Entries Tagged 'blog design' ↓
November 20th, 2008 — Buildify, blog design, platform
(Blogger, etc… focus on how posts may be deleted forever without warning, lack of professionalism, etc…)
In a lot of different instances when it comes to blogging, making use of a free blogging platform can really come in handy. If you are writing a personal blog or a blog that is only meant to be read by friends, family members and casual colleagues, then making use of a free blogging platform like Movable Type or Blogger is actually a good idea. These blogs allow you to blog as part of a giant network where you can gain exposure and readership just by posting, which makes them an excellent place for you to start out when you are just beginning to get the hang of blogging. Unfortunately, these are not a long term solution by any means because as a blogger with a free blogging network platform, you are actually subject not only to someone else’s rules relating to blogging, but also a loss of apparent professionalism by not having that individuality or uniqueness that you would have if blogging privately on your own website.
Because you are subject to the rules of the blogging platform that your blog is based off of, you may find your blog posts being deleted for no apparent reason and absolutely no warning, which can force you to deal with a difficult blow. How would you like to write a really nice, really detailed post that will attract readers, only to find out sometime later that it was deleted from the server because a moderator for the blogging platform did not agree with it? No warning is given, nor is any real chance to save your work before it is gone. While most moderators on blogging platform sites like Blogger and WordPress are working hard to be fair, this does not mean that you are protected.
In addition to the risk that your blog posts may be deleted without any real warning or rhyme or reason, another threat that you face is losing your look of professionalism because you are blogging on someone else’s website. This is similar to the difference between having your own domain name, or parking your website at http://www.geocities.com.
Which is more professional, in your eyes, http://www.mycorporateblog.com or http://www.geocities.com/~mycorporateblog?
The same thing goes when it comes to your blog. You want your blog to be a representation of your professionalism as an employee with the company and a blogger on the internet, and what this means is having your own unique blog website using an open source blogging software. WordPress may have a network where bloggers can create their own blogs on site, but their software is also downloadable, allowing you to create your own customized blog off site as well. This gives you an opportunity to create a professional blog that will do everything in its power to uphold your image of professionalism, which is a good part of why you are blogging in the first place.
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November 18th, 2008 — Buildify, audience, blog design, content, engaging ideas, post design, research, sales, writing style
Do you want to utilize social media to the best of its capabilities with your corporate blog? Here are ten secrets that the best social media users are utilizing in order to boost the capabilities of their blogs and other websites.
1 - Do your research!
Why? Because every single successful marketing strategy is based on solid research. You cannot go blindly onto a social media site and expect to get immediate success by submitting your content. Find social media sites that work well in conjunction with your niche.
2 - Interact with the community as much as possible.
Do not completely ignore the community as many social media marketers do , but instead get involved because this is what social media is really all about. Take advantage of the social nature of the platform and interact for better success in your corporate blogging and social media endeavors.
3 - Write FOR your audience.
If you want your content to be hot, and even viral, then you need to write for your audience on these social media sites. Interact with the community and get to know its members, learning about their likes and dislikes for example. Learn what gets the most attention and cater to it the best you can.
4 - Shoot for relevancy at all times.
Relevance is the true key to effective social media marketing. Look at Digg, StumbleUpon and other social networking and social media sites for proof of this fact.
5 - Keep your writing short.
Internet users do not tend to enjoy reading long text passages, preferring instead to scan anything that they are interested in. Be accommodating by keeping your content short.
6 - Good design.
When users come to your page, are they greeted with a design that is clean and welcoming in nature? If not, they may leave! To combat this, simply focus on presenting a good design and you will go far.
7 - Stop trying to make sales.
Another rookie mistake that is commonly made in social media marketing is to try ands ell your products. Promoting your brand is a good thing, but if all you are doing is pimping your products then you are never going to get any respect in the social networking world.
8 - Create Outstanding Headlines.
Your story may be excellent, but your headline is what sells. If you want attention when it comes to social media, you need to have an absolutely killer headline otherwise users will not notice what you are posting.
