Initially, web sites were a venue where information was displayed. You’d get a web developer (or even a designer), to create the code for your site, the content would be included and the site launched. It was a static environment, meaning the content was not changing. From time to time, a site would be redesigned and relaunched. In essence, these types of static sites were an online brochure. We can call them “static information sites”. They were appealing for a few reasons, among them:

1. They were cheaper than print media.
2. A large audience was reached.
3. Customized branding on the Internet, helped with marketing initiatives.

These static informational sites were coded in a way where the code and the content were combined. This made it more difficult to exchange data. To illustrate this, and how the webscape has changed, please see the video below:

As is evident in the video, things have changed quite a bit from the days of conventional (static) web sites. One almost profound issue was the separation of design and content. With dynamic web sites (where content is regularly added or changed), the content is commonly stored in a database. The coding of the site defines the structure and adds esthetic elements to each document. Then content is added to the document as it is requested from the database. This very much defines the functions of a blog – Sure a blog is still a web site, but it is dynamic! Dynamic web sites, such as blogs, appear to have greater flexibility and usability over the conventionally designed static web site, among them:

• Blog owners do not have to wait for someone to make content changes, they can do it themselves.
• Blog platforms (such as WordPress) have built in tools that are able to promote themselves.
• The big search engines find and return results for blog driven sites faster.
• Blog driven sites can be easily updated by the owner from any location that has an Internet connection – You can do it anywhere.
• Active blog driven sites tend to rank higher in search engine results (staleness scores, etc.).
• Dynamic sites (blogs) generally have easily installed plug ins (for end users / blog owners) that facilitate the sharing of content in online social media.
• Blogs are inherently better suited to facilitating a two-way communication between site visitors and content providers.
• Blogs are often more cost effective to have customized graphic branding and are certainly more cost effective to operate. Arguably the ROI may also be better than with conventional sites.
• Blogs can display dynamic content along with static pages that never change.

Side note: A better phrasing for blog could possibly be “a dynamic interactive web site”.

As may be evident, we could go on listing more points, however one issue is that many small business owners, are not Internet savvy and are only aware of the conventional web site style. They have no concept of how dynamic sites (such as blog) are more search engine and social media friendly, cheaper to operate and can provide a better return on investment.

Do I think conventional web sites are dead? I’m not too sure about that. A lot depends on the consumer – that is the web site owner. Those that have no concept of blogs or other types of dynamic sites are probably going to stay with the familiar conventional web site. I think this is a trend that will change, as those who grew up only knowing dynamic web site become the majority.

From my personal experience, many people who are not web savvy, stumble when they hear the word “blog”, it’s almost as if they think it’s something that is so different as to become difficult? Perhaps, but it’s the idea that they have to update content that may not appeal. The crucial issue here (I think) is that people need to become more informed, taking the time to understand how a dynamic site can help them spring ahead of their competition.

As we know, blogs are a great example of dynamic sites and in a prior post (Why Every Business Can Benefit From a Blog) we found that:

• 66% of businesses believe that blogs are becoming more influential as an information source.
• 58% of blog readers, read them to find news and information they can’t find elsewhere.
• 54% of blog visitors formulate their opinions about products and companies from blogs.

The above are growing trends, so it would seem that perhaps conventional web sites, while not dead, are on their way out.

Finally, why do I think conventional web sites are falling by the wayside? Some reasons include:

• Dynamic sites like blogs are content driven, the Internet is content driven. They are both web 2.0 and there’s already a move on to web 3.0
• Business owners I’m sure, prefer cost effective solutions that can provide faster results (such as search engine response, etc).
• The newer generations of consumer and business owner are more familiar with dynamic web sites.
• Because of the two-way communication in a dynamic site (such as blogging), business owners are going to learn a lot more about their clients and potential clients.
• Dynamic sites are simpler to integrate and more appealing (because of the communication) to social media sites and promotion.

What’s your opinion? What would you add in this post? Feel free to comment below.

So it seems when many of us move to blogging type sites, it’s sometimes hard to mentally leap the barrier of “static” to dynamic (dynamic meaning content that changes). Blogs are something that engages your readers, they (blogs) facilitate two way communication between you and your readers (who, for business operators, are potential clients). All to often I notice new blog owners place some content on the blog and then sit and wait for traffic. Invariably I often get a message or phone call asking what can be done as nothing’s happening. The conversation usually sounds something like this (below being an actual transcript):

BloggerSavvy: “Have you added in-demand, valuable content to your blog?”

New Blog Owner: “I did that a while back, but nobody visited the site.”

BloggerSavvy: “Have you added anything recently, content?”

