CT Biz Blogs

For a project, I had to find some blogs in the retail space — those supporting stores, as opposed to supporting services.

I’d put blogs such as The Orthodontic Center and Andrew Ewalt’s Law Blog in the supporting services area.

I’d consider Signs Never Sleep, Lincoln Sign Co’s blog, in a middle area. The blog is certainly about a product — signs — but they’re made-to-order. I’d put English Cut in this space, too. Not sure what to call this area, though.

In the retail area, besides Aldo Coffee, and Heather at Eie Flud, who are some of the ground-breakers in this area, I found a few more.

• eHobbies
• Ice Blog, a jewelry retailer, who has some associated blogs:

• Sparkle Like the Stars
• Just Ask Leslie

And also,

• Tonic Gifts

I found eHobbies and Ice Blog through an article in DM News: Blogs and Bling Bling: Companies See More Sales, Improve Search Position

Here’s what they had to say about eHobbies:

Since adding blogging to its site in May, 5 percent of the company’s overall traffic comes from its main blog destination, www.ehobbies.blogs.com. In addition, 5 percent of all orders have recently tracked to a blog-based coupon.

The eHobbies blog looks good, but I’m not so sure the Ice blogs are “legit.”  On the Sparkle like the Stars blog, the bloggers names are totally made up, and one is a blatant imitatation of Manolo, on the Shoe Blog.  He may be fake, too, but at least he was first.

And, even though no connection to Ice, the jewerlry site, is mentioned on Ask Leslie blog, every answered question seems to end in a recommendation for a diamond pendant, earrings, or some other accessory from Ice.

Is it a black or gray kind of search engine optimization going on here?  I can’t decide. But I do think it’s tacky.

Well, two of my favorite blogs were mentioned in USA Today. They have a nice article called Blogs put businesses on Web search map, with many quotes from Small Business Blog of the Day’s Brian Brown, and one of the blogs they feature is J.D. Iles’s Signs Never Sleep, the blog for the Lincoln Sign Company, in New Hampshire.

Sign-maker Joseph Iles, 37, has been blogging for two years at his Lincoln Sign Co. in Lincoln, N.H. And he’s already seen a payoff. Iles attributes $33,000 in sales last year, or about 10% of total revenue, to customers he found through his Signs Never Sleep blog.

“If you can send an e-mail, you can do a blog,” he says. “It’s simple.”

Congratulations, guys!

In the article, Brian gives examples of 4 business blogs, and the reasons why they’re good blogs, and why blogs are good for business.

And when you read the article, don’t forget to follow the links to see the blog examples, and to read the other articles. There’s a great link to a brief how-to on blogging, and a link to USA Today’s Small business blog, Small Business Connection blog, written by Jim Hopkins. It’s full of good posts, including this one on what Suzanne Hetts, co-owner of Animal Behavior Associates in Littleton, Colo is saying about her planned move into blogging.

Blogs are great ways to let people get to know you a little bit. Usually it’s done indirectly, as your interests, skills, and knowledge are revealed in what you write about.

One way you can let people know about you is by interviewing yourself. By this I don’t mean the “I-have-12-children-and-live-in-Podunk” kind of stuff. Although that’s a good bit for the “about” page. (I’d certainly like to know, because anyone with 12 kids and still sane has miraculous management techniques!)

One approach to telling us about yourself is to try writing more stories, maybe about a time when you accomplished something or learned something. That isn’t really telling — it’s showing.

This is the basis of a technique that’s become popular in job interviews, called “Behavioral Interviewing.” In a job interview (which a blog is, in part) the interviewer might say something like “Tell me about a time when you had to tell someone bad news. What did you do and what happened?”

The stories are best if they stick to things that happened at a job, or something not too personal. And certainly not confessional — a small business blog shouldn’t be a tell-all diary. If other people in the story are recognizable by those who know you, it’s best to get their OK. You don’t want the kids at school teasing your son because of something his daddy said on a blog.

