Blogging

[DianaR]

I have used a blog to get the word out about some of the products I hawk for affiliate programs I have joined. It is just like having built in subject matter and blogs get indexed quicker than traditional websites, at leas that is what I have experienced.

Has anyone else here used a blog to market a product line or to introduce a new product line?

[Matt]

Not yet but its a good idea.

[andasay]

I have always thoght that adding a blog to a website was a rather good idea, but I wouldnt have the first clue how to go about it. I have thought that it would be rather time consuming.

[Matt]

one word. Wordpress.

The easiest blog ever!

[use-IP]

For me it is easy, extra, fresh content. You don't have to write great pieces, nor add one every day.

M'business blog: use-IP blog (http://blog.use-ip.co.uk/)

Mostly it is just snippets about News and product updates which cross my desk every day. It all adds to your online presence and ultimately to your long-tail, eventually you'll probably mention all aspects of your business ...

I agree with the previous posts:
WordPress is great.
It does also seem to get found and indexed more quickly.
There are great free plugins to optimise WP for SEO.
Free themes to get it looking good.
You can easily build a site from a blog; what you understand to be journal-type news entries are known as Posts; you can just as easily create fixed Pages, and play around with how they are arranged.

This one (http://www.adopt-adapt-improve.co.uk/) is a work-in-progress, and will lead to some affiliate links (in a friendly and informative way):)

This one (http://www.dyslexic-entrepreneur.com/) belongs to a completely non-techie friend, I plan to help them optimise it a bit better some day soon, and to help them with individual blogs to promote each new book that they publish.

Give it a whirl - it's easy to do.

[Matt]

Phil, have you seen the Magento blog plugin?

I have it installed as a test over here...

http://www.karmatradingco.com/store/blog/

It's working very nice and the guy developing it is very helpful and quick at adding new features.

[use-IP]

Looks good - now I need to know how your upside down tomatoes are doing??

Karma seems good & fast, is it up to latest version?
(oh no, not another Magento thread kidnap!!);)

[andasay]

Thanks for the tips guy, I suppos eit is worth considering. I will take a look at wordpress today, and I will let you know how I get on!!

[Matt]

Looks good - now I need to know how your upside down tomatoes are doing??

Karma seems good & fast, is it up to latest version?
(oh no, not another Magento thread kidnap!!);)

It's always on the latest version, 1.1.3 at the moment :D

[use-IP]

Talking of blogs, which we were before somebody mentioned Magento!;)

I 'pimped' this WordPress blog today for a friend:

The Dyslexic Entrepreneur (http://www.dyslexic-entrepreneur.com)

It belongs to Dover businessman John Tipping who has acute dyslexia and cannot read or write, but has managed to run his businesses successfully with the help of his wife Jill and some special audio software for dictating documents.

A ghost writer has helped him to write his life story, his book is called "Go play in the sand, John".

He was featured on the local TV News and also on Channel 4's "Can't Read, Can't Write" series - their experts were unable to improve his reading ....

Grab a cup of tea and check out John's remarkable story:coffee:

You take the web, this forum and everything else in text for granted, can you imagine not being able to read?? (despite trying sooo hard)

[DianaR]

I have always thoght that adding a blog to a website was a rather good idea, but I wouldnt have the first clue how to go about it. I have thought that it would be rather time consuming.

Sometimes it is better to just leave the blog on the free host. That way, it "drafts" off an established domain, as opposed to your having to set up the blog, then build the domain it is on as a huge project.

[Matt]

Having it on a separate domain could be an advantage from an SEO point of view. I guess it would create more back links to the main website and, if hosted on platforms like blogger, it could provide some fast google indexing.