New Blog Owner: “Well, no, not really, there’s not enough traffic and I don’t want to waste my time.”

BloggerSavvy:  “What things are you doing to draw traffic to your blog?”

New Blog Owner: “What do you mean? This is the Internet, won’t Google provide the traffic?”

BloggerSavvy: “Oh, I see, okay, what sites and online communities are you participating in, what activities are you doing to attract the attention of readers?”

New Blog Owner: “The blog is on the Internet, so shouldn’t I get some traffic because of that? There are millions of people all over the world on the Internet.”

BloggerSavvy: <Pausing…>

New Blog Owner: “I don’t really know what you mean or what I should do, can’t you do something? What now?”

As I’m sure we can appreciate, it seems that much of the issue is related not only to understanding the concept of a dynamic web site (blog), but also in appreciating that the off line, tangible world (where we make friends, connections, etc.) is mirrored in the online world! – The Internet. With this in mind, let’s think about that conversation…

In-demand, valuable content. That’s important, it provides original information that is demanded by readers. In other words, copying content from somewhere else (even with permission) is simply not going to garner any traffic or blog popularity. After all, if the blog uses duplicated content, what incentive is there to visit? Most readers would prefer (and will)  visit the source.

Post new content consistently. Business demands are very great on our time (myself included).  However, it’s important to always post regularly, the more often the better (as long as the content is of good quality – posting tons of low quality content will simply motivate readers to leave). When your blog is not busy, you should still post content! The thought process that it’s not worthwhile to post (since there are not many readers) is, in my opinion, a defeatist perspective. If I don’t post there are no readers – They will leave! If I’m low on readers, that’s when I must post regular content – It gives new readers some meat and potatoes… If the table is bare, it’s not very inviting – is it?

Be active in promoting your blog. You’ve got to get out there and participate, shake the trees, be active – Just like Baloo (Don’t know what that means? See the video below).

It’s a matter of gaining the experience of knowing were to participate, where to look for traffic, readers, connections – As Baloo puts it “the bare necessities”. Or… more to the point how to search. Just because your blog is accessible to Internet  subscribers, does not impart a degree of excessive traffic. This still begs the question, what now? What can new blog owners do to improve their visibility and increase readership.

To get noticed, you’ll have to make some noise. For all those new blog owners, here are some of the things I’ve done that have worked for me.

• Create a signature for your email and include and invitation to your URL. This will automatically be appended to every email you send out. eMail applications like Thunderbird, Evolution, Outlook Express, etc. all have the ability to do this.
• Join forums that appeal to your niche. When you answer questions (or ask them), most forums have the ability to include your tag line and/or signature. Again, include and invitation and a link to your URL. Do not spam forums (you’ll get banned). Instead, legitimately participate in them.
• Allow some of your content to be used on other sites only if the content links directly back to your blog.
• Participate in communities such as twitter, digg, etc. and those which appeal to your niche subject,  ensuring your profile in each of the communities you join all contain a URL to your blog.
• Comment on other blogs (do not spam – comment legitimately) with valuable content, insight, links, opinions, etc. – While making sure you include the URL of your blog in the appropriate area of the comment form you are completing.
• Always do your best to respond to readers who comment on your blog. Invite their opinions.
• Ensure your blog has the facility to allow commentors to be notified when someone responds to their comment – This invites return visits and further discussion.
• Offer to be a guest blogger on other blogs and invite your readers to be a guest on your blog.
• Make sure your blog has a “search” feature. Nothing could be more annoying than having to flip though page after page to try and find something. Make your blog user friendly.
• eMail readers and thank them for visiting.
• Get your best content seeded (included) in social bookmarking services like Stumbleupon and Delicious.

The above suggestions should help give new blog owners a good push in promoting their blog readership and traffic. Remember, don’t expect instant results, rather focus on community participation and providing quality content. If you do, your readership will grow all by itself.

What works for you that I’ve not mentioned? Have a success story you’d like to share? Feel free to add your comments below!

It visually explains why digital text (dynamic content – such as blogs) are among the tools best able to meet the needs of information exchange. How the web is no longer a static environment. Instead any successful web site needs to participate in the ever increasing social and data exchange aspects of promotion and traffic building (Web 2).

It shows us how the technology has changed and evolved.

Think your static web site is effectively representing your business and encouraging visitors? After this video, you may want to rethink your online strategy and business promotion. After all, a static web site is simply a brochure – Not too effective in building your business. The first time I saw this video, I learned a fair bit and did sit down and significantly updated my online presence and marketing strategy plans.