To get you started, here are a few sample behavioral interview questions from the Quintessential Careers website:

• Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills.

• Give me an example of a time when you set a goal and were able to meet or achieve it.

• Tell me about a time you were able to successfully deal with another person even when that individual may not have personally liked you (or vice versa).

Katharine Hansen has some good interview answering tips on the Quintessential Careers site.

On your post, you don’t need to actually ask the question first, of course. You can start in with the answer. But you will need to have some introduction, some reason why you’re telling this story. It can be something as simple as a news item that reminds you of something that happened to you, or something that someone said, or even something as simple as, “You know, the life of a Waste Management Engineer isn’t all roses. Sometimes the compost heap can get piled pretty high. I remember a time when…” And you’re off.

See how easy it can be?

Technorati : blogging

From the Wikipedia entry on Strategy

A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, as differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand.

I’m writing this post not because I’m an expert at blogging strategy, but because that’s what I’m exploring, myself, these days. My focus has always been more on the technical aspects of blogging. That’s the fun part, for me.

However, it’s about time I did some thinking about my blogging strategy. And you can’t have a strategy without a goal.

We’re all blogging for a reason. For most business blogs, the purpose is marketing for our business or ourselves. This is a good reason for having a blog; there’s nothing wrong with marketing. But I think you need to go further than that — you need to ask yourself: “What is it I want people to do as a result of reading or visiting my blog?”

That’s the real goal of the blog, and the goal is what drives the strategy.

I’ve been re-reading Seth Godin’s free ebook “Knock Knock,” which he published a while back. Sometimes these things have to be read, allowed to percolate in the brain for a while, and then re-read. Knock Knock is actually not about blogs, but about web site strategy. But since blogs are a type of web site, it’s a good read for anyone using blogs to market their products, services, or ideas.

“Knock, knock” is what people are doing when they come to your blog — knocking on your door. What you need to know is, how will you answer that door? On page 35, Godin says:

Here are the three questions you must answer about every single page you build:

1. Who’s here?
2. What do you want them to do?
3. How can you instantly tell a persuasive story to get them to do #2?

I think that determining a strategy starts with deciding on what your answers are to those three questions.

Audible.com is a company that has online audio versions of books that can be downloaded to an MP3 player. I’ve been a subscriber to Audible.com since early 2001 (5 year anniversary in a week). At the time I joined, I was commuting an hour each way, and listening to books really made the time go by (and made me a little more knowledgeable, I hope).

Last December I got a letter and a free set of earbuds from Audible. The letter was from the president, Don Katz, telling me that, while they appreciated my business and my loyalty, the fact was that Audible was losing money on all its early-adopter listeners. I get two books a month for a very low price. He said that Audible would continue to honor the legacy account, but asked me to upgrade to a new account which would be only one book plus an audio magazine subscription.

My thought at the time was “Yeah, right. How can you lose money when there’s no inventory but some bits and bytes, and bandwidth for downloads?”

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Ok, I’ve been yammering here for 7 months now about blogging for small businesses. Today I want to direct your attention to another small business blogger out there — one who’s blogging as he builds his online business, months before he’s ready to open.

Mark Nash is building an online store, and blogging about it as he goes along. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the work he’s putting into his e-commerce site, and his latest post, Why Should a Small Business Blog, gives some of his reasons for why he’s blogging. Here’s a brief glimpse of a few of them

1. Creating pre-grand-opening awareness.

For a small online retail business with only a modest outlay for online advertising, then, the challenge is to create advance awareness without spending a ton of cash.

Marketing is certainly one big reason for blogging. I like this twist; I hadn’t thought of it.

4. Getting good advice.

As I continue describing my activities in the time leading up to the launch of the business, I am inviting criticism and discussion. Some of it will be good advice, some of it not so good, but all of it will be worth giving some consideration to.

People are curious, and they love a good story, especially one that’s unfolding before their eyes. This guy is a savvy blogger. (Although he’s using Google’s Blogger platform! He’s got a few reasons for doing so, but really, Mark, Blogger is so limited. If you want free and simple, Wordpress.com has better tools.) My bet is that people will come to his blog and won’t be able to resist participating, via the comments.

