Promote your business online - Part 3: Do you need a blog?

Good evening, fellow business owners.

A few days ago, Randy Dockery left a comment for me about how to get started blogging and I told him I'd start a discussion here about it. Sorry for the delay, Randy.

One of the reasons it has taken me so long to start this discussion is because of the confusing nature of blogging.

Many people have blogs, but few are doing them right, in my opinion.

Blog or Website

First question, do you need a blog or a website, or both, or neither?

My honest opinion is that you are not doing business as well as you can in the 21st century if you don't have both a website and a blog.

Of the two, I think you need a good website first and a blog second.

Websites are better for presenting relatively static information (although there are many ways to include information that is automatically updated) and blogs are better for presenting time-sensitive information and for making it easy to syndicate your content on multiple sites using RSS.

I'm barely into this and I've already switched from English to Technobabble. (Sorry.)

Websites are much easier to navigate than blogs are, because you can organize them based on a hierarchical view of the information you want to present and it is generally organized by some form or department or category. Within each of these groupings, you can have multiple pages (as many or few as are necessary to present your information). These pages are usually linked to from some sort of menu or tab navigation.

On my 21st Century Affiliate Marketing blog, I started a discussion about whether a website or blog was the best way to build an online presence for a business. There are quite a few replies on the topic and you're welcome to read it. Join in the discussion there, if you want.

Here it is: Site Build It! or WordPress? Which is Best? Why?

There are a variety of opinions there.

I believe that a WordPress powered blog on a domain you own and control is the only way to build a serious business blog, but either you or someone you hire has to be technically-inclined to set it up and maintain all the upgrades. That doesn't include actually writing and posting the content. So, there is quite a bit of effort and expense involved in creating and maintaining such a blog. Many people start one, but far fewer follow through after six months.

That's why I believe it is much better to build a website first and make sure it can be found in the search engines for all the relevant terms related to your business.

There are many ways to build a website, but I've found that the best is to use a service called Site Build It. That's what I use to build two of my sites, including Act On Your Dream! and Murphy Gold. Each of those sites costs me $300 per year and it is well worth it because of the integration of training, support, and all the tools I need to build a serious business site.

Lots of people disagree with me, but I know from my own experience how much work goes into a website and a blog and these two choices are my selections for best of breed. I've been blogging before there was a name for it and I've been building websites since shortly after the invention of the World Wide Web, and that was before Netscape or Microsoft was even interested.

I've built dozens of websites of varying size (from one or two pages to over 1,500 pages) using all kinds of tools to do it. I've built portals using public domain scripts that were destroyed by vandals on the other side of the world and I've had to rebuild several sites that were hacked for whatever reasons.

The only sites that have never given me any trouble are hosted and built using Site Build It. That is reason enough for me to recommend their service.

In addition to building your own site with Site Build It, they also offer a service where an experienced webmaster will work closely with you to analyze what you need, do the background research, gather information from you, and build your site. After that, you can continue to use that person to help you maintain it, or you can take it over and update it yourself.

So, Site Build It is for the do-it-yourself business owner and Sitesell Services is for anyone who wants to hire someone to do it for you.

Yes, there are cheaper alternatives, but none that are as effective nor fully-featured. In the long run, I've found that paying for the best costs me less in the long run because I don't have to spend all my time repairing hacked sites, installing new software when security updates are released, and adding new features by either finding or writing the code necessary and installing it on my sites. I can do all those things, but I'm getting tired of the wasted time and effort.

(Full disclosure. If you subscribe to Site Build It or Sitesell Services from one of my links, I will receive a commission. It doesn't increase your cost, because there is no less-expensive option. I do not build websites for anyone anymore. All of my productive time is devoted to building my own sites, although I am in the process of building what I believe will be the best marketing system for small business owners in Murphy. I can be hired for online marketing consulting, but I am not cheap.)

If you're going to have a website, you want one that brings in business. It has to be well-organized, constructed correctly, and optimized for being found by real people who are searching on the Internet for what you offer.

