Image from sxc.hu user typofi

Although I wrote Is a Blog Right for Your Business? in 2007, people still mention the article or contact me with questions after reading it. Blogging has changed a lot since then, but one paragraph remains true.

Some people like to read blogs, others like to read newsletters, still others like to rely on feeds and some read a few or all of them. No matter the method the information is distributed, each medium has one thing in common: content. Having a blog connects your newsletter, your website and your business with all of these readers.

More people probably ask whether they should start a blog for their business today in a world where we have zillions of blogs and social networks vying for our tired, information-overloaded eyes. In my original post, I say the biggest factor in starting a blog is how often you can update it.

I don’t believe that anymore. I’ve been updating this blog once or twice a week for a long time as I’ve gotten busier with clients and volunteer commitments. I’m not going to throw up a blog entry just to keep up my “blog X times a week” quota. You don’t have time to waste and I’m not going to take advantage of your time by posting garbage.

If you can post a valuable post, do it. Even if it means you can only write a post once a month. It’s a way to give your website fresh content, something search engines love to gobble up. You may not have much traffic, but at least your site won’t look too static. If you’re active in Twitter, it may help to add a Twitter feed to your website. This adds more freshness to your website to keep it looking alive.

Part two of the blogging for business article discusses the use of blogs to manage a website. My my my. We’ve come a long way. When WordPress added “Pages,” it simplified using the blogging app as a website content management system. Many other blogging apps followed suit adding website features for easier management. Many of those blog apps don’t call themselves that anymore. They say they’re good for creating blogs and websites.

How has blogging changed? What do you think of blogging for business? How often should blogs be updated, or does it matter?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Meryl Evans

This guest post comes from Cal Evans (no relation that we know of), author of Avoiding a Goat Rodeo: How to get the website you want.

Image from sxc.hu user ba1969

I’m a lucky man. I get to talk with a lot of developers and web development shops. No matter where in the world I am, one constant refrain I hear is, “Yep, we are done with the site, waiting on the client now to write the content.” OK, so most of my European friends don’t say, “Yep,” but you get the idea. Consistently, content is the last part of the equation in a website and one of the speed bumps many developers hit in deploying a website on time.

Don’t be a speed-bump

No matter what type of website you have, your content should be part of the planning stage. By the time you and your developer finish the planning stage, you will have thought through every page in the initial launch and know what content goes on it.

If you are building an application, your content list may be light. You may need nothing more than “About us” page, “Contact us” page and any other window dressing in a standard website. If you’re building an e-commerce website, you need to know what initial products that will be in the system and what you need for them. Do you need pictures and descriptions from the vendor? Do you need to produce a video showing your products in action? Think through these questions and a hundred more that will come to you during the planning stage.

Your painters wait

Software development is like building a house. When you’re building a house, you don’t wait until the walls are up and the painters arrive before you select the colors to use. You meet with your architect and plan that out long in advance so that when the painting crew arrives, the paint is already there for them.

The same concept applies to your website project. The planning phase of your website is the time to determine what content needs to go on the walls of your website — not after your developers finish.  One of the things you should have when you finish the planning phase is a “content list.” This is a list of the pages on your website that require content.  The “About Us” page is a good example. Your developers will be able to create the page on your website called “About Us,” but you will have to write the content for the page.

Once you have your content list, get started. If you are responsible for the “History of the company” page, or the page containing headshots of all the partners, don’t wait until the week of the milestone to start gathering your materials or hiring a photographer, do it now. Surprise your developers by being ready when they come to you for your content.

Wordsmith is a noble profession

A good friend of mine just joined a mid-sized company with its own web team. She was telling me about all the cool people that she works with on the team.

“… and they even have their own copywriter,” she said.

It struck me that this surprised her. Then, I realized the sad truth. Most people assume that owning a word processor qualifies them for being a copywriter.

If you’re spending a good chunk of money to have your website professionally created, don’t skimp when it comes to the copy. Budget for a copywriter to create all the written content you need. If you need video, find a professional who specializes in video for the web.

You are the expert in your industry. It’s your job to give guidance and make sure everything stays on message. You need to hire an expert in content creation to work with you to make sure your content is as professional as your website.

Let the painters do their job

Professionally produced website and web-based applications don’t come cheap. Given the amount of work it takes to produce them, they shouldn’t be. Your content, however, isn’t the place to cut corners. Work with professionals to produce content that highlights your business.

Deliver the content during the planning stage before it’s needed to ensure your website goes live on time. Don’t let the painters stand around.