As a side note: One thing I found interesting is that previously assumed analytics suggested that older people are not Internet savvy. This is something I’ve heard from more than one client. Personally I don’t believe it as I know people over 80 that surf the net regularly including purchasing products and services on line, sending email, use web cams to communicate with their grandchildren as well as services such as Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Twitter and so on. (Personally, I think the notion of the elderly not being web savvy is a silly stereotype).

Think older people are not strong Internet users? Think again… According to Insurance Canada, people 65 years of age and older comprise 29% of Internet users in Canada for 2007. 29% is a significant number – And that’s just for personal, non-business use! According to Internet World Stats, Canada had 28 million users as of March 2008 (84.3% of our population). That would work out to about 8.12 million users aged 65 and older.

Sources:
http://www.insurance-canada.ca/market/canada/2008/eMarketer-Internet-User-Demographics-807.php
http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/ca.htm

It’s really teaching us that an effective site (Web 2.0) is about linking people. About people sharing, trading and collaborating. Isn’t that what build’s our businesses? You bet!

Here’s the video:

Given the lure of increasing traffic to your web site and the inherent increase in revenue that traffic can bring, it’s no wonder how this seems the priority focus when attempting to increase traffic (and revenue leads). SEO is but one aspect that can benefit any business, there are incredible tools to this effect, one of the most beneficial is to use a blog.

Side note: Don’t know what a blog is? Then, you might be interested in my earlier post “What is Blogging? What’s a Blog“. That post also has a short video showing how a blog performs.

In another earlier post on this blog (Quality Content is Not “the” Key to a Blog Success), I suggested focusing on the intangible elements to help further increase traffic. It may logically follow therefore, that one of the biggest benefits blogging can provide business owners is the opportunity to develop a personal rapport with blog visitors. Like any business relationship, purchasers like to get to know their suppliers or providers a bit before investing in products and services. People are more likely to spend if the garner an inside peek – it’s a personal exchange. It builds confidence and trust among other things. Think about it for a moment… A web site, in essence is like a multi-page brochure. While that’s good to describe services or products, it does relatively little in terms of interaction, rapport building, social networking, and so forth. There’s really no Call to Action as each visit shows the same old content. Blogs on the other hand, encourage interactivity, communication and repeat visits as content is added on a regular basis.

A web site is one way communication. A blog is two way (actually it’s multiway communication). The blog owner (that’s the business) can talk to the visitor, who can respond AND visitors can communicate with each other as well.

For business owners, that content can include product or service updates, notifications, announcements, videos, personal introductions, podcasting, contests, guest writers, and the list goes on. Think of the scenario this way:

A potential client enters your business, you give them a brochure, they say nothing and leave. They may or may not return. That’s a web site.

No let’s look at the same scenario, from a blogging framework:

A potential client enters your business, you provide them the specific content they require. If they need content you don’t have, it’s a snap to add. The client communicates with you, and you respond. Both of you respond to another client, who replies. That sounds much more like the way things are supposed to be. Dynamic, interactive.

Over the years, I’ve seen time and again how blogs are able to better garner the traffic business owners are looking for. Why? That’s what they were designed for over the years – to be a social platform that allows people or businesses to communicate and build their connections. It’s one thing to read a book (or web site), but much more beneficial to communicate with the authors and visa versa.

To use an example, about a year ago one of my clients launched a web site and a blog a few weeks apart. To this day the blog is obtaining almost double the traffic of the web site. Statistically that seems to be supported in my opinion, when observing all of my clients sites and blogs. All of the blogs are at the top of the list traffic wise, with the sites trailing behind.

Obviously, due to privacy, I cannot divulge specific statistics of clients, I did take a look for some stats, to see if some of these observations are mirrored elsewhere. I found some pretty interesting results. Expansion+ (an Internet Marketing PR site) reported on a Business Blogging Survey. Did you know that “…Almost 89 percent of U.S. respondents and nearly 83 percent of U.K. respondents believe blogs are an important digital communication…”?

Also from their site:

“Ultimately, what this survey revealed was a need for communication professionals in both countries to step up to the plate and start integrating blogging practices into their strategic approach,” said Jacki Vause, managing director of Peppercom’s London office”.

While the survey they were discussing was specifically about “Business Blogging Survey Reveals Corporate Attitude to Social Media” and was intended to “…compare and contrast blogging communication practices in the U.S. and the U.K. and identify best practices…”, I couldn’t help but note some of the prevalent points.

I also looked at another site, which was more targeted to the subject of this blog post. Neville Hobson’s post “Blogs drive business opportunities: UK survey” where some of the key findings he noted included:

• 50% of companies undertake some form of blogging, either having a blog, or encouraging employees to comment on blogs.
• 80% of blog users visit blogs within work hours. Most blog users visit blogs at lunchtime (31%), or first thing in the morning (29%).
• 66% of businesses believe that blogs are becoming more influential as an information source.

