Blog Vs. Website
Which is the best way of advertising and promoting products on the web? Should I build a blog or should I build a website. Here’s the big question I hear over and over. So let’s first define what a blog is and what a website is.
A blog or a weblog is a type of website. Blogging is the dynamic choice for someone who has something to sell, say or portray. Once you start a blog it is best to try to update it every day. That way you can build a readership and potential customers since that should be your objective. You want to keep to the subject matter as much as possible. Put a link to anything you find that is pertinent to your content. The entries can be commentary or news about events that interest the visitors to the blog. The readers ability to leave comments to the posts make it an interactive dialogue for all.
A website is the same as a blog, except it is static, it is not dynamic like a blog. This is where you actually describe your products and/or services. You can update a website as often as you like, but this is usually only done if you change your products. You should have a link to your Blog on this site to allow customers to get updates as often as you post them. People can’t just type in comments for everyone to see. Also with a website there are no posts to update. With the new blog software out now, it can be very difficult to tell whether it is a blog or a website.
Advantages of a blog:
1. A huge advantage of a blog is that blogs allows you to post written text, audio and video and have it online within minutes, unlike traditional static websites which can take hours to update and cost a lot if you’re not familiar with building or editing web sites.
2. To me, the biggest advantages of having a blog is you get the site up quick, write your first post and you are ready to do business online.
3. Optimizing your site for the search engines is far easier with a blog. Ever time you write a new post (new content) on to your blog, you do something called “pinging” the update service. You are notifying the search engines that you have new content on your site. The search engines will visit your site and index your site more often than a static website. Blogs will also show up many times more often in organic searches than a regular website.
4. It is much cheaper to set up a blog and maintain the site than it is for a static website.
5. Bloggers build credibility far faster than someone running a static website. The blogger is always posting and adding new content. The blogger is actually building a relationship with the readers, and the readers have the ability to comment back.
6. When you want to make a post on your blog, you enter your back office type your post and it is sent out instantly. With a static website, you have to open up your editor, write the article, update the page properties before uploading that page to your site using FTP software. Once you’ve done all of that, you have to wait until the search engines to visit your site to get it indexed again.
There are many more reasons that I could still add to the argument for a blog site, but I hope I’ve given you enough reasons here, that you can make an informed decision on blog vs. website. The best way would be to have a blog where you can post and a website that has your products; where you can link the to sites off each other to increase sales.
Blogging in a Flooded Market Shouldn’t Mean Failure
This is what web developer Jamon Holmgren wondered on an InboundMarketing.com forum. He has to market his skills in an industry that’s extensively covered on the Web. “What can I add to the conversation that a better programmer or graphic designer or SEO professional hasn’t already covered?” he asked.
The challenge of blogging in a flooded market is increasing even for less known-on-the-web industries. But it shouldn’t mean failure for your blogging efforts. Here are four ways to make your blog stand out from the rest:
Build Local Relationships
Your specific geography is what distinguishes you from many industry bloggers. So, focus on building relationships with local online leaders. Build a reputation in your local newspaper’s blog and other smaller community blogs.
This will make you a trusted thought leader in you locality and earn you high SEO authority. “The more you can build relationships and trust with the online leaders in your community, the more traffic you’ll get on your site, and the more people you’ll be able to convert to leads and sales,” wrote Rick Burnes.
Don’t Blog to Self Promote
If you blog about your product or services, now is the time to stop. Find out what your target audience is really interested in and pursue those topics. Reputable bloggers don’t self-promote but respond to the community’s needs.
“Providing accurate, useful information that informs in a non-self-promoting manner gains credibility,” wrote in the forum Greg Sweval. “It may take a little longer to build the buzz but once the momentum gets rolling it has exponential effects,” he suggested.
What Gets You Passionate?
Blog about the aspects of your business that get you passionate. “Be yourself and blog about the things that excite and interest you (without sounding like a commercial, of course) and you’ll be fine,” wroteSteve Early.
When you write with passion and offer real value, you will most likely attract a big audience. Above all, blogs are for humans who are curious and seeking information presented in unique ways. The goal is to make your readers as passionate about your subject as you are.
Be Authentic
You will stand out from the noise and the crowd of bloggers if you are truly authentic. Your open-mindedness and transparency can earn you great credibility in the blogosphere. In addition, they will add a more personal element to your writing style. Be authentic and let your readers see you clearly and identify with your message.
Photo Credit: dachalan
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HubSpot TV – Sharing the Love on Slideshare with Guest Marta Kagan
Episode #51 – July 31st, 2009
Episode Length: 23 minutes, 23 seconds
Intro
- How to interact on Twitter: @mvolpe, @karenrubin, and @mzkagan with www.HubSpot.tv in your tweet.
- Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.hubspot.tv/
- Next Week: HubSpot TV 1 Year Anniversary Tweetup! Register here: http://hstv1year.eventbrite.com
- Watch the Tweetup Promo Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKaJs4L290A
Doing it Right
- Marta Kagan, @mzkagan, Bonafied Marketing Genius
- Managing Director of US for Espresso
- What the Fk is Social Media?
