What Makes a Blog Different? The Tools

By on June 26, 2006 in Blogging with 4 Comments

The static web sites we’re used to seeing are what I fondly refer to as (cob)web sites. Even the "dynamic" web sites that have some flash or moving parts
get boring (annoying?) after the first or second visit.

I won’t go so far as to say your home page no longer matters, but it may not
be as important as you think. Four challenges in relying solely on your (cob)web
site:

  1. How often you make changes depend on the cost involved. If you’re (cob)web
    development company charges you, or if you have access to make the change but
    aren’t confident in using the tools – changes are rare.
  2. Search engines index by pages, not by site.
  3. Your home page may have been written by a copywriter. If the copy wasn’t
    written by someone on your team, are the words and voice recognizable to your
    customer face-to-face? (I could hop on a rabbit trail here, but refrain)
  4. How findable and subscribe-able is your content?

Conveniently, here are the four main differences of a blog site and a web
site:

  1. Frequently updated content, using a tool as simple as
    sending an email
  2. Each new article (or post) appears on the main page, but also gets indexed
    in archived pages (a permalink) – individually and by date and/or category.
    You’re creating lots of pages with a blog.
  3. Your voice. Your audiences voice right back atcha! I
    believe it’s important to have comments – especially at the outset. Don’t even
    think about stifling the conversation at the outset.
  4. Content Feeds and Tags. These two are the additive to the gasoline that
    powers a blog site.
    1. Content Feeds – Part of the power of blogging is being able to get the content delivered in a feed aggregator. The reason I don’t  send email "blasts" is because I offer a feed. My reach (action taken by the audience) is between 50% – 70%, not that wonderfully celebrated 18% success rate (?) that email newsletters receive. All permission based.
    2. Tags – Go to Technorati and do a Blog Finder search on one of your keywords. Do you show up? If you’re not blogging, you don’t. If you are blogging and don’t, find the fix ASAP. Who’s more findable? You or your competiton?

You company’s web site is your online brochure. It’s what your prospects and
clients see first because it’s on your business card, brochures and other
marketing material. That’s fine. However, offline – do you expect your brochure to close the sale or build the relationship all by itself?  Thought not.

But what about your online message? Who wrote it? You or a copywriter that you hired? Your voice
or the copywriter? Shouldn’t you be engaged in a conversation with your prospects and customers?

We’ve covered the differences of blog sites and (cob)web sites as a tool – but frankly, the real power behind blogging isn’t the tool or even the findability benefits. It’s the conversation. We’ll get to that shortly

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  • http://www.telltenfriends.com Jordan

    Amen on all counts, Mike. I answer that question everyday, and it’s nice to see someone else put it into plain English for people who are knew to the wiki revolution and RSS.
    P.S. Thanks for dropping by my blog, it’s always nice to see new commenters joining the conversation!

  • http://www.converstations.com Mike Sansone

    Good to see your comment here Jordan. And you’re not aware of it yet, but your recent post is a focus on the next in this series.
    You’ve got some great conversations on your site. Thanks for having a platform for conversations:-)

  • http://cdccustomerservice.blogspot.com Tim Whelan

    Actually you’re very much there except you are really doing the web page an injustice. A good website will be interactive and actually offer many benefits that a blog can. The problem is that 99.9% of the web designers don’t know the first thing about web design for a business let alone no how a business should work or have the business training to understand business processes.
    A good website should always be a power generator when it comes to revenue a blog can be as well, but is more effective when used to push potential customers/clients to the website where more substantial information and support is possible.
    A blog is also a primary direct input port for customers as well as an opinion tool for the business. It lets people open a different level of interactive relationship development. In other words it can be a primary PR tool and certainly a primary feedback tool.
    People want to interact with people and the blog provides that less formal more human level of interaction that supports personalized business building and customer support. This is of course that the business is sincere, open, and honest in the way that it handles the blog format, not all are.
    Blogs are more suited to small business all though I have seen some large businesses using them for effective information feeds.
    E-mail is also somewhat misaligned and can be effectively used with 90% desktop arrival. Yours may have been only 18%, but that is because you didn’t have the tools to make it happen. Email can be highly personalized on a client to client basis where RSS feeds lack the ability to drill down to individual clients. The personalized micro marketing potential of email is a too powerful a tool to close the doors on. When used with the blog they both produce ballistic results.
    .

  • http://www.myverdict.net Roy Daine

    I’ve been advised that my site, http://www.myverdictnet, should be built as a blog. It appears to be a sort of blog already and altough I’ve added a supposed proper blog I don’t really understand what I’m doing. I’d appreciate someone who understands, having a look and maybe pointing me me in the right direction. Thanks in advance.

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