9 - Help Others Out.
If you want to become a top user or a popular user, you have to help others out rather than simply submitting and promoting the content that you write.
10 - Convert the hottest content.
Capitalize on hot content as often as you can. Make the attention that you garner last for as long as you possibly can by creating more posts to follow the hot ones so visits can read not only your popular post, but also your newer content as well.
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November 13th, 2008 — Buildify, blog design, engaging ideas, extra, post design, tools
Here are nine ways to make corporate blogging even easier for you. Writing your blog should be enjoyable and fun, rather than just a task you have no interest in doing. These some really great tools should help make blogging more fun and enjoyable for you rather than a chore or a task that you would like to enjoy.
1. AutoCopy
You can skip the manual copying and pasting by using AutoCopy. If you want to quote passages you find on the web, or reference other snippets, forget using Control/Command +C and Control/Command +V once you’re at the right place in the markup language. Instead, install the AutoCopy tool, a free FireFox extension found at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/383. It will allow you to select text to automatically add it to the clipboard, then will allow you to paste it by middle clicking anywhere while in FireFox.
2. CoLT
This will allow you to copy both links and their titles, making it easier than ever for you to use the links you want in your blogs. CoLT is the Copy Link Text Firefox Extension, available at http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/colt/download.html.
3. Reusable Post and Image Templates
If you tend to post in ways that are similar in structure, you might as well create reusable templates for images and posting. Wired has a guide for automating actions in Photoshop. You can also grab free templates for Blogger and Wordpress or use a variety of different CSS templates that automate the posting process significantly.
4. Blog Live using Jott
Jott is a neat voicemail to text service that can allow you to post the things you need even when you are on the go. Jott, available through http://www.jott.com is compatible with Blogger, Typepad, Tumblr, WordPress and Livejournal.
5. Text Replacement
Use text replacement to automate repetitive code in your blog postings. This is a lot easier than embedding a flickr photo manually, or creating a custom signature template or custom headline, then add a text replacement app to your arsenal. Some examples are Tester from Windows, Snippits for Linux and TextExpander for Mac.
6. Google Alerts
Google Alerts will allow you to get topic based post ideas sent your email inbox every day. This will allow you to laser focus in on the particular websites, blog posts, news stories and group posts that you are intending to find.
7. Spend Less Time Resizing
Blogs need imagines, but finding the perfect image in the perfect size can be time consuming. Use Photoshop or GIMP, or choose Picnik available at http://www.picnik.com to make this process a great deal easier and hassle free.
8. Foxmarks
You can keep your post ideas synchronized with Foxmarks, because posting fodder can be found all the time but you need a way to store it if you are not yet ready to post about it. Foxmarks can be found at http://www.foxmarks.com.
9. Tumblr
A tumblelog is a quick post blog that is powered using the Tumblr web application which makes posting anything you want a lot less intimidating than if you were to blog in the wide-open HTML space like Movable Type or Wordpress. Learn more about Tumblr at http://www.tumblr.com.
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November 6th, 2008 — Buildify, blog design, goals, planning, platform, post design
(ie: should blog design match main site design?)
There are a lot of different considerations that need to be made when you are taking the initial steps to set up your corporate blog. For example, one of the first considerations that you should make is whether design integration is or is not important for your corporate blog. Should your blog design have the same design as your main site, or is there room for some creative license when setting up a site that is meant to be companion to your main site, but not necessarily part of the same website? The truth here is that either option is viable, as long as you are achieving what you intend to when designing the look and feel of your blog in its early stages on your website.
If your website has a distinct design that is classic and simple, then implementing it both on your main site and your blog site will add seamlessness for easy maneuverability, which is something that your readers will appreciate. As long as they can differentiate between the main website and the blog as they move from one to the other, there should be no underlying issues in creating a seamless design that remains the same from page to page. Because so many WordPress blog templates are designed to allow for extra pages, some corporate bloggers build the blog to spec and then add their main site around it, creating an entire blog and website combination from a single blog template. This is not the only option available to you however, so you should not feel locked into it.
