News / BLOG

On these pages we will be releasing 'FD' news, issues and web development views...

What's all this BLOGGING Business?

Friday, 10 October 2008

A (Very) Brief Introduction
The word 'blog' is short for 'Web Log' - which gives you a good indication of what blogging is all about (for a full explanation see Wikipedia's definition). It is used for personal activities often in diary-like formats offering news, opinions and thoughts on events, journeys... actually pretty much anything.
In this instance we are using our blog for a number of reasons - to keep all interested up-to-date with our news, thoughts, developments and ideas and to some degree to offer an example of how a blog can be used on a website.

Google Blogger
We have set up this News/BLOG section using the popular Google blog software 'Blogger'.
It is relatively easy to set up and once working allows the writers of the blog easy access to current and new posts. Another popular blog that we use for developing both simple blogs and more complex CMS (Content Management Systems) is 'WordPress'.

So Why Google? SEO Advantages..?
Using Google software is said to be advantageous in that the more you use Google Products the more Google identifies your website in it's search results. Whether that is actually fact or not remains debatable, however what is fact is that if your website is showing activity and pages that are being added on a regular basis then it is more likely to be relevant and of interest to users. If that is the case then the search engines become more interested in ranking your website higher.

Why Blog at all?
1. Answer questions
First and foremost, if you have a product or service that your users may have questions about then it is likely that a Blog is a good way of answering them and engaging your users in some potentially interesting debate. For instance some readers of this particular post may not see the advantages of Blogging at all, and to some degree this post may help to persuade them otherwise.
2. SEO & SEM
Another reason to set up and use a Blog is mentioned above - and that is it is great for SEO and general 'eMarketing'. This can't really be repeated often enough so I'll say it once more - IT'S GREAT FOR SEO & SEM!!
3. Emotional Decisions
Any more reasons? Well yes actually - offering your opinion about a particular subject, issue, development, product etc offers the user of your website a small window into who YOU are. And when it comes down to the crunch, most decisions are made with an emotional attachment (or so I've heard), so if you can offer your potential customers a slice of yourself then they can make that emotional decision - and with luck that will mean they will do business with you. Of course if you're unlucky it may go in the other direction!
4. Valuable Feedback
Which brings me to my final point - the all important FEEDBACK. Allowing users to comment on your website, and in this instance your posts gives you feedback about your services. We've said it before on other parts of our website "feedback is so very important" - without it we'd not know if what we offered was any good!

In Parting...
I hope that this Blog is useful to all who happen across it, and please feel free to comment on any post that you find of interest.
Until next time then...
CA

posted by ChrisAdams at 00:20