Bill Caskey is a sales trainer. People pay his company good money to help them sell more. He advocates blogs as one tool to engage clients- his post has many gems- but I thought this part is something most people who think blogs aren’t for business should read:
BillCaskey: How Social Media Affects Sales People
While there are 40,000,000 blogs, most companies don’t see them for what they could be. If you have a website and not a blog, then you’re missing a great way to lead people to your website. But make your blog a rigorous conversation about the industry. DON’T make it about you and only you.Ask questions. Pose opinions and ask for feedback. Create controversy by being honest. Blogs should be written by people–not by some faceless company PR person.
You can also use blogs to create Case Studies on ways you’ve solved problems for your customers. Have a new product? Take a pic of it and post about it. But be honest about it’s strengths and weaknesses. Don’t tell one side of the story. If you do, it’ll sound like it came from your marketing department–more blah-blah-blah.
People use the internet to solve problems- and the first thing they do is a search: if they come up with you as the expert on your subject- you will have the opportunity to make the sale. If they don’t find you- you may as well not exist.
We’re not the only ones who believe WordPress is a great CMS for “non-blog” uses.
WordPress Makes Sense For Many Non-Blog Websites | iface thoughts
…justification for why WordPress makes a lot of sense for many simple web sites, including the non-blog ones. The shorter version is that WordPress provides good infrastructure of web publishing and gives you tools to build an interactive web site. And I think this is common knowledge in the WordPress community.
Click over to the link to see a whole bunch of his reasons why WordPress rocks- never mind it’s ability to get you to the top of Google fast and easy for free.
We’ve got a while list of our “graduates” who are using WordPress to maximize their business opportunities online here: http://websitetology.com/?page_id=9
Considering how important it is to be able to update a site and keep content fresh- the simple to use WordPress interface makes it possible for everyone in the company to work on keeping the company web site up to date.
We now have 2 Seminars!
The original Blogosopher- or “Blogosphere” (for those with Dyslexia), is a 3.5 hour seminar on how to make the Internet work for your business. At the bottom of this page is an outline of some of the subjects we cover.
It’s new name is Websitetology 101
You will leave the seminar able to build an effective site- that you can maintain yourself, and knowing the tricks to search engine optimization so that your site will be found.
If you wonder if the seminar is for you- see this post:http://blogosopher.com/?p=9
The new seminar- is all WordPress- Websitetology WP advanced
We spend 3.5 hours learning all the tips and tricks of WordPress- a very cool and easy to use Open Source (free!) Content Management System that is designed for Blogging- but offers so much more, it’s really a fantastic way to build and maintain a website for business.
Each seminar is $79 if you register 12 hours in advance (you can do that on this site- at the sign-up page) If you walk in, it’s an additional $15 for onsite registration- cash or check only.
We highly recommend taking both classes- the first one is the big picture course- where you learn about the web, types of sites, how search works, how to compete with the big boys- and outsmart them, and be highly visible online- as well as an intro to a really great piece of software- WordPress.
While we concentrate on using a Blog (short for weB LOG) to build traffic to your website- you will learn how to analyze site stats (and all sites should have stats- you just may not know about them) to refine your content. We will teach you how your site design can be optimized for search engines- which will drive more than 70% of your traffic to your site (without having to pay for it) if you do things right.
Internet novices to people who already have successful web businesses have come to learn about how this Blog technology is changing the web. The Blog software we demonstrate, Word Press, is very smart, server side software, that makes it easy for anyone- to build and maintain a professional looking website- that can be updated at will. The code it generates meets all W3C standards, it notifies search engines and your customers that you have new content with out you doing anything other than adding content. We introduce you to RSS which will change your online relationship with your customers- and how you use the web.
If some of this didn’t make sense to you- don’t worry- it will after the seminar.
The WP Advanced site- was developed because some people just want to learn about the WordPress application in depth. We cover each part of the software in depth- including multiple authors, trackbacks, pings, password protection, dissecting themes, key plug-ins, and how to get help when things go wrong. While some attendees feel very comfortable with the interface and the program, many asked for a more relaxed look at WordPress so we created the WP advanced class for them.
If you have a group and want to arrange for short introduction to Blogs and how they win the search game- we can work a group rate- or if you want to host the seminar for your professional organization (ad club, Chamber of Commerce etc.) we can split revenues with you.
Instead of giving away trash and trinkets- or “promotional items” to your clients- help them grow their business by hosting the seminar for them- as a sponsored event- or by buying them admission at a discount. Please contact the chief Websitetologist at [email protected]
Websitetology Topics
What is the internet:
- Types of servers
- Domain name
- Hosting
Types of sites:
- Static/dynamic/live
- W3C, 508 (screen reader)
- HTML/Flash/CSS
- Communities: AOL, Yahoo groups, Wikis, BB’s, NewsGroups (Etiquette)
Software:
- Browser wars
- Why Firefox.
- What is open source?
Hosting basics:
- Serving platforms
- Control panels
- Stats
- Connectivity/redundancy
- URL registration
- How to look things up
All about E-mail:
- E-mail broadcast
- What is SPAM/ CAN SPAM
- HTML e-mail
- Opt-in
- Good e-mail etiquette
Search:
- Search=Use=commerce
- Google, Yahoo, others
- “Search Engine optimizationâ€
- How search ranks
- How web stats can unveil business for you
Blogs:
- What they are- and aren’t
- Web Log=BLOG- journal
- Active web site- Back end database
- Content management system
- Interaction- live.
- RSS
Why Blogs are important:
- Updated frequently
- Good clean code
- Low cost
- High interactivity
- Interaction
- Integration into a static site
Blog Options:
- Blogger, Moveable Type, TypePad, WordPress
- Themes- CSS
- Extensions/Plug-ins
Content:
- The holy grail of the Internet.
- Writing for an audience
- Style
- How to attribute content
- Links
- Format
- Promoting your site
- Inviting your reader in.
- How to analyze your content
- How to analyze your keywords
What is a blogosopher?
- How do you contribute to the community?
- How do you get started?
some student feedback: