H.L. Mencken once observed that "The freedom of the press is limited to those who own one." Mencken was one of the sharpest-tongued social critics of the first half of the 20th century. His wry observations of American life and attitudes were required reading for anyone who considered themselves to be sophisticated. In his prime, Mencken had virtually free access to the "presses" owned by others.

It's fascinating to imagine what Mencken would have done with today's powerful self-publishing tools, including the incredible growth of personal blogs. With several free blog tools available today, anyone wanting to get their words published has the ability to do so.

Why do customers care if I'm on the Web?

It's unusual to find a business or organization that doesn't have at least a simple, static web page. With the sophisticated web search engines available today, when your customers and prospects try to find you on the Web, they expect to be successful, and will be disappointed if they can't find you. They may just move on to one of your competitors who is providing the information they're looking for.

Having a well-designed and regularly updated web site provides online visitors with three important benefits:

• A sense that you're "open for business." To many potential customers, no web site, a poorly-designed one or one with outdated information is a red flag. While business owners understand how little time there is to stay on top of their company's web presence, that's not something the prospective buyer is going to care about. All they know is you're not where they want you to be: online and ready for business.
• Useful and accurate information about your business or organization, on demand, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Your web site never closes, never turns off the lights. If a customer needs information at 2:00 a.m., whether they're burning the midnight oil or because they're across the world in another time zone, that information is available when they need it. And when specifications or prices change, they can be updated in real time, so the very next visitor to your site gets the correct information to make their buying decision.
• An ongoing dialogue between you and your customers. Keeping the web site updated dependably encourages visitors to come back again and again to find out what's new with your company or organization.

How do I keep my site useful and up-to-date?

That's where business blogging comes in! Using current blog or content management system (CMS) software, your web site can easily have fresh content added by you or other company employees as frequently as you like. No outside management of the content of your site is needed... if you know how to use a word processor and have access to a web browser and Internet connection, you can update your site from anywhere! And you can include content from other sources to keep your site fresh and keep customers and prospects coming back.

The latest versions of blogging and CMS software are hosted online, so no additional software is needed on your business PCs. You can authorize other employees to write and edit for the site without needing extra copies of programs on each computer. Again, all that's needed is an Internet connection, a web browser, and some basic word processing knowledge.

It sounds powerful. It must be expensive.

Not at all. The innovative technology behind business blogging is available as part of the Open Source software movement. Open Source software is developed and maintained by a worldwide community of programmers for the benefit of users everywhere. Open Source software is as secure, if not more so, than comparable commercial software, mainly due to the ability of the programming community to respond openly and quickly to reported security issues.

Setting up and maintaining the business blogging software and designing a web site to work this way can be accomplished by anyone with a moderate amount of experience with web servers and HTML programming. Working with a professional web design company that specializes in business blogging solutions, however, will ensure that:

• all software is kept up-to-date and fully secure;
• the design is professional and useful and reflects favorably on your company or organization; and
• professional training and support is available to make sure your business blogging experience is positive.

Contact the New Tech Heroes today!

For more information about business blogging or to get a quotation on your company or organization's web project, contact us using our web form or call 810-892-8599.