About Cal Evans: CalEvans is a professional programmer, writer and speaker. His passion in life is helping people do great things with technology. His latest book, Avoiding a Goat Rodeo: How to get the website you want does just that.

Cal is lucky enough to be married to the lovely and talented Kathy, a fact that both surprises and delights him daily.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

The mysterious Paul in this case is my husband! And he arrived this very day in the year Star Trek debuted. I’ve mentioned him before, but I don’t expect y’all to memorize details in this blog. Anyway, he and the Super Bowl are the same age, so I never have to convert the Roman numerals into English. Or rather, I brush up on them using his age.

I’ve been out all day. Just finished talking to second graders about college and careers. Went well. Whew. Talking to my kids’ classmates always makes me feel uneasy until I explain to them that I’m deaf and have an accent. After that, it’s a smooth ride. We discussed writing as a job, so I had one child write a sentence on the board:

“My dog ate my homework.”

What a great sentence! At first glance, it didn’t need editing. However, the class worked together to make it better.

“My golden retriever scarfed down my homework.”

I hope this taught them the value of editing even when the original sentence has no grammatical errors.

Brain food…

• Free Ebook: Time Management for Writers: Thursday Bram shares unconventional tips to better manage your time so you can write a few thousand words a day.
• Lending Kindle Books: Brilliant. Now if we could check out Kindle books from the library. Maybe without having to go to the library to get it? [Link: Scott Stratten aka Unmarketing]
• How to Balance Twitter with Writing: Be mindful of your social media usage. It’s very easy to blur the lines of useful activity and just wandering ‘n tweeting.
• The case of Rob Sgobbo, and why writers cheat: Even if you know you won’t get caught, can your conscious handle it?
• Why You Should Never Search for Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else: Yikes! That’s a problem for nonprofits.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• My Week of Eating Nothing But Candy: Reading this may make you feel better about limiting your candy intake. Robb says candy didn’t fill him up and it didn’t help with his mental stability. Would you know it? He lost four pounds on the candy diet. However, reading his experience… it does not feel good to be loaded up on sugar even with a peanut butter thrown in.
• Never said about restaurant websites: I may not eat out often, but I’ve seen more bad restaurant websites than good ones. On a recent visit, one was so bad that I immediately left the website.
• Top 10 Miniature Animals: Panda cows, foxes, tarsiers, oh my!
• 9 Breathtaking Natural Wonders: They are. [Link: Margie Kinney]
• From Brad Shorr: “S.C. man loses snowball fight: the funniest headline I’ve seen in ages.” May not be safe for work, but a great laugh!

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

I had planned a post using my trip, but I struggled to recover from my vacation all week. Although I didn’t think I needed a vacation from my vacation, my body thought otherwise. It wiped me out that I kept going to bed early and allergies took over. I had to modify my schedule to get things done. My body was probably in shock that I took the first real vacation in almost a decade that it didn’t know what to do when I returned.

The short version of the trip: Loved seeing and experiencing Boston while catching up with family in Nashua, NH.

Hope I get back in the swing next week… it may be tricky with holidays on Monday and Thursday. Happy Labor Day to all. And do take the day off. Everyone deserves a break.

Brain food…

• Make the Most of Your Memory: 10 Tips for Writing About Your Life: I ask family to fill in gaps when trying to recall a memory. People writing memoirs won’t get it perfect, but they can take steps to complete the picture.
• a brief guide to life: Trying to declutter and enjoy life more…
• Why & How Freelancers Should Exercise (from Fitness Expert Scott Tousignant): When I returned from Boston and Nashua, I felt out of sorts and had a hard time returning to my routine. While my exercise routine was off — I exercised for at least 40 minutes daily — maybe not what I usually do that day or as hard. The point was to do something and feel like I accomplished something.
• See How They Did It: 104 Social Media Case Studies: Not all 104 are on this page — it links to others elsewhere. Good resource for both B2C and B2B.
• Author Headshots: Also applies to any professional photos. I’m trying to schedule my family’s annual photos and get my professional headshots while at it because mine is from 2005. The hard part — finding the right tops for the family (we wear jeans) and for my professional photos. This part isn’t going well, but I might get some shots in my meryl.net tee (which I happen to be wearing in the photo).

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• 50 Best Websites 2010: According to Time. NO resource can truly name the best websites or best anything online… but at least, you discover a few goodies.
• Stay: From the 50 Best Websites. Wanted to bring this one out so I’ll have it for myself for the next time I travel. (By then, they’ll be 10 newer, better sites.)
• 12 Geekiest Fashion Accessories: Fun stuff, but I wouldn’t wear ‘em all.
• “Set” has the most definitions of any word in the English language: 464! Better make sure we clearly communicate what we mean when we use “set” in our writing.