On the other hand, as long as you keep a similar theme in place, there is no reason why you cannot create a website design and a blog site design that are unique to one another. If your website has a set of colors and a main graphical theme that is completely unique to your blog, you may be going for something a little too unique. However, design integration when it comes to hooking a blog and a website together does not mean using the exact same template twice - You can create an acceptable level of design integration simply by using the same images, the same basic color scheme or just a similar layout design. These small details will add up to show your readers that they are still on the same website while still making it easy for them to differentiate between your blog and your website, which can sometimes be beneficial to them.
The design details are ultimately up to you as you put your corporate blog together. What you should be aware of is the fact that both of these options have merit, and you can always add and change elements as you go to suit your style and to respond to comments from your readers. Your corporate blog and website do not have to have the same exact design implemented into both, but seamlessness can be nice when showing readers that the two sites have the same common goal.
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November 4th, 2008 — Buildify, Categories, blog design, goals, research
If you have decided to create your own corporate blog, one of the first things that you may be trying to figure out is what categories to create. Categories allow you to tag and file your blog entries, and they make it easier for your readers to find the specific entries that they are interested in reading based on the tags or categories that you choose. In other words, deciding how to pick different categories for your corporate blog is an important part of setting your corporate blog up for easy reading.
Choosing the different categories for your corporate blog begins by making a list of the different things that you want to write about in your blog. Once you have a good working list of the subjects that you want to touch on when writing your blog, the next step is going to be to open up a category for each of the topics on your list. When you are done adding categories for each of these topics, you should create one more additional category that will allow you to cover anything that goes above and beyond the scope of the categories that you already created. For example, let us say that you are creating a corporate blog for your computer or IT company. Some of the categories that you may include in your corporate blog on this subject will include:
- Computers
- Current Technology
- Industry News
- Company News
In addition to these categories, you may decide that you also like to blog about meeting interesting people and dining out when you attend corporate events. If this is the case, then adding a category to house both of these types of blog entries, or adding a category for each of these different types of blog entries will allow readers interested in learning what you are doing to find out about who you are meeting and what types of dining you are experiencing while attending corporate events and dining out with clients and other colleagues.
When you are building your first blog, reading other blogs for advice and inspiration is a good idea. Blogging on making money and blogging about blogging are not the only subjects that make money when it comes to putting together and writing in a blog. The blogosphere, or the world of blogs, is actually a lot denser with different categories and different topics and subjects that you can write about, which is why blogs are so popular in the first place.
When it comes to choosing categories for your blog, however, it would be wise to look at other corporate blogs that fit into the same niche or industry as yours, to get a feel for what other bloggers are writing about, and what types of blog entries are getting attention in your industry. Once you have a firm idea of what the current hot topics are, you can create categories that are accommodating, and this will ensure that you are working within defined categories that will attract the interest of your readers.
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October 31st, 2008 — advertisment, blog design, links
A corporate blog can be an incredibly powerful sales tool and many people begin this practice simply to sell more products. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but before you start, it is vital to learn the art of product placement. Blogging is similar in many ways to television and other media, but when it comes to product placement, there a few very big differences.
Have you ever stayed up late and watched an annoying infomercial? Most have, and even if you are vaguely interested in the product, it’s still pretty tough to get past the hype. Now, let’s put this in terms of a blog. If your blog is one long infomercial with no actual content of any value, chances are your efforts will be in vain. No one likes to read an infomercial – especially one that stretches on ad infinitum.
So, how do you still sell products on your blog, but avoid this trap? The answer is actually pretty simple. You need to develop a ratio of informative posts versus posts that contain product placement. You also need to work on inventive ways to integrate product placement into informative posts. Let’s cover the first one and then move to the second.
