have to have an exacting schedule for your postings. I think it is enough to post regularly.
Secondly, although his comments about writing for your future boss are true I think it smacks of paranoia. You can’t live your life second guessing every word you ever write! Well at least I can’t.
I am considering using a blog for our HR department to upload new jobs.
Currently I am using Adobe’s free content management system, which to be honest is a bit unreliable. My idea on using a blog comes from our HR departments desire to upload their own content, and it would provide a feed for people to be informed of jobs at our company.
Is there any draw backs you can think of to this?
Sorry if you have discussed this in the podcast. I am about half way through at the moment!
No, I would have thought a blog would work perfectly well for this as long as you are happy with only basic filtering techniques such as by job category.
Paul mentioned in the Blogging-centric podcast that Blogger is not very customizable. The two major drawbacks of Blogger.com is the inability to categorize comments and to cuztomize the functionality of the templates that are provided. There are two tricks that can help with this…
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=742&topic=39
With conditional tags you can really start to stray from the standard blog functionality and pretty much build a dynamic “press release” section of a web site without the cost of a CMS, using only the free blogger.com engine.
For categories, this is a very hacky solution…
http://hacks.oreilly.com/pub/h/2881
But it gets the job done for people who are not sure they want to spend money on blogging software and would like to try a free solution.