With Web 2.0, it’s easy to build and control your own site.

No more designers required. If you can type and download pictures from your camera, you can have a powerful web site. Some folks call it a Mashup. I call it using cool, free tools to let your staff, your volunteers, and your community make your web site unique, relevant, and a lot more visible.

The essential pieces of a web site:

Old way:

• Content
• Text
• Images
• Presentation
• HTML coded pages assembling

Web 2.0 way

• Content
• Text
• Comments
• Images
• Video
• Audio
• Presentation
• Blog software
• Mashup within the blog posts of images, video, and audio from other sites (like Flickr, YouTube, etc,)

Blog services

In response to your requests, I am now offering blog services.

After setting up a number of blog-based web sites for businesses and organizations, it’s become clear that while posting content is fun and easy, some folks simply don’t have time.

So, I can now help you create content and maintain your site ongoingly.

The services:

• Interview key staff for post ideas, message, and content
• Write posts and pages
• Photograph people, products, events, etc and make available on-line
• Create and post simple YouTube videos on subjects of your choosing.
• Make changes based on your feedback
• Maintain the back-end of your site
• Help your users create useful, professional content
• Lead your internal content creation and editorial team

Contact me to discuss the possibilities.

Learn more about blogging and our services here

Your web site may be hurting you

So many web sites actually sell against their owners by being outdated, boring, unprofessional, etc.

Here’s a bit I wrote a while back on this subject.

Don’t keep stabbing yourself in the back.

Video from your blog

Adding video to your blog can be really simple:

Easiest: Just link to a YouTube, or other, video you’ve found that might interest your audience. This one may or may not amuse you.

This is a link to a video

Easy: Copy the “embed” code from your favorite YouTube video and paste it into your blog post or page while you are in the HTML view.

Here’s the same video embedded


Still surprisingly easy: Shoot your own video with your web cam and post it to YouTube, then link from there.

Harder: Shoot and edit your own video and post to YouTube.

Hardest: Shoot and edit your own video and post it to a web host that handles streaming of video content (many of the more established hosts offer this free.) Here’s a video I did this way for Trust for Working Landscapes. It is a nearly 28 Mb Windows media file, so you’ll need to be patient. The nice thing about YouTube is that they compress the video, a lot of quality lost, but the videos load and play much more quickly… and it’s all free!

The big question

Is there anyone in your community who might enjoy adding video to your site? The power of the blogs is that the work can easily be distributed… so no one is burdened and many are empowered.

Brackets to build your site content

Here’s a simple technique to use in creating blog content, especially before you take your blog-based web site live.

Use the square brackets []

to mark any content you need to add, for example:

[more text on how we paint cars here]

[image of before repair here]

[video of after repair here]

Because these brackets are rarely used in actual writing, you can then search for them using your blog’s search tool.

As the list comes up, pick an post or page to work on and click edit (if you are logged in to your blog).

As you add the content, delete the bracketed reminders.

When your search on brackets brings up only a few items, you are ready to go!

Blog speed and flexibility

I’ve created this entire blog, from set up with the host to producing 25 entries in about 4 hours.

What could you create for your customers in a few days? How does that compare with your last web design process?

The web is a fast, fun place. Is your current web site structure slowing you down?

Blog comments - right thing to do or not?

For beginning organizational bloggers,  I usually suggest that comments be turned off.

You don’t need the distraction until you get your feet under you.

In the long run, they are one of the most powerful reasons to blog.  When you allow you customers to comment on what you are saying, your marketing power goes way, way up.  It proves you have dedicated customers who love you enough to take the time to interact with you via your blog and it proves you have nothing to hide.

The best benefits are that your customers feel heard and involved and that they can say great things about you that no one would believe if you said them about yourself.

The blog bucket

Another great thing about blogs.

They act as buckets for your creative thoughts. So, just fire away as the inspiration strikes.

No design review committees, drafts, designers charging for the time it took them to understand what you were trying to tell them all along, etc.

You can always go back and edit it or delete it later.

Of course, do be careful as anything posted on the web can be cached by others and kept for a very long time.

You now have freedom to be spontaneous, just don’t go crazy!

Is design out? Must blogs be ugly?

No and no.

Blog themes are created by good designers and are free. They can be massively customized, easily, and can be switched with a click of a couple buttons. Easy, really easy.

If you want customization, that can be as extensive and expensive as you want it to be, but I suggest that

All your energy, time and money go into creating meaningful content. That is what will:

Connect you with your audience in a meaningful way
Increase your visibility in search engines

So who do you want to be? The one who every ogles or the one who everyone wants to talk with?

Here are two blogs using the same theme, but simply customized.

Authenticity in branding- blogs set the stage

The old days were all about the slick sales guy putting on a big show after guessing what you wanted and needed.

Now, the web is about what others are saying about you, right now. It’s not about fancy, it’s about:

Authentic
Current
Reliable

Is your richness, depth and excitement of your unfolding story better told by a few finely wrought sentences of text surrounded by some fancy design or by the “cloud of meanings” formed by your latest victory celebration, video of your work in progress, images of your open house, and a testimonial by a happy customer?

OK, but how do I put all that on the web without breaking the bank?