Tuesday, November 18, 2008
beyond the basic text website
On page 189 Lee Odden makes the recommendation that blogs be the first media a company should get into beyond the basic text website. This makes a lot of sense, and not merely because of the technical reasons Odden gets into, like making the website easier to find in a search engine, or giving the website the advantage of having a RSS feed. Of course these are two of the strongest reasons for starting a blog on a company website, since it significantly increases the visibility of the website by providing a “free” search engine optimization and granting access to a further channel of promotion (RSS feed). It seems to me to be a very easy out of the box way to make your website more visible and increase content. But other than increasing visibility I think having a blog also may increase the number of returning customers. As Odden says, a lot of e-commerce websites are mostly static, i.e. there isn’t really much changing on the websites. The way I see it this could actually discourage customers from returning to your website. Lets say a potential customer finally finds your website through your excellent marketing strategy, and finds your website really interesting etc. This customer may then return a few times, but if nothing really changes on the website, if it’s not being (visibly) updated, or no new content is added, this customer may, at least the way I see it, 1. Get bored with the website and therefore not return again, or 2. Loose trust for the website, seeing that if a website isn’t being updated questions arises like, does the company still exist, or is it even a serious company? Having a blog is an easy way to give a website some life, making customers want to return even if they haven’t got any further planned purchases. Having blogs may also increase a websites visibility through word of mouth. Today there’s a lot of ways to promote your website using all types of media and social network channels, but I agree with Odden that blogs is a good entry point, both because of its simplicity and the advantages that comes with that simplicity.
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5 comments:
I agree about the blogs. I think that, especially for small companies, that most people don't know of, blogs will help establish a company's personality and give character to a brand name.
The feeling I'm having is that if I would choose between two small companies being able to have a look behind the scenes of either and see how they conduct their work and most importantly what kind of people work there would really help in gaining my trust.
You make a very good point about the importance of uppdating the blog regularly. Everyone just talks about that companies should get blogs, but you also have to realize that there is allot of work involved.
Indeed, corporate blogs are becoming hot topic in corporate communication. However, one thing company should ask themselves before blogging is whether they(their top management) have "new mind," sharing conversation with consumers. Without it, if a company simply do blogs since it is a new trend, they will soon find it is not about media, but mind. I mean still many companies do blogs, but, they still push out their contents, not sharing conversation... which doesn't work.
Blogs are becoming more and more focus on interaction between people. Before web.2.0, Blog were full of one's interest. Theseday many people are involving with certain community or blogs. Blog has a power to persude. But people always look for new contents so to sustain blog, new contents might need freque frequently.
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