Unfortunately, most websites just sit there gathering cobwebs, because the person who created them don't know how to build traffic organically through links and search engines.

You want the best when it comes to your business.

When you buy or sell real estate, for example, would you prefer to spend money working with a Realtor and attorney to make sure everything is done right, or would you give your brother-in-law, next-door neighbor, cousin, or anyone else who is not a professional a few bucks to do it for you?

The same reasoning applies to your online "real estate" (blog and/or website), too.

Some of you who may read this are very talented in multiple fields and you're capable of handling the technical, writing, and marketing tasks related to building and maintaining your websites and blogs.

The great majority of the others don't possess all the skills necessary, nor the time it takes, nor the inclination and motivation, to do it right.

OK. I have that off my chest, but I wanted to be as clear as I could before I proceed with trying to answer Randy's question.

The best solutions for both a blog and a website are not free. There is no doubt about that. I know it from my own experience and from the experiences of many others with whom I have spoken and corresponded since the Internet was formed.

What about a free solution?

I have no recommendations for any free services for building and hosting a business website. All of them are lacking in major ways.

Your experiences and opinion may differ and I welcome your responses. I can stand to be proven wrong, at least now and then.

There are several sites I'll recommend for free blogging, but there is a cost involved that you should be aware of before you start.

The cost that you'll pay for building your blog on a free site is that you do not have total control over it. You have to operate within the terms of the service provider and that carries risks that should be considered.

For some people, the ease of use and low cost outweigh the risks. That's your decision. You have to weigh the pros and cons and decide for yourself.

WordPress.com

Let's start with the best free solution, WordPress.com.

You can get a free blog there and it uses the best blogging software on the planet. They maintain all the code and do all the updates behind the scenes.

The downside is that it cannot be used for commercial sites. If you link to commercial sites or places where you can earn money from a blog hosted there, or if you break any of the other restrictions in their Terms Of Service, they will shut down your blog, often without warning.

I know that your time as a business owner is valuable and there are only a set number of hours in a day. Most of us can't squeeze more than, say, 25.75 hours out of a day. (grin)

If you spend a few dozen or hundred hours building a blog and they shut it down, was it worth the risk?

I had a blog at johndilbeck.wordpress.com that I'd been building for some time and I received an email from their support that I was violating their terms of service. They shut me down. I had to scramble and buy a new domain, arrange hosting, install the WordPress software from WordPress.org, set everything up, and then move all the offending posts from my original blog to my new one at 21st Century Affiliate Marketing. Then, I had to go back to the original blog, remove all the offending commercial posts, and request a review. About a week later, they reinstated the blog.

That was when I realized that it just wasn't worth the risk to me to build a blog, especially a business blog, at WordPress.com. I still maintain my blog there, but rarely update it.

All in all, it took almost two weeks to make the transition, and that came at a time when I had other tasks that needed doing, too. I just had to sleep less and make time to handle it.

Blogger.com

The second-best free solution for hosting a blog is at Blogger.com, which is owned by Google.

Their terms of service are less draconian than those of WordPress.com, but you still have to be careful of their restrictions and you're taking the risk that they can change their rules at any time and you may lose what you've built there.

Blogger allows commercial links and you can even add Google's Adsense Ads to your blog and maybe earn a little money.

However, if you're building a business blog to promote your own products and services, you probably don't want to advertise your competition and this is especially true if you're in the real estate business in Murphy.

You may earn a few dollars from Adsense, but you may lose thousands of dollars if you send a motivated buyer to one of your competitors.

So, be careful about putting Adsense Ads on your blog. Some of my blogs have the ads and some don't. I evaluate the purpose of each blog and decide accordingly.

I have several blogs hosted at Blogger (actually at Blogspot.com), but I lost my main one there and I've regretted it ever since.

I once had a blog at johndilbeck.blogspot.com that was my primary way of earning money through affiliate marketing, until they shut it down because they said it was a spam blog (splog). It was not. I was following their rules and did all the posting manually, but I never got it resolved, so I closed that blog and moved all my remaining blogs to a domain I controlled.