Visit the link to his post (above) to see all his other noted findings (as they’re a good indicator of how business owners seem to deal with blogging).

Statistics aside, blogging is a great way for any business to increase traffic. It’s an interesting point to note, that when I conduct training seminars, a fair number of people seemed to have visited both my blogs, already garnering some feel for my business and my professional background – And it makes communication much more effective when I meet with them!

For business owners (actually for anyone) considering launching a blog, I’ve mentioned in other posts, but it’s apt here – Make sure you focus your blog towards a specific niche and target audience (within that niche). Obviously conent from my other blog (a Linux blog) would not work in this blog as it’s not of interest. Therefore, by using a blog, you’re able to provide an added benefit by targeting very specific audiences and therefore garnereing traffic that in many mays could be considered as “qualified leads“, since they may already be looking for what you’ve got.

What do these blog visitors want? I also found (via Google) the results of a German study about corporate blogging. For those who do not speak German, some of the key findings were:

• 95 % of respondents found it important that the blog they read be updated regularly.
• 91% of blog readers expect a fast, relevant/appropriate reply to their questions and comments.
• 90% of readers thought it was important to indicate a difference between commercial and private content.
• 58% of readers, read them to find news and information they can’t find elsewhere.
• 57% of respondents were interested in the personal opinions of the authors.
• 54% of blog visitors formulate their opinions about products and companies from blogs.
• 51% of readers visit product and/or corporate sites as a results of reading blogs.
• 43% of visitors were interested in the blog discussions.

Those are some eye opening numbers, that show how important blogs are to business owners. For example, would you like visitors to find out more about your business, it’s products and services elsewhere or from your blog directly? – A blog that can help them formulate an opinion about your business and it’s offerings.

I should note that one point not addressed in the site I reviewed was ROI. All business owners should be aware that the cost of operating a blog is drastically less that a traditional web site. You don’t have to spend the time to learn web coding or invest in designers and developers to update your site content. Using WordPress, it quite easy after the engine is installed. It’s very much like typing your content in an online editor and then clicking publish – Easy!

In conclusion, given the above, it appears that blogging provides the following key benefits to business owners.

• Targeted audience.
• improved PR (public relations).
• Enhanced pre-sales.
• Increased traffic due to social interaction.
• Community building.
• Cost effective ROI.
• Improved brand awareness.

In my opinion, businesses that want to compete for attention and traffic in today’s online arena could best leverage the value of their investment by using a blog.

After all, do you want to be communicating with interested people and building your business or would you rather be standing on the corner handing brochures out. In my opinion, the choice is a no-brainer. ;)

I received a few email messages from friends this morning, after I told them about a new blog launch. To answer such a question, I could dive into the technical aspects (I’m a certified Network Engineer MCSE among others), as much as the practical aspects (that would perhaps, make more sense to the business owner).

While googling does provide a lot of definitions, I’m not really sure that they grasp the meat and potatoes of blogging. To define a blog in its simplest terms:

A blog empowers a business to reach a wider audience and continue a conversation with them, by providing readers with in demand, quality, syndicated content. Blogs are beneficial in that they allow business owners to add content to their blogs as needed, without requiring the services of a web site developer or designer (to update the content). Therefore two evident benefits, are that blogs save business owners money and help market products or services.

Blogs are a way to continue a conversation with the audience. This is accomplished by the use of features, just some such of which include:

• Readers providing comments and feedback.
• Surveys and Polls.
• Content written by and submitted for posting by guest writers from the audience.

In terms of features, many of them are beneficial. For example, blogs provide RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. What’s an RSS feed and why is it beneficial? Wikipedia has a great blurb.

From wikipedia:

…Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content quickly and automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader”, or “aggregator”, which can be web-based or desktop-based…

In other words, when we update the content in our blog, subscribers (of our RSS feed) are instantly notified!

One (initially) less visible benefit of blogging comes into play as the volume of quality content grows. The greater the amount of quality content available, the greater the amount of traffic (visitors) to the blog. Therefore, over time, a blog can become an increasingly powerful tool for the business owner!

To further clarify, I visited YouTube and searched for “What is a blog”. The first and best result returned was a great video from “CommonCraft”, titled “Blogs in Plain English”:

I should add that they also have a great video explaining RSS in Plain English.

Another video describing different types of blogs may also further explain some of the diversity in blogging:

In conclusion, it’s not a far stretch to realize that maintaining a conversation with your audience is the best way not only to grow traffic to your quality, in demand content, but also an incredibly effective way to promote products, services, charities, hobbies… in fact an endless list!