I know plenty of people will be coming via the link from Darren Rowse, of Problogger. That’s how I got there.

Check it out!

On Friday, I mentioned that I’d found a new Connecticut small business blog (started in November, 2005), Hadley Spagna Photography.

I ended by saying that there were a few things that bugged me. This was a bit harsh; I didn’t mean to say I thought she was doing anything wrong, just that I believe there are some things she needs to think about doing better.

 One thing I noticed is that her main web site is in Flash. I don’t like a lot of Flash on web sites for several reasons, but the main one is: lack of opportunity to optimize your site for search engines.  Maybe this will change one day, but right now, search engine crawlers (spiders and ‘bots who go looking for text) can’t read what’s in Flash.

 That’s because a web page that has Flash is actually just a “wrapper,” a shell with a link to the Flash file itself, which is a special, proprietary Macromedia Shockwave Flash file. If your browser has the Flash plug-in, it can play the Flash file, but web crawlers can’t parse the text in a Flash file the way they do with regular web pages. Well, Google claims to be able to, to a limited extent. But for most search engines, the text in Hadley’s web site doesn’t exist. Yes, there are some keywords in the title of the page on her web site (up at the top), but basically, that’s it for keywords on her web site.

On the other hand, people can’t copy images, if they’re in Flash. This is a valid concern for photographers.

 My recommendation to people who want Flash, is to only have it in selected sections, such as the photo gallery.  There are non-Flash ways to get fancy effects, such as sliding text.

Here’s an article with more techy detail on Flash and its SEO limitations.

Of course, having a blog helps a lot with that search engine optimization (SEO) bit. One way to maximize your “findability” is to really work the blog, even more so when you have a web site that can’t help you much with SEO.

So for Hadley’s blog, I’d recommend something other than Blogger. Blogger is fine for experimenting, but to really get the most out of your blog, hosting your own is best, or using a blogging tool that has more features than Blogger, such as Wordpress.com or Typepad.

 One essential thing to implement in a more full-featured blog application is the use of categories or tags.  I’ll write more on what those are at a later date, but the important thing to know is that categories and/or tags will help readers by organizing the posts in a more contextual way, and will help bloggers by giving them more keywords which are repeated on each post (namely, the category titles).

If you want to use Blogger, there are some Blogger hacks to add categories. I haven’t tried them out myself, yet.  They’re not easy to implement for novices, though. You have to tweak the template a bit.

So, once again, blogging comes to the rescue!  Got a less than optimum web site? No problem! You just have to work that extra bit harder to maximize the search engine “juice” you can get from having a blog. 

When you write a blog post, it’s good to include links to other blogs or site you think might be of interest to your readers, or that illustrate your point in some way.

But what beginning bloggers often don’t realize is that how you link is as important as what you link to. In other words, the text you make clickable can help you, as well as the site to which you link. This is because search engines consider links important, and the words in the link are considered to be what the link is about. We’re talking computers, automated “bots” and spiders, and algorithims here. They’re fast, but not too smart, yet.

So, if you have a link, and the text that is linked is “click here,” that’s what the search engine “bots” will think the link is about. Not very helpful.

It’s also important to actually have link text and not just type out the URL and make that a link. Just think, would someone use a search engine to look for “www.ctbizblogs.com?” No. Who needs a search engine to find a website whose address they already know? They’d be looking for something such as small business blog in Connecticut, or connecticut lawyer blog.

Now, this obviously helps out the site you’re linking to, because you’ve just created an association between some search terms, or keywords, and a website. This is what search engines live for. But search engines also consider that, because you’ve created a link, that your content is about that, as well.

So, by helping readers find additional information, you’ve given yourself a boost, as well as the site to which you link.

And that’s one small way to help build traffic to your blog.

