We 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:

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.

Related Posts:

• Can You Afford a Free Business Blog?
• Understanding The New Advertising Environment [i.e. Social Networks, Blogs, SEO]
• “Can I Manage My Own Free Business Blog?”
• WordPress can be free, but ONLY if you’re OK with Advertising

To clarify and according to WordPress itself, “To support the service we may occasionally show Google text ads on your blog…” Matt Mullenweg, Founding Developer, adds that the advertising has enabled his team to offer an ever- improving software without charging for upgrades; however, he also adds there are enterprises that would never want the advertising. This is important particularly because WordPress cannot filter competitive advertising and that is because the ad- software is contextual. [Contextual meaning, the ad system scans the blog for keywords and returns ads based upon the keyword text it finds.] So, for example, if your free blog is based upon Real Estate or Architecture or Travel, etc. it’s likely you’re pulling competitive advertising on to your blog.

Now, this doesn’t leave one without a choice. For the business that wishes to manage WordPress on its’ own, they now offer an advertising opt- out for a monthly cost of about $30. Obviously you have choices with WordPress and we’re certainly here to offer comprehensive & affordable management services, including branded design, feature plugin, software update management and extensive ongoing education. If it interests, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Related Posts:

• Understanding WordPress
• Is Open Source software an advantage versus Proprietary software?
• Can you afford a Free Business Blog?

Kinetic Knowledge is a WordPress Management Service offering build, design, search optimization, ongoing technology management & advancement, hosting, storage, security, blog marketing education, blog content options and more.

I. Social Networks

A Social Network’s architecture is comprised of a series of sites linked together around that Social Network’s identity. Active Rain, MySpace and FaceBook, for instance, are built around individual presentations of personal information inside that framework. Users can easily communicate with others in these environments using any number of applications, but those individual sites are NOT independent of the Social Network. Put in another way, it is a user’s place online… but it’s not really their own place. If free, the user helps to build a database of content for the Network, which may leverage the content outside the control of said user and in various other ways [i.e. Advertising Sales.]

II. Blogs

A Business Blog can offer its’ owner a way to communicate openly, to communicate directly and also to collect information, via comment oriented conversation, with an unlimited no. of people; however, it offers an independent presence or online brand that is entirely in the control of its’ owner. One may use it personally or for advertorial marketing purposes, but the Blog’s look, feel & ultimate destiny is completely in the control of its owner.

III. Social Media

A great example of Social Media might be YouTube. YouTube is built on individual presentations or independent pieces of content, which become available for all takers. Those pieces of content can be indexed for search, organized into category channels and commented on mostly within that framework, but they are not necessarily organized into sites and they are not independent of the Social Medium itself. Like Social Networks, YouTube offers a user a place to present content online, but it’s not really their own place. YouTube can also leverage content outside the control of its’ creator for things like advertising.

In each case, there is a potential audience… and value! In fact, a multi- layered approach to sharing content via Blogs, Social Networks & Social Media might be a great way for an individual or for a business to build its’ audience.

In fact, unless you’re very skilled it’s likely you’ll need independent programming help with hosting, design, features, optimization and that still leaves you without any committed service or instructional education. These are not free: as a business with the never -ending need to reduce cost, we often forget that a lot of what we’re paying for is service & accountability. There are many free blog solutions; however, in one way or another we often get exactly what we pay for. Not to suggest that some of the free blog solutions are lacking as content management systems. On the contrary, there are good free systems out there and some offer unique & valuable propositions, but as a business person with many challenges, needs & responsibilities [including your own brand identity] you may want to ask yourself the below questions before you go the free route.

The Top Reasons to be concerned about investing valuable time & effort in a Free Blog Platform – Can you really afford a Free Business Blog?

1. what will it cost me in terms of time, effort & learning curve to go free?
2. do I own my long term destiny with a free blog?
3. is there any customer service?
4. who is truly accountable to my business requirements?
5. is there any effort to optimize for search engines, including when they change?
6. Google is always evolving… is my blog solution?
7. is there search engine, brand or direct marketing education?
8. if not, can I succeed as an independent advertorial business blogger?
9. will my free blog host ever change policies or standards to my detriment?
10. will my free blog host ever decide to mandate advertising (potentially competitive)?
11. do I own my own content, does the host own it or do we both own it?
12. am I a part of someone else’s user- generated content?
13. is my domain a sub domain of the host’s network?
14. am I just helping to build someone else’s brand?
15. can I use a domain that serves the brand of my choosing?
16. do I have the flexibility to present content in a variety of different ways?
17. do I have design flexibility?
18. how do I get all the features I want or need?
19. is there an effort to secure my blog?

Folks, you may not like the answers. In this day and age, people search because they can and to some degree they’re looking to interview businesses long before they actually make direct contact. Considering a Blog can offer your business tremendous Search Engine, Public Relations and Direct Marketing visibility with one solution, can you really afford to trust core assets such as these [including independent online brand identity] solely to a free service?

Obviously we’re biased, but if you have real business requirements [including independent online brand identity] you will find it both useful and cost-effective to have Kinetic Knowledge build, host & serve your Business Blog needs. Our intention is and has always been to make it simple for our clients: to provide good business blog solutions, support and ongoing education for an affordable price.

As a provider of products & services, we’re not perfect. No one is; however, we do our best, we always strive to improve and we take a clients’ business seriously. It’s a frustrating experience to be in business, to discover that your email isn’t reaching anyone and that your provider doesn’t consider support a responsibility. We learned a lesson here and that is to pursue quality providers committed to service… or to accept the consequences. 

Our experience shows that many folks are too busy to write consistently. As such, we offer experienced ghost blog- writing services so that you’re always fighting the competitive search engine marketing visibility & discoverability battle. After all, if 80- 90% of consumers search long before they ever contact a provider it’s important to do your best to be there when they do!

Also, there are many free blog solutions; however, in one way or another a business will incur cost with its marketing & public relations effort. If you have real business requirements, you will find it both useful and cost-effective to have Kinetic Knowledge assemble & host your Blog. Our intention is to provide performance oriented blog solutions, proactive support and ongoing education for an affordable price.