Blog FAQs and Answers

Susan Dunn, MA, The EQ Coach
filed under "Internet-Marketing"

Q: Can you get married by blog? A: Now that I’ve got your attention! Actually you can, at least Eric and Kathleen consider they did, thanks to an obscure law in Texas regarding “informal marriage.” All you have to do, they say, is declare your spouse-itude publicly to other residents of the state. Read about it on her blog - http://www.fashion-incubator.com/mt/ , August 5th entry. There’s a proliferation of articles on the Internet about blogging matched only by the proliferation of blogs being created. The numbers are astronomical, the growth rate exponential. Since blogging has yet to peak, there is the usual hysteria and hype around it. To help you sort through the maze, here’s a brief primer with resources: Q: What’s the purpose of a blog? A: Some of them are: 1. Self-expression; journaling gone public 2. Pitching a product or professional service 3. Providing information on a topic 4. Raising awareness about an issue 5. To get around google “sandboxing” 6. To have fun Before you mount a blog, decide the purpose and the intended audience. This will shape your choice of template and dictate content as well. Nancy Fenn, The Introvertz Coach ( http://www.theintrovertzcoach.com ), wanted a blog (http://www.theintrovertzcoach.com/blogger.html ) to raise awareness about introversion as a legitimate personality style, and to show “what it’s like to be introverted and intuitive every day.” Her target market is intuitive introverts, and since introverts love the Internet, she hit the jackpot. Peripherally, she promotes her products and services and receives over 5,000 visitors a month to her website. Q: What’s the format? A: Many blog production sites, such as http://webhosting.availablehere.biz , offer attractive templates. Picture this as writing in a diary, one entry after another. You should have a masthead telling what the theme of the blog is, and information about yourself, as well as contact information. Q: What’s “sandboxing”? A: Something google can do to your website. When you have a new website and submit the URL, it can appear on the search engine and then suddenly disappear. For some reason it’s put in a holding pin (“sandboxed” for a while, or indefinitely. Putting up a blog is a way to bring traffic to your website while you wait to see what happens. (See my article “Blog Your Way Out of Oblivion,” ( http://www.goarticles.com ). Q: Can your employer fire you for having a blog? A: No doubt you’ve heard about the Delta employee who got fired for putting an “inappropriate” photo of herself in uniform on her blog. Ellen Simonetti, Queen of Sky, tells her story here - http://news.com.com/I+was+fired+for+blogging/2010-1030_3-5490836. html . As with “inappropriate” emails and visiting porn sites at work, employees who have a Promethean desire to self-sabotage will find the uber-public Internet just the place to crash and burn. Why would you post something negative about your employer or their product or be unprofessional on a blog any more than you would badmouth them at a Chamber meeting and expect no repercussions? “Why push the envelope?” says Mark Brandenburg, MA, CPCC, ( http://www.markbrandenburg.com ), a coach who helps business clients connect what they do at work with their personal values. “Don’t do anything on a blog, or anywhere else,” he says, “that you wouldn’t want your supervisor or co-worker to see. If it doesn’t represent you or your organization well, don’t do it.” “If you feel a desire to write or do something that doesn’t reflect well on you or the organization,” he adds, “it might be time to get some help to find out what need you’re not getting met.” Q: What mistakes should you avoid? A: (1) All the mistakes that make a regular website inhospitable – poor layout and navigation, bad grammar, typos, poorly written articles, lame material, static not dynamic (you should feed your blog at least every other day), or something unreadable like blue print in Blackadder font on black screen. (2)Failing to market, if that’s your intent. If you’re marketing, you must give the person a reason to return often and make it easy for them to contact you. Keep to your topic, pump useful (or entertaining) information, and give URL, email and phone number. (3)Not submitting your blog to blog directories. Do it now. As of yesterday, at www.blogwise.com, just one submission site, there were 5989 blogs in the queue with an expected wait of 29 days. (4)If it’s a blatant ad, no one will visit more than once. (5)Not stating what seems “obvious” to you. Tell them what your blog is about, how often you add content, why you’re doing it, etc. Q: What should not be on a blog? A: The same copyright and intellectual property laws regarding written and graphic material apply as elsewhere. For legal advice, consult an intellectual property attorney. To be safe, use your own material, or access sites like www.ideamarketers.com offering pre-authorized articles. For graphics, try www.clipart.com . Q: With a new blog going up every second, how can you make yours stand out? A: “The blog software or blog service you choose can make a big difference,” says Craig Thornburow,” http://webhosting.availablehere.biz , “You should consider the level of support, the cost, whether it’s HTML or PHP driven, and how the software manages links. You also want software flexible enough to allow you to customize. For instance, take a look at the B2Evoluation ( http:// webhosting.availablehere.biz ). It's the next generation blogging system – probably the most comprehensive blogging engine you can find. Its features include the ability to blog instantly by one simple button or by sending an email or MMS to your blog. The system also supports up to 100 different blogs from the same site." A further advantage to a site such as this, is that you can have your own URL, better for SEO. With the free blog sites you can end up with a URL like http://theirblog.com/your name.html which is far less attractive to the search engines. Q: What can you do if you want a blog but are computer illiterate, hate to write, and/or don’t have time? A: Programs like www.blogger.com and http://webhosting.availablehere.bziz are so simple to use, I urge you to give it a try. However, you can always hire someone else to do it. As soon as something new appears, the support personnel, trainers and teaches start queuing up for your dollar. Q: What do you look for in a blog-meister? If you’re going to supply content, minimal computer skills, like a Virtual Assistant. Or (this is our future, folks), take a look at the prices on this site owned by an Australian company, with web techs in India: http://www.supportresort.com/ at $2.88 an hour. If you want someone to research and/or choose content, you need someone intelligent, with a proven record for research and writing on the Internet who is familiar enough with your field. Check with marketing companies and coaches who do Internet marketing. If you’ve been thinking about starting a blog, now’s the time. Good luck! About the author: ©Susan Dunn, MA, Internet Marketing and Blog Coach, http://www.webstrategies.cc . To set up your own blog, go here: http://webhosting.availablehere.biz . For more information, mailto:caricky@beeb.net .