I’ve been working with Creative Concepts to create a blog for Matthew Cossolotto’s book, HabitForce!, and his workshops. It’s up and running, and I’ll be providing the technical assistance and blogging know-how so that Matthew can concentrate on the writing.

We decided to use WordPress.com for the blog — it has more features than Blogger in some areas, such as built-in anti-spam protection via Akismet.

Matthew is a natural at blogging — 15 minutes after I emailed him his login information, he had the first post, about his upcoming radio interview, already published. Part of that is due to WordPress’s ease of use for writing posts, but it’s also due to Matthew having a lot going on, a lot to say, and a willingess to try new things — to explore and experiment. As a writer, speaker, and teacher, he’s exactly the type of person who needs to have a blog.

It’ll be interesting to watch as his blog grows and becomes part of the blogosphere and I’m excited to be a part of that. Within the bounds of client confidentiality, I’ll share what I can, here.

As always, the Central Connecticut Women’s Forum has a lot going on — plenty of opportunities for networking, and the weekly radio show (available for download, too!)

• Wednesday open house: Tonight, January 11, 2006, there’s an open house networking event at Jitters Coffeehouse in Southington. Once again, I can’t go, but I’ll make it one of these days!
• Monthly meeting: The CCWF meets every 3rd Tuesday at the Aqua Terra in Southington. This month’s meeting is next Tuesday, January 17th. If you’re interested, you’ll need to reserve by this Thursday, January 12th. I can’t go to that either, this time (note to self: get priorities straightened out).
• CCWF hits the airwaves. If you’re in the listening area, you can tune in every Tuesday morning from 8 - 9 am, to 990 AM. If you’re not, you can still download the audio files. The WCTX calls them podcasts, but they’re technically not; podcasts are audio files that you can subscribe to (via RSS) and have automatically downloaded onto your computer on a regular basis. But who cares about technicalities — the fact is that you can download these shows yourself, and listen to them on your computer, or on your digital (MP3) audio player, such as the iPod.

Once again, if you’re in the area, I highly recommend this group.

And I promise I’ll find something the men can attend, too. One great group that I might join is the Greater Meriden Chamber of Commerce. They are an amazing, energetic bunch with many events every month which are usually free for members. You don’t have to live in Meriden to join, either.

While I know a few things about blogging and the technology related to blogging, I’m not an expert in marketing and public relations. However, I do know someone who is: Valorie Luther, who owns Creative Concepts, a marketing and PR firm based in Fairfield, Connecticut.

She and I have been talking for some time about how CT Biz Blogs can help her clients get up to speed on blogging. On Friday it became official — here’s the press release announcing Creative Concepts’s blogging service. Valorie will supply the overall marketing strategy and public relations expertise and CT Biz Blogs will be supplying the blogging services for her clients.

I’m very excited about this — blogging is an excellent way for businesses to do marketing and PR. And I’m looking forward to working with Valorie; she’s a very smart lady!

She also does a lot of event planning work. Here’s a link to her event planning weblog, Entertaining News.

We’ve got some projects in the pipeline — I’ll be blogging about them when appropriate, within the bounds of client and professional confidentiality, of course.

If you’re interested, the contact info is on the announcement.

And, if you’re interested in getting technical help with blogging, CT Biz Blogs can help you there, too.

Looking back at the archives in the blogosphere, I came across an article from Stephen Turcotte, the founder of Backbone Media, about why blogging is better for a small company vs. a large one. Hey, there’s an idea! This is one-half of a blogging debate, the other side being “Blogging is better for bigger companies.” I’m not sure what the measurement for “better” would be, and in a way, this is really a mock debate because the truth is that blogging is a great idea for any size company. The crux of the reasoning is that small companies can overcome a smaller marketing budget by blogging.

Due to lack of budget, many small companies cannot compete Paid Click for Paid Click in the paid search regime, but they can compete for organic search engine rankings. The act of blogging has been proven to help with organic rankings because focused blogs are search engine friendly publishing engines full of relevant organized content. The culture of blogging supports contextual back linking, which is a strong factor in how a search engine like Google decides on who gets the top search position. So, a small company can blog and get their ideas out into the public while also improving the natural search traffic and link popularity.