A good ratio to have to avoid sounding like the world’s longest infomercial is three informative posts for every post that contains a product placement. Yes, this only gives you about one chance a week to sell a specific product if you only blog once a day. However, the chances of that one post being effective are much higher than if you post nothing but product spam all week.
The key is to give your readers what they want. That would be informative content that they can use, enjoy, or relate to. No one can really relate to a commercial. Most blog readers are savvy enough to know that companies need to promote their products, and they are okay with the fact that occasionally there may be a post about a specific product. They are not okay with endless promotional posts that offer no value to them as a reader.
Now, let’s cover inventive ways to handle product placement. These are not overt sales pitches, but they can be even more powerful than a direct product placement post. The key here is to find a way to incorporate your product into your informative post that:
1. The flow of the post is not disturbed.
2. The product provides an answer to a problem.
3. The reader is interested in learning more about the product.
This is not as hard as it sounds. A simple well placed link to one of your products and a brief sentence about how the reader will benefit from it can be incredibly powerful. Test out a few techniques to see how well your audience responds to different variants of this technique until you find the one that is right for your blog.
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October 12th, 2008 — Buildify, advertisment, audience, blog design, bloggers, blogosphere, engaging ideas, marketing, money, networking, promotion, seo
Good morning Sunday readers! Are you looking for some blogging tips to help out your blog or thinking of starting one? Check out our quick guide below to some great places for ideas and resources.
General:
Blogging Tips:
Promotion and Advertising:
SEO | Optimization:
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October 1st, 2008 — blog design, platform
There is a lot of controversy over which blogging platform is ideal for corporate blogs. With so many schools of thought on the matter, it can be difficult to figure out which one you should be using. We have two main favorites, Blogger and Wordpress, and both are very well suited to corporate blogging.
The two main benefits of both of these platforms is that they are incredibly easy to use, and incredibly search engine friendly. That solves a lot of problems right there. While we typically don’t recommend free services for corporate blogging, now that Blogger allows you to attach your own URL to your Blogger account, they’ve moved up in our estimation.
Basically, if you don’t want to go through the trouble of using server space for your corporate blog and you need a publishing platform that is literally idiot proof, then Blogger is ideal. It has many of the same features as Wordpress, and since it is owned by Google, you’ll have a pretty good chance of getting a good ranking as long as you keep publishing quality content.
For corporate blog owners that need a little more control, Wordpress is our natural favorite. There are thousands of customization options that are available and it is very easy to get started. With the right plugins, you can make a very advanced site without breaking a sweat, and you’ll be optimizing your content at the same time.
While there are other platforms that work well for corporate blogs, we really prefer Wordpress for two main reasons:
1. Smaller learning curve.
Wordpress takes less than five minutes to install, even if you have no prior experience. Everything is spelled out for you in the dashboard for your site and publishing is incredibly easy. With the right configuration you can easily build a very popular corporate blog without any effort.
2. More options for optimization.
There are thousands of plugins for Wordpress that are designed to help you manage comments, optimize your content, take advantage of SEO trends, and keep everything running smoothly. These are all easy to install and use and most require very little interaction on your part.
The bottom line is that not everyone can afford to hire a web designer or programmer. Either one of these solutions is absolutely free to use and in most cases, they are more capable than the platforms that actually do cost money. For those that need to get a quick start and do not have the time to learn HTML, PHP coding and basic blogging set-up, you can’t go wrong with either of these platforms.
Try setting up a sample account on Blogger, or install Wordpress on your own server and play around with them for a few minutes. Chances are you’ll be able to get the hang of it immediately and you will be well on your way to becoming the owner of a successful corporate blog that is completely tricked out and reader friendly.
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September 27th, 2008 — audience, blog design, content, platform, search engine
If you are just getting into corporate blogging, or you do not have enough free time to take advantage of this powerful medium, you may want to consider hiring a blog consultant. This type of service is ideal for those that need extra assistance in learning the ropes or for those that need help building content, links and working on SEO. There are many reasons why a blog consultant can be very beneficial.