Woot knows how to entertain us with its content. The company — located within a couple of miles from me (!!!) — sells one product per day. Every product comes with smile-inducing descriptions. Since then, the company has added Woot-Offs! (selling one product until it runs out of stock, then selling another product, repeat until it feels like stopping or servers crash when it offers the Bag of Crap), Wine Woot, Shirt Woot, Kid Woot and deals. Even its newsletter cracks me up.

Humor + Products = Impulse Purchases

And it works. I bought a couple of things that I should not have — and I take care to shop for needed items… most of the time. How can you resist a company that puts the following on its about page:

Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it’s taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we’re still the lovable scamps we’ve always been.

I look forward to its Woot-Offs even though it could mean making poor decisions. Good news, I’ve gotten better about what I buy. In fact, I don’t think I’ve bought a Woot-Off item in the last few runs. (Woot-Off happening now and so far, I’ve been a good girl.) Its FAQ explains the flashy thingy happening:

I see some orange flashing lights on the main page – what do they mean?

No, you aren’t seeing a side effect from your allergy medication. You have found a Woot-Off, a short term frenzied mutation of our product posting procedure.

Can You Guess What 6dollarshirts Sells?

I need to hush up about Woot already. It gets enough attention and I don’t want to turn it into a spoiled brat. Besides, some other children deserve attention, too. An shipment notification email from 6dollarshirts compelled me to write this. A bit from the email:

Our amazing staff has inspected your order and even contemplated stealing it since you have such FABULOUS taste in design and color combination… <3

Our shipping specialist lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as she so gently packaged and so carefully placed the shipping label containing the following request from the ever-so-talented ThreadPit Crew…

Ooh, chills. There’s more…

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards, and the whole crew marched down the street to the post office, where the entire town of Gainesville, Fl  waved “BON VOYAGE!” to your package, already on its way to you.

We also want you to practice precautions while waiting on the arrival of your order. Please keep this in mind: Strange, unexplainable things will happen when you wear our shirts. You will no longer feel the urge to rob old ladies. If you’re bald, your hair will grow back. Random members of the opposite sex will come up to you and start “grinding ‘dat [bleep]“. Most importantly, your friends and family will start laughing with you instead of at you. I hate it when that happens.

In the last newsletter, Woot bragged… err … mentioned an article by 37signal’s Jason Fried (I’ve had the pleasure of attending his presentation and meeting him in person) about awful business writing. Jason mentions Saddleback Leather and Polyface Farm, so you know where to go for more captivating content inspiration.

What other business websites charm you with its content?

Your About Page Is a Robot caught my attention especially since I’ve been reviewing over 100 sites in a specific industry. Some don’t have About pages, some had them — but they were not helpful, and a select few succeeded.

The About page also gives your company a human touch. What your About page should contain depends on the size of your site and company, as well as the nature of your company. These sites I reviewed didn’t need anything elaborate as Ask.com’s About page.

Many companies use corporate speak when writing about their business in the About page. A yawner. When I simply want to know is what the company does — the answer comes in a long, fancy babble. No time for that or translating it into English.

Too many sites take the hard way in writing the About page. It’s OK to shoot for simple. Suggestions of what to consider adding in an About page especially small businesses:

* what the company does

* bios

* photos

* contact information (yes, even if you have a separate contact page) and more than one way to contact

* site information

* basic info

* appropriate call to action

The article explains a glaring problem with About pages.

Ms. Patience: For starters, I need to know what you do.

Dumb-bot: The Knock-Doodle Corporation is a global services and solutions provider.

Ms. Patience: All right…But what, exactly, do you do?

That’s the kind of stuff we run into. I looked at a potential client’s Web site to get a feel for what it does to determine what content is needed. What should’ve taken a minute took minutes to find out the answer to “What do you do?” A lot of the content sounded like Knock-Doodle Corporation’s response — just multiply by ten.

Ask a friend who doesn’t know your business to read the content and see how much she grasps.

Congratulations to my dear friend, Shirley Kaiser, on the release of her book, Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists. You can get a feel for the book by checking out The Ultimate Testing Checklist and The Ultimate SEO Checklist.

I’m eagerly waiting for my copy to arrive and I’ll, of course, let you know what I think of it. Knowing Shirley, her Web design knowledge, and her abilities — I’m confident this is going to be a valuable book especially since it contains many checklists. As someone who has worked in process management and values the RIGHT documentation to manage processes, the checklists should help save time and ensure the design team hasn’t missed any critical steps.