There’s still a cost –an investment in time. But with the right blogging strategy, it’s not as large an investment as you might fear.

As an added benefit, the article contains a link to Backbone Media’s Survey on Corporate Blogging. This is a great resource about the advantages of blogging and strategies for blogging to achieve those advantages.

Side note to Stephen Turcotte: Get rid of the spam comments in that article — it just plain looks bad.

If you’re a small business owner thinking of getting into blogging, we at CT Biz Blogs can help you with our blogging maintenance services. We will help you with set up and administration of your blog, and do the housecleaning, too — spam eradication, for example. Shoot us an email and we’ll talk.

If you’ve never had a blog, it might be hard to imagine what it would be like if you did. So here are a few hypothetical situations you might find yourself in, if you were blogging about your business.

• You would get an email from someone saying, “I just read your article about incorporating a business. You’ve raised some issues I hadn’t even considered. I’d like to come in and talk to you about it.”

• You would get a phone call from someone who found you on the web, saying “I dropped my watch into the ocean. What can I do?” But you wouldn’t just tell him over the phone, you’d use the question as the basis for a post. You’d include that post in your FAQs. And you might even offer that person a small discount on a new watch, as a thank you for inspiring the post.

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Dan C. Hamilton, of Columbus, Ohio, is a realtor who just started blogging. He’s hoping that blogging will make a difference when you choose a realtor in his area.

[B]logs are going to be a critical asset to successful Realtors of the future. A blog allows readers like you to get inside my head. It is also a forum for me to provide you with tips or notices that may be important to selling or buying your home. If you’re researching which Realtor you would like to sell your house or find you the house of your dreams, you want someone you can trust and someone you think you’ll get along with. Blogging, while it doesn’t tell you exactly who I am, gives you a little more insight the type of person I am. It shows of my personality a little. You see how my mind works and you see my sense of humor. It builds a small trust between us.

Is he right? Only time will tell — it’s early days yet for Dan.

But out of curiosity, I did a little research, trying to find some numbers, just to see if blogging does actually help build business. (more…)

Scenario #1: Imagine that you are a PR and Marketing guy, and you’re really into blogging. You and your co-writer (who writes a popular blog for a large software company) have decided to write a book about why companies should embrace blogging.

You want to build some buzz for this proposed book, you want to share your ideas, and you hope you’ll get some feedback, info, and advice as you write the book. So you decide to blog the book. On the blog, you write about the initial premise and finding a publisher. As time goes on, you ask your readers for suggestions for the book’s title for names of people to interview. You post your complete notes from interviews, and full drafts of your chapters, asking for help with corrections. As the chapters approach final form, you post them as well. Finally, you ask for people who might be interested in reviewing the bound galleys of the book, for final proofing and error-checking.

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For my case study post (for the 20 blog types marathon) I want to take a look at Andrew Ewalt’s Law Blog. One reason is that he’s a CT lawyer from near my old stomping grounds (he’s in Manchester and Storrs; I lived in that area for many years). For another, he’s a good subject for my experiment — he’s headed in the right direction with his blog, but it could use a few tweaks. For a third, I’m in the process of redesigning this blog, and thinking objectively about someone else’s blog is easier than thinking objectively about my own. This will get my brain going in the right direction. So, I have a few thoughts on Andrew’s blog that I’d like to share. Do with them what you will, Andrew.

I’ll be writing about three parts of Andrew’s blog:

1. The URL
2. The Header
3. The Posts

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For a while now, I’ve wanted to find out more about the Lincoln Sign Co blog, Signs Never Sleep, so I chose J.D. Iles for my interview post of the 20 blog types. I’ve never met the man, but I sent him an email, asking if he would mind answering a few questions about his blog.

He replied that he gets requests like that all the time, and doesn’t have time to do a full interview (between the signs and the blogging he’s a busy guy) but he pointed me to a series of posts he did in January and February of this year, on blogging and the SNS blog, and said he could answer a question or two in addition to that.

