I already have a website, why do I need to blog?

So, nYq Design (that’s us!) has just built this fantastic new website for you. Now, you need people to look at it. Back in the day, businesses would just erect a shiny new website, then hope people would eventually find it, and they probably would. Search engines like to see new sites being put up, so Google, Bing and the like would probably give some attention to your website at first.

However, most of that attention is short lived. Not just by the search engines, but also by people who may have looked at snazzy new website. Ultimately, what was put up there was a really nice looking one-way conversation. Your website just broadcasts all this great information about your business, but there’s nothing really engaging your visitors to get into a conversation with you or giving them a reason to come back to your site.

This is where having a blog comes in mighty handy. A blog, or “web log” for its full name, not only demonstrates your expertise in your industry, but it also allows your customers and potential customers to discuss that expertise with you. Having a means to comment and interact is a huge draw for people online. That is the core of the tsunami known as social media.

Additionally, blogging is a fantastic way for you to regularly add new content to your existing website, which gives both people and search engines a reason to come back to your site and what new information you can provide.

This sounds appealing, but I have no idea where to start.

That’s easy! We’re certainly not the first to blog on small business blogging. To prove that and save some work for us, below are several other articles and resources about blogging to benefit you and your customers. To summarize some of what the following links have to say, here are a few basic tips to get you started:

1. Just start blogging. The first post will be your biggest hurdle. Once you get over that, you may want to get into a schedule of posting, so you can set a deadline for yourself. Even writing once a month is better than nothing.
2. You don’t have to write formally. In fact, most people don’t want to ready starchy, corporate-style blog posts. You’re a small business, so you definitely shouldn’t. Pretend you’re actually writing about your business to a group of close friends. That’s probably what distinguishes your small business from the big chain store down the road to begin with.
3. Follow the conversation. If someone posts a comment back on your blog, reply and let them know they were heard. If if it’s something they’re upset about, just acknowledging them can go a long way towards making them feel better.
4. Read other blogs. This can be a good way to get inspired to write your own posts. It also gives you an opportunity to interact with other people in the same way your customers will want to interact with you. Bonus: If you leave a comment on other blogs, add a link to your website in your contact information. This is a good way for others to find you, and points search engines back to you as well.

And here are those other helpful articles I mentioned:

9 Tips for Creating More Small Business Blogging Ideas on ProBlogger – Generally a really good site for learning how to blog, this article gives you ideas for what to blog about and gives some more motivation on why you should blog.

Small Business Blogging 101 on Duct Tape Marketing – Part of a longer webinar, this post actually has a 1-hour video about getting started with blogging. It talks about initial setup, best practices and how to promote your blog.

How to Blog Your Way to Small-Business Success on Money at U.S. News – Provides some accounts of blogging converts who were originally against the idea. Also, some good tips on how to approach blogging.

100+ SMB Blogging Ideas to Kick Start 2010 2011 on Small Business Trends – This was originally a list to get people in gear for 2010, but most of these are still very relevant for the new blogger. Take a look for some simple ideas to get you started.

Have any other good resources or looking for someone to help you get going with your blog? Let us know! Either drop a comment below or contact us directly.

Please note:
None of these sites belong to the nYq portfolio. We are merely highlighting other great examples of design and development.

California

Visit the California Travel and Tourism site

Colorado

Visit the Colorado Travel and Tourism site

Hawaii

Visit the Hawaii Travel and Tourism site

Idaho

Visit the Idaho Travel and Tourism site

Maine

Visit the Maine Travel and Tourism site

Missouri

Visit the Missouri Travel and Tourism site

Montana

Visit the Montana Travel and Tourism site

North Carolina

Visit the North Carolina Travel and Tourism site

Tennessee

Visit the Tennessee Travel and Tourism site

Texas

Visit the Texas Travel and Tourism site

Gathering Company and Competitive Information

Every project needs to start off with some research. We put together a general profile of the client, what products or services they offer, their location, target market, and other objectives they wish to accomplish. From that we look over some local, regional, and national competitors to see how open the online market is. This phase helps us get a better understanding of the project, learning about the company, understanding their brand and also viewing their competition. We believe this phase is the key stage to any successful web project. It’s crucial to gather as much information as possible here. There isn’t anything about the client that you shouldn’t know to help get a better understanding of them.

Wire frames and Sketching

At this point we start wireframing out the relevant content for the site. We figure out which pages and categories will be needed. Plus we need to structure everything to make it quick and easy for the user to find. We put together some very basic wireframes to illustrate how the page will be laid out. These will include, navigation, headline blocks, divided content based on relevance, advertising sections, etc. After the wire frames are finalized we begin sketching out ideas for the actual look and design of the site. The sketches are more for internal use, and help our designers and developers work out logistics before actually beginning with the design phase. This entire phase is pretty quick, as we are just putting together some rough draft ideas, but really helps in speeding up the actual design portion of the project. We suggest printing out reams of the 960 Grid System PDFs for this phase.

Design and Revisions

Taking the sketches we put together, we start to throw everything into Photoshop. A lot of people think it’s as simple as adding a few drop shadows, applying a couple of filters, and make everything have a reflection. Although that might work for “some” people, we want to make sure the sites we create are unique, and don’t fall into the category of “ordinary.” Each site is crafted with pixel perfection, focused on content layout and ease of use. We usually put together a couple of versions for internal review before presenting anything to the client. This way we can usually get through most of the back and forth changes from the client and give them something that will hopefully have minimal revisions. There isn’t such a thing as a perfect design on the first try, so once the design is presented to the client we iron out the kinks. We understand that your website is a direct reflection of your company.

Code Development

The design is finalized. Now we toss the design over to our code monkeys to slice up and piece together using Matrix like code. Each site is built with standard XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). This will help the site run faster, perform better, and be more accessible to a wider range of users. Usually at this point we put everything together into a WordPress theme. WordPress is a great tool to use for content management. It makes it much easier for us to maintain and update after the site has launched, and we can also hand it off to the client and be confident that the overall structure and design won’t be compromised. With all of the plugins and continued support we have just found that WordPress works best for the projects we work on. There are plenty of other great content management systems out there, but we’re just most comfortable working with WordPress.

Just as we’re about the wrap up with the final coding touches, we begin to put the site through a series of usability testing. We put the site in front of a remote group of users and have them accomplish certain tasks. These testing scenarios will help us better adapt the site to a common user and help fix any kinks that might be lingering.

Beyond Site Launch

Once the coding is in place and everything is ticking and tocking like it should, we continue to guide the site. There’s a lot to be done after all of the coding and the final launch of the site. There needs to be steady additions to the site, building up links and a reputation, cleaning up keyword phrases, submitting sitemaps, combing through new questions and comments, etc. Just because you have this shiny brand new site, doesn’t mean people are just going to show up, there needs to be continued growth and lasting attention to your site to help it achieve it’s overall potential.

So that is our brief process. If you’d like some more details about any area please contact us. We always love the fan mail.

The entire site has been built on WordPress. Surprise surprise, right? It’s always a pleasure working with WordPress, and knowing that updating or changing anything in the future will be a breeze. We are going to be releasing a few WordPress templates here in the next few months, so definitely keep an eye out for those. Plus we will be dropping new free resources once a week.. we’ve started off with a great repeating wood background (lil trendy, we know.)

We are also going to be expanding our Vimeo library, our Flickr photos and keeping everyone updated on Twitter so check us out on all of those outlets. Right now we have a video up on Vimeo that gives a quick tour of a local co-working space.

Alright well enough of this space cadet posting, time to get crunching on some worthy content. Keep checking back as we iron out the site and start delivering some tutorials, articles and free resources.