Web Blog Design

The web today is all about interacting with people, creating communities, and open discussion, and blogs are the icon of this new direction for the Internet. Having a corporate, personal, or organizational blog is not only a way to create constant new content on your site, stay in touch and communicate with you clients and customers, and give search engines a great reason to rank your web site - but it's also a great way to develop your brand and reputation as an expert in your industry. Blogs allow you to write about your business, your products, your industry, and everything you love about it, and in a personal way that the rest of the content on your web site can't match. When prospective clients and customers come to your web site and read about what you have to say, they feel a closer connection with you and your business before they contact you. Providing expert advice through your blog will also inform your visitors about your expertise, and help impress upon them that you're the one they should be contacting when they need a service or product you offer.

Wordpress or Custom Blog Software

There are a lot of options with blogs today. We have worked with Wordpress on numerous client sites, and recommend it completely for most blog strategies. Wordpress is the arguably the most popular blog platform on the Internet and because it is free, and open source your only costs are for the setup, design, and maintenance of the blog software. There are no monthly license fees or ongoing costs just to run Wordpress, and because it has such a large installation-base, there are plugins for nearly any functionality you would need available somewhere on the web.

However, handling the ongoing maintenance of your Wordpress installation is very important to your web site security, and we can ensure that your web site is always secure against any new security threats or bugs that should arise with Wordpress. As a free, open source product hackers are always attempting to break into Wordpress blogs and exploit old holes in the software, so if you opt for Wordpress, it is important to have your security patches up to date – which is something we can handle for you so you don't ever have to worry about it.

In some cases, where deep integration into your offline business systems, or other major components with your web site like a company extranet or intranet is essential, the best route may be to integrate custom-built blog software into your web site. We have done this for clients who require membership areas, multiple blogs with various permissions, and for clients who don't require all the features of Wordpress and would like a simpler, easier interface to manage their site. Let's talk about your unique situation and decide the best option for you.

Blog Design Guidelines

Having designed numerous blogs, we understand the underlying goals of a weblog: to start discussion, build a community, and generate more interest in your business. Making it easy for visitors to access your blog archives, browse by category, search for old posts, post comments, and to find your site through search engines are some of the important factors we take into account when designing your blog from the ground up. People that interact on blogs expect to be able to do certain things like subscribe to your RSS feed, post comments, search your blog – easily, we can make that happen.

Blog Etiquette and Best Practices

Blogging may be something totally new to you, and it can seem like a lot of time and effort to manage a blog on your web site. Aside from that, how are you going to promote your blog and get people to actually read it? We can help with everything from designing and setting up your blog, to the ongoing promotion and outreach to other key bloggers in your subject. Having a blog does not necessarily make you a "blogger" however, and understanding the correct ways to implement and use RSS feeds, comment moderation, and how to reach out and connect with other bloggers in your niche is crucial to your web blogs success. We can guide you along this path as you undertake this brave new approach to the Internet, and your web site.

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