1. Advantage of Experience.
This is essential for someone that is completely new to running their own website and blog. You’ll be able to avoid the early months where mistakes are common and your consultant will give your blog that jumpstart it needs. While you can do it all on your own, sometimes, it’ s just nice to have that little extra bit of help.
2. SEO services.
Most blog consultants will offer at least some form of SEO services. This means that your blog will be ranked higher and you’ll have a better chance of meeting your goals for your blog, whether it’s more sales, more press or simply more site visitors.
3. Keeping you on target.
A blog consultant can assist you in many ways, from suggesting topics to write about, actually writing posts for you, tweaking site design issues and even helping with every day problems. If you have trouble staying focused, or you simply don’t know what to write about on your blog, this is incredibly helpful.
4. Starting assistance.
There are dozens of blogging platforms out there – which one is right for you? Instead of installing them all and wasting money, your blogging consultant can help pick one that is suited for your needs and will provide the best results for your company.
5. Constant content.
Let’s say you have the best intentions of publishing three posts a week on your corporate blog. But, meetings happen, you get delayed and before long, your blog has fallen by the wayside and you’ve lost all of your readers. A corporate blog consultant can help by providing you with professionally written content that can be used at any time. Whether you only use it in an emergency, or you feel more comfortable with someone else writing your content, this is a huge help for busy blog owners.
6. Knowing your audience.
A blog consultant can help you understand more about your audience and what you need to do to reach them. Even if you’ve mastered this offline, the online world can be substantially different.
7. Setting up enhancements for your blog.
From installing analytic programs to help you track popularity, to taking advantage of third party services, your blog consultant will be able to find the services out there that will help you make the most of your blog and get more attention.
Even the most talented business owners sometimes need a little extra help. If you’re ready to start a corporate blog, a blog consultant can make the difference in whether or not you meet your goals.
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September 25th, 2008 — blog design, content, google page rank, keywords, links, post design, search engine, social bookmarking sites, statistics, web traffic
Spend a few weeks reading about search engine optimization and you’ll likely become obsessed with your Google page rank score. If you’re not familiar with this, it is a system employed by Google that determines the popularity of a site and then assigns a ranking to it. Many factors are used in calculating popularity, but generally, the amount of links, the frequency of new content additions and the overall traffic a site receives will have a major bearing on their Google page rank.
But does this really matter to your corporate blog?
The answer is yes and no, and it pretty much depends on how you look at it. While a low ranking can make it harder to get a good search engine results placement, it doesn’t make it impossible. However, if you are trying to take advantage of all of your promotional avenues, trying to raise your Google page rank is pretty important.
So, here are some easy tips that can dramatically affect your page rank score and as such, where you are ranked in search results.
1. Increase the amount of links coming in to your site.
These are called inbound links, but not just any links will work. You’ve got to have “quality” links that Google will approve of. This means that submitting to link directories or using black hat linking methods will not help you much. You need to increase the amount of real pages that link to you. You can do this the old fashioned way by contacting site owners to exchange links, or you can do it on your own by leaving your link in comment’s on blogs, sending out press releases and encouraging readers to link to your blog.
2. Page titles really do matter.
This is a huge factor in your overall Google page rank. You’ll want to make sure that you are using keyword rich post titles for every blog that you write. For example, Company News is a bad title for a blog post. You would want to use something like Company Name – Keyword and then News. Try to experiement with different blog titles, making them keyword rich but still useful for your readers.
3. Using keywords in your posts.
Every post you make needs to have keywords in it, but you don’t want to go overboard. Stick with mentioning your primary keywords two to three times, unless your posts are very long. The best density is around 3 to 4%.
If you are curious to see how your efforts are paying off, we recommend installing the Google toolbar which will contain your current page rank when you visit your own site. You can keep track of your progress this way and see how well you are doing. It won’t happen overnight, but these tips will help you improve your overall page rank and as such, your search engine rankings, blog discoverability and the overall popularity of your site.
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