Blogging for beginners on a business website.

When sitting down and talking to people about SEO, the conversation usually turns to having a blog on their website. And it almost never fails that, though people feel completely comfortable with sharing their opinion, that they don’t feel the same with writing about it. So, I would like to set the record straight about blogging, what it is and what it is not.

There are professional bloggers that make money from promoting their website and getting followers. For the most part, this is not what you will be doing. Blogging on a business website is about marketing your website and helping search engines, list your products and services in a better ranking than they would otherwise list them. Its a much more casual way of blogging than being a professional blogger.

Lets also take off the table that you need to blog everyday, or every week. The more content that is added to your website, the better of course. But look at is as a cumulative type thing instead of wanting a bulk of content right here and now. If you write a good website blog every couple of weeks or so, that is good enough.

Now, check out my videos on SEO and using the Google Keyword tool.When writing a blog post you should concentrate on using the keyword phrase as much as possible without making your post sound like a mantra. I suggest limiting your keyword phrases, as too many can make your blog post sound like you are a customer service rep from India.

You will most likely have menu pages on your website as well as blog posts. Your pages for your products and services should be writing in a professional descriptive way, whereas your blog posts will represent your personality and opinions.

So what do you write about? I suggest to start, that you do either promotional or tailgating type of blog posts. Promotional blogs are simply letting your customers know about a sale or event where you will be displaying your wares or services. Be as detailed as possible and you can repeat information listed other places on your website, but worded in a different way.

The other type of blogging you can start with, is tailgating. Keep in mind, you don’t always have to write about your products or services. And tailgating is a great way to do this. You simply find an article, news story, or another blogger’s post; and write a blog with your opinion about someone else’s news. You can reference that news story, and it helps if its a story folks are already aware of. And if you can tie in your product, all the better. Remember to use those keyword phrases to help boost your search engine ranking.

Once you have a fair amount of blog posts, you can experiment with writing about different topics and expand your blogging portfolio.

Last year I was looking for a good video program for some promotional work a client requested. My video portfolio was very tame at the time and I had more experience creating animations, such as animated logos, and intros for client websites. So I wanted a video program that was easy to use and fairly inexpensive. There’s nothing worse than buying an expensive software program, only to realize it requires a degree from NASA to use it.

I tried several including the one included on my older installation of Windows, Microsoft Movie Maker. That was a really good program to help get a grasp of things and to create custom videos from photos and such. I also tried Camtasia Studio, which is similar to MS Movie Maker, but with more bells and whistles. I ended up using Camtasia because of its ability to do screen captures which were great for tutorials to help my clients use WordPress.

Also worth mentioning is Screenr. This online software only does screen capture, and is great for quick tutorials, but lacks more involved options.

In my experimenting I came across Animoto. I played with it a little but at the time I needed something more comprehensive. Animoto allows you to take images and video, and the option to add custom text; and include them into a slideshow type video.

Then recently my sister used Animoto on Facebook to promote the summer camp they run, and I was very impressed with the quality of the video. So I jumped back onto my account, and started creating videos. I was rewarded by instantly creating some incredible promo videos for my website.

Its really an easy process, and though I upgraded my account to the Plus account ($30/yr), their is a free account option for videos of 30 seconds or less. I opted for the upgrade just to make the longer videos. As you can see on the front page of my website, Animoto makes video creation easy.

Cheers -Tom