Guest post from Wordpress expert Susan Collini

Gemstones

A guest post from Susan Collini of Website Wings, helping businesses establish an effective presence online using blog, social media and website.

Give your Website Wings

Running a blog can be a powerful aid for growing your customer base, for promoting online sales and to keep customers informed in an engaging and personable way about upcoming craft fairs/exhibitions etc.

Selling via an online store is much easier and cheaper these days, but you’ve still got to harness ways of telling the world that you’re open for business. Unlike an online store or a brochure website, a blog can facilitate showcasing your range of products over and over again, with a different spin each time to encourage customers to buy.



Blogs have an in-built broadcast facility, rss (really simple syndiication), which means that every time you publish a new post, all your subscribers, receive the new information, instantly.

Now, at this point someone is going to tell me that social media platforms such as Facebook can do the job just as well. Yes, I would agree with that, to a point, but with a blog you have total control over layout and what’s rendered to the page visitor. There are other advantages too.

Google favours blog content in their organic search engine listings and blogs are easy to run, without needing much in the way of professional developer input. Having a blog these days, whether standalone or as part of your website, is more than just a good idea, it’s an essential.

Whether you choose Blogger, Posterous, Tumblr, TypePad, WordPress or any other platform the basics apply. Frequent posts, quality content, use of relevant key phrases, good post titles, I could go on and on, it’s a fascinating subject.

However, I believe the most important point of all is to write with passion, share information, express views, encourage interaction. Remember, enthusiasm is engaging.

I’m passionate about blogs and even more so about teaching others how to use them to grow their businesses. Of all the blogging platforms I believe WordPress is head and shoulders above the rest, so that’s the one I work with. I set businesses up with WordPress.org blogs, then teach them how to blog to best advantage, alongside using other social media channels. I also run 1:1 coaching sessions and hands-on workshops for small groups of up to 12 people.

If you don’t have a blog yet, or particularly want to learn about WordPress, you can book one of the workshops being run in Corby during February and Northampton during March. Visit www.websitewings.co.uk/events for more details.