That’s fair enough, I think. So I decided to do a slightly different kind of “interview” and use the power of the blogosphere to pull from those posts. I don’t think I pulled anything out of context, but I recommend that you go read the entire posts for the full story. (more…)

There are many different types of businesses that could use a blog to help connect with customers or vendors, share their expertise, and build their businesses. These could be used in place of a website, or as an addition to the website.

As a challenge to myself (as if I’m not already challenged with this 20 types marathon), I brainstormed some ways four different types of businesses could use a blog. I’m sure there are many more that I haven’t thought of. The potential uses of a blog are only limited to the imagination of the business owner. I mean, who knew that a blog about a sign business could be so much fun to read.

How 4 types of small businesses could use a blog: (more…)

I think it’s important to have your own domain name for your blog, as I’ve said in several posts, such as this one on What you need to begin blogging (item #3).  In that same post, I also mentioned Jakob Nielsen’s article about weblog usability , and his warnings.

His point, and it’s a good one, is that unless you have your own domain name, you don’t really own your blog.  It’s actually owned by whoever is hosting it, like Blogger, or AOL.  They can decide to change your service at any time, and if you don’t like it, you’ll have to move your blog to a new address, losing any “link equity” you’ve built up.  That means that all the inbound links you’ve gotten, which help people and search engines find you, will be broken.  (more…)

Even though The Soap Blog isn’t a Connecticut blog, it’s an excellent example of what Connecticut business bloggers could be doing, too! This series of posts is also a fascinating look into the creative spirit that anyone with an ounce of creativity can relate to.

Right now, Heather is writing a series of stories about four scents she created to pay tribute to four women who influenced her.

In a previous post, she mentioned that she was working on a scent called “Nora,” and gave some history of how she’s been struggling to come up with just the right “notes” for it. In today’s post, Alma, Elinor, Elsie and Nora, she has some thumbnail photos of the women, and introduces them briefly to us. Heather says:

I used these women who I knew were very different as a platform to shape the fragrance - so as to embody something for everyone - once I had done that, the actual perfume so strongly associated with that woman - I couldn’t concieve of any other name for them - any other image.

She plans to tell us more about them, as perfumes, over the next few posts. I’m intrigued, because I want to see how she works with her materials so that “…their perfumes to reflect the richness and the colour they displayed during their lifetimes - and to be a signature to their personality that any woman, every woman could share.”

I trust that these stories are authentic, because Heather is the voice of Eie Flud, and she’s authentic. She’s become so, to me, because of her blogging. As I’ve been reading her posts, I feel I know her a bit. This is what I call authentic marketing — telling a real story, not only of the women, but of how Heather works, and how passionate and knowledgeable she is about what she does.

As she tells us about the perfumes, I hope she tells us a bit more about the women’s lives, also. Or maybe she’ll blend the two strands into one story, the way she blends her ingredients.

The first open house women’s networking event at Jitters Coffeehouse will be happening tonight. The coffeehouse is at 1273 Queen Street in Southington (RT10). This is put on by the Central Ct Women’s Forum group.

The cost is $5 and includes coffee or tea, and desserts. No reservation is required. They will meet twice a month on Wednesday nights — the next meeting is December 7th.

I’d be there tonight if I didn’t already have other plans — I’ve got the Dec 7th event on my calendar, though.

Also, check out their press release for more information on the radio show they’re putting together.

In a recent post about outbound links on the Naked Conversations blog, Shel Israel called links the “wampum” of blogs. (He and co-author Robert Scoble wrote a new book about blogs called Naked Conversations. They blogged the entire process, from finding a publisher, to drafts of the chapters, to notes about the research that went into the book, and much more. I’m saving my pennies for this book.)

