Erik Florida

Blogs Versus Websites

Posted on 07 / 08 / 10

I just read a great article over on Inman News by Bernice Ross. The article is titled “Why Agents Ditch Websites for Blogs.” My gut reaction to the title was, a blog is a website!? Then as I continued to read the article, the discussion she was starting was more about the advantages of hosting a blog on your own domain, with the rest of your site, versus using a separate blogging platform from your static website. There are some arguments on both sides and she presents them well. I won’t restate them here, you can just go read her article.

I am a big fan of WordPress. It is my favorite way to create websites, and one of the most powerful platforms. I am especially happy with the release of WordPress Version 3.0. Probably the only real arguments for using a separate blog platform is cost, and ease of setup. Otherwise, there is no reason you would not benefit more from having all of the great, dynamic, fresh content you are writing show up on your own website. Dynamic content is great for search engine optimization (SEO) as well as for attracting, impressing, and converting visitors into leads. Having these advantages tied directly to the other content of your website makes the most sense.

So back to the concerns, cost and setup. These do not have to be as expensive as you might think. A completely custom WordPress installation and theme setup with a new website design starts at $1,000 and can go up from there (that is where I start anyways, you can spend a lot more). However, if you want a blog integrated into your website, this is not your only, or cheapest setup. You can have your own domain setup, with a premium WordPress theme (very professional, but not 100% original) and everything you need to get your website up and running starting at $200.

Bernice’s article mentions Michael Krisa of ThatInterviewGuy.com who suggests that you can get a completely customized site on a blogging platform for about the same price. But setting this up also means doing the work yourself. You may not need to understand HTML or PHP to get the blog running, but it will take many hours of your time. Also, to me, it just seems like a crime to have all your best, most dynamic content, separated from your website.

For most people, their website is their last step in online lead generation. They may participate in online, email, or snail mail marketing, print ads, social media, etc. but that all usually leads back to a phone call or a website visit that hopefully converts into a lead. While the blog can, at the very least, direct traffic back to your site, why would you not want it integrated, removing one more step between a reader and a client. Why create separation for your readers to cross?

The complete design and customization of a WordPress installation can certainly run thousands of dollars, and if you can afford that, it offers even more fine-tuned advantages, however, a simple configuration that will give you your own site, with an integrated blog on a professional theme, can be had for as little as $200. Please contact me if you are interested, or go right to my hire me page!

WordPress 3.0 and Multi-Blog Format

Posted on 07 / 08 / 10

I am a big supporter of WordPress. I enjoy making sites with WordPress, whether they are a blog or not. In fact, I am really excited about the release of version 3.0. This latest release includes the multiple blog format. This allows you to create multiple blogs on the same domain, with the same installation of WordPress.

It’s great not only for allowing, for example, multiple employee’s to maintain their own blogs all under your company domain, but also for creating dynamic pages of content, besides a blog. For example, when I got the idea to start a marketing website for discussing principles and examples of trust-based marketing, I knew twitter would be an important part of recruiting. I wanted to have discussions and group chats on twitter to help expand the brand. There are services to record twitter conversations using a certain hashtag, but I wanted that information available on the marketing website. With the new version of WordPress I was able to create a second “blog” where I just copied the twitter conversations into a post. The possibilities are endless. This new features allows brands to create even more dynamic content on their site, and easily update it.

It also offers a much more comprehensive basic theme. If you are a DIY’er and you just want to be up and running, with less concern for custom themes and SEO, then you can install the latest version and use the default theme. It now offers multiple images for headers, and some other simple design features to help you create a more pleasing blog, without hiring a designer (although I of course recommend you hire me to give you a more professional result).

I am anxious to start seeing the new themes designers develop for the expanded multiple blog platform, as well as working on my own designs. If you are interested in a basic WordPress setup with a premium theme, my costs start at only $200. If you want a custom theme with advanced SEO, widgets and more, a completely original WordPress site creation starts at $1,000. I’d be more than happy to discuss the options with you and determine what is your best fit. Fill out my form my hire me page to give me the details I need to put together a proposal for you. Or if you are unsure what direction you should go, just contact me and we’ll figure out what I can do for you.

Trust Marketing Community

Posted on 06 / 05 / 10

I was just getting started on this blog, but I am actually going to be a little quiet over here for a while. I am developing a new community called the Trust Marketing Community. I am really excited about the adventure. This will be a great test of my social media, marketing and general web development skills and knowledge. It will also be full of experiments. I will be trying things out that I have not done before. It will be a great learning experience. I really hope the community develops into an active, collaborative group of users. I call it a community, not a blog, or just a website. I want this to be very community driven, “blog posts” will really just be topics, the real meat of the site will be on the comments or discussion. I hope to setup online discussions through twitter and record those on the site as well. I want a lot of elements to be interactive so that the community develops, and its not just readers and bloggers. Speaking of bloggers, I will be looking to get others involved in creating topics and leading discussions as well.

I learned about the Hubspot/Inbound Marketing University (IMU) game early on, and immediately felt it could not be true. After some research I was confident there was no way it was true. Different people reacted different ways when they realized it was fake. Some people realized sooner than others, and fair number of people felt misled. There was a breach of trust in the way such a serious situation was presented, and help was asked for from their community, when the whole thing was a lie. I understand the premise of the game, but a lot of people felt that the implementation left a bad taste in their mouth. As I saw more people having concern I decided it would be an interesting experiment to start a new twitter account directly related to it and start getting involved with the discussion. I wanted to see how I could grow the account, and how people would respond to it. The name was an easy knock-off choice from the recently massively popular spoof account regarding the BP oil spill, @BPGlobalPR. So I created the account @IMUGlobalPR.

In less than 24 hours I had around 50 followers who were actively talking to me on Twitter about the IMU situation. 50 might not sound like a lot, but I wasn’t just going and friending hundreds of people. It was organic. I looked for people who were talking about the subject, joined the conversation, and then got followed in response. I had direct conversations with almost every follower. These discussions and the heart of the problem with the IMU situation lead to a lot of thought regarding trust and relationships.

Business are becoming much more personal. People expect to interact with a business, and they will not do business with a company they do not trust. Building relationships is how we build trust. See my previous post on Converting Social Media Interactions into Leads. Social media has been the major outlet for building relationships and trust with customers. This new community will be about discussing and learning about how we can build that trust. It can range from B2B, B2C, as well as developing your own personal brand and network.

So with all that said, I really hope you will come over to the new site and join in the discussions! I will update this post with a link to the site as soon as it is up and running!

Thank you to all,
Erik Florida