All together, I wasted about a year before I got everything straightened out to my satisfaction.

The worst part was that someone else grabbed johndilbeck.blogspot.com because he/she recognized that I still had links to it and there were visitors going there every day. They started advertising things there that I never would have advertised and this is still hurting my online reputation several years later.

I regularly answer emails about that blog and have to tell my correspondent that I am not responsible for it any more. (sigh)

(Good news, sort of. I just went to confirm what I just wrote and when I tried to go to johndilbeck.blogspot.com, it said the blog didn't exist. So, I quickly logged in to Blogger and tried to create it. Bad news, sort of. It said the name was not available. I'll contact support at Blogger - and their support is not very responsive, to see if I can get that address, again. I want my name associated with me.)

So, once again. Be very careful if you build your business around a blog powered by Blogger.com, especially if you use their free hosting at Blogspot.com.

I lost a lot more in terms of time, effort, and frustration by hosting a business blog at Blogger than I would have saved in several years in terms of the cost. Definitely not worth it to me.

ActiveRain.com

I don't know much about this site, other than noticing that several local real estate agents are hosting their blogs there.

Apparently it is geared towards real estate agents and I think the service is free, but I'm not positive.

I have not looked at the Terms of Service, so I don't know how restrictive they are.

That said, it still suffers from some of the same risks as WordPress.com and Blogger.com. You don't own the site, you don't control it, and you have to live by their rules and the risk that they will change those rules at some point.

Weigh these risks carefully before you invest a lot of time building your business blog there - or at any other free hosting site, for that matter.

MerchantCircle.com

Again, the same caveats apply here as apply to other free hosting sites, but there are some additional considerations, too.

MerchantCircle.com basically takes the phone book database and builds a page for every business across the USA, including - most likely - yours.

For that reason, I think it is in your best interests to claim your business listing there, update your profile, and blog now and then, just to be sure that the information is correct, timely, and under your control (at least partially).

There are some benefits to MerchantCircle.com that don't apply to some of the other free blog hosting sites.

You can create coupons, post newsletters, blog, and participate in some discussions. You can review other business and associate with them.

There is a page for Murphy, NC and anyone who visits there can subscribe to the weekly email update.

So, it's worth having your account there and it may be in your best interests to blog there now and then just to get into their email update.

I would not build my primary business blog there, but I would use it to link to my business website and/or blog.

My opinions, only

These are my opinions only, based on over a decade of experience building my own sites and corresponding with hundreds of other webmasters and business owners.

Self-hosted WordPress blog on your own domain

I don't know of a service similar to Site Build It (for building a business website) that provides top-quality hosting for WordPress-powered blogs and also offers support, and a staff that handles all the background technical issues and upgrades.

I also haven't spent any time looking for one.

I've narrowed my business blogs down to about a half-dozen or so and I manage all of them myself. All my current blogs are powered by WordPress (and all of them are behind in upgrades that I should have performed, due to lack of time).

If you are serious about a business blog, I think hosting it on your own domain, on your own server or one you share with others, and powering it with WordPress are your very best options.

You have control over it, but you also have responsibility for it.

Most small business owners don't have the time and expertise to do this well.

If you have a really successful business, you may be able to afford the services of someone who can manage all the background work for you and you may be able to hire someone to do the writing, if you don't want to do it yourself.

Costs can be relatively low for hosting your own domain ($70 to $100 per year), but the downside is that someone has to install, maintain, and manage it. It can be a lot of work.

Weighing the risks

There are many factors involved in how you decide to build your business blog and - in my opinion - free hosting is the least of them.

Still, each of us should make our own decisions after weighing the factors involved, the associated risks, and our own purpose for having a blog.

Do you need a blog?

Finally, I'm ready to give you two answers to the original question.

Do you need a blog?

Yes, you do.

No, you don't.