I’ve written before about linking to others and why that’s important (part 1, part 2). The flip side of that is that bloggers who are linked to will investigate the reference, check you out, and perhaps link to you if they feel their readers might be interested. But that’s a maybe — it’s not something a blogger is obligated to do. (more…)

I went to a CCWF meeting on Tuesday. This group meets the 3rd Tuesday of every month, at the Aqua Terra restaurant in Southington.

I’ve been to two meetings, as a visitor, and have had a great time on both occasions. This is an energetic group of women with diverse backgrounds and businesses, who all come together to network, and discuss various aspects of being in business.

The food is always excellent, and there’s a lot of energy and excitement in the room. That’s due in no small part to the hard work and efforts of the leadership team, headed by Shirley Bloethe, who owns several businesses, including Jitters Coffeehouse, and Pass it On Sports & Fitness.

At the last meeting we learned about the new focus of WXCT AM 990. They have decided to focus on Women’s issues for their new format, and the CCWF will be a part of that, hosting a weekly program, Tuesdays at 1 PM.

Also, because the group is large and they just don’t get enough opportunities to talk to each other, they are starting an open house women’s networking event at Jitter’s Coffeehouse 1273 Queen Street in Southington RT10. The first meeting is this coming Wednesday, Nov 23rd.

The cost is $5 and includes coffee or tea, and desserts. No reservation required.

You can find contact info at the website of the Central CT Women’s Forum.

Of course, you know they really need a blog!

If you have a blog, you’re created a presence on the web. If you have a presence on the web, you need to have a web-based way to contact you. You need to have an email address and you need to have it findable on the blog.

There are ways to avoid spam — you can have a graphical email link, such as in the upper right hand corner of this blog. I wrote earlier about how to create a graphic for your gmail account (and others), but you don’t need it — any graphics program, such as Paint, will allow you to create an image.

By the way, if you want a gmail account, contact me — I’ve got a bunch of invitations left. If you have a mobile phone, you can go right to Google and get one without an invitation from me.

Blog Flux just came out with a free email “scrambler” which makes it harder for spammers to harvest your email address. You simply type in your email address and click the “scramble email link” button, and you get some code which you copy, and then paste wherever you want your address to appear.

Make it easy for people to contact you; it could lead to great conversations, new business, new alliances, or even save you from a mistake. (If you find a mistake, typo, or whatever on CTBizBlogs, please let me know!)

Here’s a bad example. I recently went to the Business Week website, in search of podcasts. Here’s what I found on their page:

Embarassing. I might be interested in Greek wine; Greek wind conjures up images I won’t share.

I searched for a way to contact the webmaster. Nothing on the site. No page owner, just a link to customer service. There I was requested to fill out a long form. Forget it — this is way too much trouble.

Maybe they’ll read about it here.

The great thing about blogging is that it’s much easier to create a blog than it is to create a web site. You can start a blog for very little money; your biggest investment will be time. And, especially at first, you don’t have to spend more than a few hours a week on your blog.

This is an overview of the things you’ll need to start blogging.

1. A blog hosting platform. In order for your blog to be “on the internet,” you’ll need to find a blog hosting platform, or a web service provider, who will host the pages of your blog on their computers. These computers run special software called web servers which manage the delivery of web pages upon requests from web browsers such as Internet Explorer or Firefox. I’ve written a bit about blog hosting platforms in What are some of the ways to create a blog and How to create a blog on Blogger. I’ll be writing more – this is a big subject.

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Steve Rubel, whose Micro Persuasion blog is a must-read for anyone interested in public relations and blogging, has been diagnosed with skin cancer. It appears to be a very curable kind, but it prompted him to start the skin cancer blog.

This looks to be a helpful resource for those with skin cancer, and it’s a good reminder to the rest to see how easy it is to take steps to try to prevent it.

Good luck, Steve, and blog on!

For small, small businesses that have little money for advertising and don’t have a Web site, a blog can become your Web presence…

I mentioned this excellent article back in August. It’s a great introduction from the San Francisco Chronicle to why small businesses should blog.

One of the examples they cite is the Green Cine Daily, a blog for GreenCine, an online DVD rental and video-on-demand company.

