Top 3 Questions Business Owners Ask About Having a Better Web Presence

By Chris Frerecks • August 13th, 2009

new jersey staffing alliance news blogWe presented to the New Jersey Staffing Alliance [NJSA: NJ Staffing & Recruitment] in Edison this Tuesday August 11th and then spoke candidly with those in attendance about the potential effects of blogs & social networking for their businesses.

The dialogue was consistent with that of the nation’s top producing realtors last week in Denver Colorado while attending Howard Brinton’s Star Power annual conference.

Ultimately, the small to medium sized business person is very practical. They want to know, given a leap of faith into business blog solutions & social media, whether or not they can generate lead opportunities and sales.

In the course of those two shows the top 3 questions business owners asked us about having a better web presence included:

I: How can I find the time to blog and to social network?
II: Can a blog work with my website?
III: Seeing I can get a free blog, why would I pay for a service?

Answers to the Top Three Questions Business Owners Asked About Having a Better Web Presence:

I.   Q: How can I find the time to blog and social network?

A: To a degree, you should be able to kill several birds with one… blog?

Most social network accounts [Kinetic Twitter, Kinetic Facebook, Kinetic LinkedIn, etc.] accept blog feeds. Your branded blog’s feed is actually capable of creating visibility in social networks, in search engines and with subscribers. Simultaneously, and without ever having to duplicate any effort!

That’s right, your blog can easily be the center of your entire web presence. Not to suggest that you shouldn’t participate more in the social networks, but there’s no reason your blog can’t do a lot of the heavy lifting. If your concerned about having a brand that’s consistent across all channels, it’s content generated from your blog that can make it simple.

This is about cost effective advertising, including in the social networks. Good business blog sites are powerful search & social network advertising tools! If your content is useful, good blog posts distinguish your brand everywhere they go!

II.  Q: Can a blog work with my website?

A: Yes and it can be done in ways that improve the indexing performance of a website! We host on a client’s choice of unique or sub domain. We can build, for instance, an advantageous link structure between the website and a new blog site. In fact, link structure can dramatically improve the amount of crawling a website sees. Well built & active blogs generate more crawling: spiders rapidly follow all links, so the more crawling a blog sees the more the website will see. The more the website sees the greater amount of topic indexing it can generate.

III. Q: I can get a free blog so why would I pay for a blog service?

A: Ultimately, it’s a matter of how comfortable one feels with the management of technology AND also with less control over their brand. If you’re very capable, by all means, manage free software technology. There’s hosting, software updates, the commingle of feature additions, security, etc., etc. It’s been our experience business owners will eventually [many immediately] want search engine optimization too. Beware! Features can undermine load times and the wrong combination can create other problems, so experience may become a requirement.

Regarding brand, a free hosted service offers less control over domain name, design or content. If you value your time, the long term value of your content, your distinguished business brand and a return on investment, ‘free blogs’ may become a concern. You could pay for a host, giving you the choice of domain, but then you’re beginning to take on cost.

Then there’s the issue of ‘a learning curve’ and whether or not you can find the educational resources needed to gain an advantage with blogs & content, not to mention an actual return for any time & effort. Education and service is never free!

And finally, if it’s a website provider that throws in your free blog, ask if they will handle all of the above accountably… including for free? And remember, an active blog site will deliver visibility… cost effectively. With a service like ours, you’re guaranteed experience with these solutions, ongoing education, highly accountable service and an interest in your success. All for a fixed & affordable price.

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