Michael's blog

Originally written by Linda Mitchell - July 10, 2010

When I mention to a business client that their new website can have a blog^e (like in Blogging for Business), I'm often asked, "what would I use a blog for?" Most of us have seen how individuals might use a blog as an online journal of their lives - a place to vent and talk about what's important to them - but how does a business use a blog to actually benefit the business?

Here, in no particular order, are a variety of ways that a business can make great use of a blog format.

You've been waiting patiently and you finally receive an email^e from your website designer containing a link or attachment to your new design draft. You anxiously open the draft on your computer like a child diving into gifts on Christmas morning. The design looks great, but it's got all these foreign words like "Lorem Ipsum" all over it. What's that for?

When a designer wants to show a client a design or mock up, but actual text and content isn't available, they'll generally use some snippets of Latin text referred to as Lorem Ipsum. It might look something like this:

To achieve higher rankings in Google, website owners need to know what their current PageRank^e is and constantly strive to improve it. PageRank is the technology and algorithm that Google uses to sort websites and search results. The higher your PageRank, the better your position will be among other sites within the same search.

The past few years have seen a remarkable growth in the number of online websites and services used for sharing and communicating information about ourselves.

As more and more browsing happens on mobile phones, it's becoming critical for businesses to have mobile versions of their websites. Fortunately, it's not always as challenging as it sounds. There are a variety of Drupal^e modules, like Mobile Tools, that we can install to automatically detect if a visitor is on a mobile device. All we need then is a version of your site theme designed to accommodate the mobile phone and you're good to go. Next time you are browsing on your iPhone, visit http://www.StadiaStudio.com to see what I mean.

More and more, I find myself explaining to business clients why Facebook and other social networking sites need to be a part of their overall marketing plan. Just the other week I was talking to my dad, an attorney in Ohio, about Facebook. He still doesn't have a personal account, though his partner has created an account for himself and their firm, so at least they have some presence. His argument to me was that he's not interested in catching up with old contacts, and that no one would go to Facebook specifically to find a lawyer.

Every new Drupal site that we build for clients comes with the ability to blog^e, out of the box. So, naturally, blogging is always one of our first recommendations. Not because it's there but because it makes good business sense to do so.

If you are blogging on your website, an easy way to make sure you find the time and inspiration is to enable blogging from your iPhone! You can then blog from anywhere at any time on any thing you see.

All you need is a site that supports a Blog API and an app for your iPhone. If you have a Drupal^e site that we've built for you, it takes just a minute for us to enable the requisite module and you'll be ready to start.

I have done just that for my own site, and downloaded the iBlogger app for just $9.99 and now I can blog whenever it's convenient.

One of the easiest ways to promote your business and your website is through your email^e address. Instead of advertising for your internet service provider, you could be advertising your domain name!

If you own a domain and web hosting^e, you should have the ability to create email addresses for yourself. If your website is hosted with Stadia Studio, you can have as many email addresses, forwarding accounts and auto responders as you want.