- 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology – Forrester
- 13 hours of video is upload to YouTube every minute
- 5 billion minutes spent on Facebook each day
- 93% of social media users believe a company should have a presence in social media
Headlines
Microsoft and Yahoo sitting in a tree…K.I.S.S.I.N.G!
- Top 10 Things the Microsoft/Yahoo! Deal Changes for SEO
- “thebig takeaway is that Bing will now power search on Yahoo! and Yahoo!’ssalesforce will sell the premium (non-self service) search advertisingfor Yahoo!/Bing”
- You will want to optimize for Bing since it will have a reasonable % of market share
- Bingvalues “keyword use in subdomains and root domain names (Google lovesexact keyword matches, but Bing really likes any keyword placement inthe sub or root)”
- “Bing also surfaces only the top 5 results for many queries, meaning a higher concentration of clicks on those top results.”
- “Rememberthat Yahoo! said full implementation may lag up to 24 months (2 years)behind regulatory approval (which itself could take months), so you’vegot some time.”
Marketing Takeaway Don’t panic! You have some time on this onebut be aware that it is going on and you will probably want to optimizefor it eventually.
Social Media Defamation Lawsuit
- UPDATED: Rounding up the buzz… Will one Chicago woman’s Tweet cost her $50,000?
- AmandaBonnen: “@JessB123 You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in amoldy apartment is bad for you? Horizon Realty thinks its ok.”
- HorizonRealty says she “maliciously and wrongfully published the false anddefamatory Tweet on Twitter, thereby allowing the Tweet to bedistributed throughout the world.” (She has 20 followers.)
- Marketing Takeaway: Don’t tweet anything you wouldn’t mind having on the front page of Google.com.
- Marketing Takeaway #2: As a business, monitor and respond on Twitter, but think twice before blowing anything up.
Twitter Puts Search at Core of Homepage
- New Twitter homepage puts search at its heart
- Defininga “tweet” for the uninitiated and explaining how to create an accountdoesn’t resonate with everyone. “Why would I want to do that?” is acommon reaction. However, demonstrating the power of Twitter as adiscovery engine for what is happening right now through our Search andTrends often awakens a sense of wonder which inevitably leads to a muchmore compelling question, “How do I get involved?”
- Marketing Takeaway: Make sure you understand the engagement process for your customers.
B to B marketers embracing social media at an increasing rate
- Social media use soars among b-to-b marketers
- 57% of B2B marketers “using social media channels” compared with 15% two years ago
- Webinars are almost exclusively for B2B – 48% of B2B marketers said they were effective, only 6% of B2C said they were effective
- 81% of BtoB marketers using LinkedIn, then Twitter, then Facebook (Twitter much higher for B2B, Facebook lower for B2B)
- Most looking to implement in the next year (1) blogging (2) mobile (more for BtoC)
- More focus on demand generation – from 39% to 47% of people – also a drop-off of people saying brand building was the goal
- Survey by B to B Magazine and the Association of Natinoal Advertisers
- Marketing Takeaway: If you’ve been watching HubSpot TV for the past year, you’d be ahead of the curve!
Forum Fodder:
- Blogging in a Flooded Market Shouldn’t Mean Failure
- JamonHolmgren asks, “What can I add to the conversation that a better programmeror graphic designer or SEO professional hasn’t already covered?”
- “Themore you can build relationships and trust with the online leaders inyour community, the more traffic you’ll get on your site, and the morepeople you’ll be able to convert to leads and sales,” “
- “Providing accurate, useful information that informs in a non-self-promoting manner gains credibility,”
- “Beyourself and blog about the things that excite and interest you(without sounding like a commercial, of course) and you’ll be fine,”
Marketing Tip of the Week – Publish something creative on Slideshare.
Closing
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Blog Subject & Monetisation
Olesya Breus - the blog's author
By nature a blog is an ongoing conversation with the reader and as such it requires regular updating. A blog can of course be very profitable but it requires constant work. The kind of niche sites that I build with WordPress can be setup and then simply left alone and require zero maintenance.
Thus the overall strategy is to pick a niche that has profitable keywords, build a small website around it and then upgrade search engine ranking. Rinse and repeat to build a collection of sites that bring in a residual income without requiring maintenance.
One of the advantages of using WordPress is that it has a mechanism called ‘pinging’ which ensures that services such as Google will be notified when you update your site. The idea
then is to pick a topic, do some keyword research using a tool such as Keyword Niche Finder in order to find high-traffic/lowcompetition keywords and then build pages that are optimised towards those keywords.
Over time the pages that you create will begin to rank in Google and other search engines and the traffic will start to flow. In order to make money you will need to monetise your pages with Google Adsense and Affiliate programs.
Now the subject of monetisation is a whole Ebook “Adsense Profits Exposed”. The author has written an excellent report and manual.
The Adsense Profits Exposed! trilogy comes in 3 blogging E Books – tailor made for beginners who are new to the entire cutting-edge concept of making money from Adsense. It doesn’t have any technical details of how to build the site but it tells you just how to pick your niche which will result in the high paying AdSense ads getting displayed on your site, and how to optimize them properly.