Put that down! Don't you dare throw it at me. You'll break your computer.

(sigh)

If you are in a highly-competitive business and attract clients and customers from outside your local area, you need a website without a doubt.

If you also want to update your customers with time-sensitive information and/or carry on discussions online (through comments), you need a blog.

If you want to compete with the best in your area, you need a blog (and a website).

If most of your business comes from local customers, you're already well-known in the area, you have an established business with lots of goodwill, and you depend mainly on word-of-mouth and referrals, you may not need or even want a blog.

It all depends upon you, the type of business you own, where new customers come from, the scope of your business area, your priorities, your cashflow, and how you prefer to promote your business.

For some people, a website (or several) and a blog (or several) are essential.

For others, they're not nearly as important.

You have to educate yourself and make your own decision.

Do you need a website?

Yes you do. I won't equivocate on that one. If you're going to compete in the 21st century, you have to have a website. You may be able to get by with free hosting or you may not.

It depends on many of the factors listed above, but you also have to be aware that many people are moving away from newspapers, phone books, and other printed advertising and are searching for what they want online.

There is a simple test to see if you need a website or not.

Go to Google.com and enter the following:

(your product or service) murphy nc

Of course you want to enter your actual product or service. Examples include:

real estate murphy nc

homes for sale murphy nc

cabins for rent murphy nc

trendy clothing murphy nc

bracelets murphy nc

jewelry murphy nc

photographer murphy nc

left-handed buggy whips murphy nc

well drilling murphy nc

massage murphy nc

movie theater murphy nc

auto parts murphy nc

coupons murphy nc

restaurants murphy nc

wedding photos murphy nc

advertising murphy nc

auto towing murphy nc

wrecker service murphy nc

used cars murphy nc

marketing murphy nc

who is online in murphy nc

or whatever else you offer as part of running your business.

For many people, growing in number every year, if you don't show up on page one at Google, you don't exist.

Some of them will find your website by entering your name or the name of your business, but they already know about you.

Others will enter general terms related to your business and you want them to find your site for those terms. That's the future of your business.

Do you need a website?

Does your competitor(s) show up when you do an appropriate search for what you offer? If they do, you need a website.

Can you be found based on a general search for products or services? If not, you need a website.

Do you want to attract out-of-town business? You need a website.

You have to consider all the factors and decide for yourself. Sometimes it's not a simple decision.

I guarantee that websites and blogs will complicate your life, but it may be a necessary complication, depending upon what you do.

Are their alternatives?

Sure there are.

Build your profiles at MySpace.com, Facebook.com. Learn how to use Twitter.com effectively. Meet other business owners at LinkedIn.com.

You can customize your profile here at Murphy Connections, participate in discussions, and post to your own blog. All for free.

However, you're still taking the same risk as you would at any other free site.

This works well as an addition to having your own site and/or blog, but not as a substitute unless it is all you can afford or all you want or have time to do.

At least, you'd be promoting yourself and your business to people who are specifically interested in Murphy.

At the risk of being called self-serving, I can promote you at MurphyGold.com.

There are limitations on who I'll promote and I only accept one client per business category. You have to be cooperative, friendly, responsive, reliable, trustworthy, willing to provide top-quality service to your customers, willing to recommend at least two other local business owners, offer a special deal or discount to anyone who mentions Murphy Gold or brings in a coupon from the site, and be willing to cooperate in promoting the other business owners at the site.

When your business category is taken, that's it. It's closed as long as that person remains a part of Murphy Gold.

I fully intend to add another 50 businesses to the site by the end of the year. Don't delay, if you're interested.

Are you confused yet? Do you agree or disagree?

Again, these are my opinions, based entirely on my own experiences and those of people I know.

I'm sure your experiences are different.

I hope you'll ask your questions and talk about what has worked - or not worked - for you.

If you own a business in Murphy, I would love to see you participate in this discussion.

What do you think?

Let's hear from you. People are going to get tired of reading what I have to say all the time.

(grin)

All the best,

JD