According to the article, Dennis Woo, the owner of GreenCine, has doubled his business in 2004 because of the weblog. (more…)

In a nutshell, you should link to other blogs (and websites) because:
• it offers your readers more information or examples.
• it adds your voice to the conversation.
• it extends your network, which helps readers and search engines find you.

I touched on the first in the previous post on reasons for linking to other blogs.

Adding your voice to the conversation is important. It helps establish your expertise. When you write about other resources, examples, or even just fun stuff, you’re demonstrating your knowledge, personality, or both. This helps your customers and clients know who you are.

For example, I was very pleased by the feedback I got from the posts I wrote on examples of small business blogs. (more…)

Sending readers to other blogs.

You may be wondering, “How will linking to other blogs bring users to my blog? Aren’t I sending them away?”

The answer is yes, you are sending readers to other blogs. This is a good thing! Think of it as part of the service you provide to your readers. You’re not just blathering on about something, but showing them examples, or linking them to resources or more information that they might find useful. You’re saying in words and actions that the needs of the customer are paramount. (more…)

When you ask “Why do I need a blog?” the ultimate answer is “to build your business.”

Blogs build your business through sharing your expertise and connecting with your customers. When you post on your blog, maybe not daily, but on a regular basis, you start to build a relationship with your readers.

They might already be customers or clients who heard about your blog through your newsletter, flyer, email, business card, link from your main website, or even a sign in your shop by the cash register. They might be people who haven’t used your services yet, but are looking for information. They find you through a search engine or link from another blog, see that you are knowledgeable and friendly, and then become customers or clients.

To build your business through your blog, you need to bring people to it, and help them find it. You need to build traffic. (more…)

Some businesses, such as Eie Flud, (first mentioned in this post) have a website as well as a blog. But for some, such as CT BizBlogs, the blog is their website.

Here’s a very nice example of that. The Aldo Coffee Company has been blogging for almost a year now, and their site is very well-designed. (more…)

From my dining room window I can see grazing, the very cows that within minutes provide the milk for these soaps - still warm and frothy and completely natural. We toddle over with our basin, and toddle back to make the soap. Our thanks to the Farmers Meakin (Freeby) for providing the milk and Carl the herdsman for not even so much as blinking at our reasons for wanting it.

During my blog surfing, I found a relatively new small business blog from the UK, all about a company that makes soap. Heather Platts, of the company Eie Flud, has been blogging about their experiences setting up a shop, packaging their products, and creating soaps and perfumes. She’s also been blogging about her blog and her experiences in the blogosphere. (more…)

You may be wondering why you should bother with a weblog, especially if you’re coming to this blog for the first time. You’ve never heard of blogs before, or you’ve only just heard of them, but never had the time to see what the fuss was all about. Who reads these things, anyway? (more…)

Here’s the second reason for having a weblog. (Read part one here)
Share your expertise

When you share your expertise and your ideas, you do three things:

1. Show your passion for your business and your chosen work
2. Build confidence in your readers that you know your subject and that you care about what you offer to customers or clients
3. Bring people to your business

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Andrew Ewalt is a solo attorney in the Greater Hartford area. His blog serves as a good example of sharing expertise.

He has articles on taxes, identity theft, and life insurance. He also has a list of links, to mostly legal blogs.

But those links make it less clear for whom these articles are intended. Reading the articles, I get the impression that they’re for clients and the general public. But if that’s the case, he might do better by having a list of links to sites that his intended audience would find more helpful, such as financial information, tax sites, or consumer information. I doubt that most clients are really interested in the site for the American Constitution Society.

However, he might also want to be a part of the growing network of legal bloggers, a perfectly valid goal, and one that adds to the fun of being in the blogging world. In that case, dividing the links into two segments could help: legal sites, and consumer information sites.

There are many decisions to make when shaping a blog. The good news is that you don’t have to make all of them at once. A weblog is something that grows over time, just like a business.

The main three reasons for blogging are listed at the top of this site:

• Connect with