Kev Richardson's BizToolz Blog

Welcome

Welcome to the 'Biztoolz Blog' where we will discuss lots of tips about how to improve your businesses and increase sales. Initially we will discuss building and improving your website/s and then expand over time into many other areas of interest that will assist you to improve your business - however for the time being websites are the main area of interest for the majority of the readership so we will start there.

By the way this Blog is open for anyone to make comments and I really encourage you to do so, however with this of course comes a couple of rules - First respect other people's comments and views, 2) No bad language and 3) please make your comments as constructive as possible - this Blog is all about sharing information that will better our businesses and idenifying and answering the questions that 'bob up' consistently for you.

So want to make a comment? - please do - it is real simple to do so - Just Click on the link below and see how:-

http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42399&topic=8921

Introduction

Congratulations if you have a website up and running. Below you will find a number if useful tips and information about ways you can now start straight away to easily improve your website and sales from your website.

By the way if you don’t know how to build a website yourself you will be surprised at how easy it is – as I say to my coaching clients "If you can use ‘MS Word’ then you can learn how to quickly build a website that sells" - it really is that easy (visit http://www.diyezyweb.com/ if you would like to find out more about how to do this yourself ‘step by step’).

Since this is the first entry in the ‘BizToolz Blog’ I thought it would be good to start with the subject of ‘Blogging’. So lets get started......................

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Tip No. 1 – ‘Blogging’

So What Is ‘Blogging’

‘Blogging’ has become enormously popular in recent years, a ‘blog’ (a shortened name for web log) is a website where you can enter information and content without needing to use a HTML Editor (such as MS FrontPage, Dreamweaver, NVU, etc) – as all your updating is done through a web browser like Internet Explorer.

Why Use A ‘Blog’

Well there are many reasons why you can use a ‘blog’ - but for me the main reason from a marketing and sales perspective is because people generally use the internet for things like research, finding things out, news, stock prices, how to do something, etc – that is, they seldom use the internet for the sole purpose to buy (well not initally anyway, unless of course they have already done their research, etc). So when building your website you must keep this in mind, that is, most times people are coming to your site to find answers to the questions they have – not to be ‘sold’ something first up. It is therefore really important that you provide great content so your website answers these questions. A ‘Blog’ related to your site/business is a great way to achieve this.

Importantly I also use ‘Blogs’ as a way to start building a community spirit with my customers because they can actively interact with everyone via reading the 'Blog', making comments, etc. This way I can have a better chance to build relationships with customers – something I value very highly.

How Can You Set Up A ‘Blog’

Well I used http://www.blogger.com/ for this ‘Blog’ (blogger.com is owned by Google and hundreds of thousands of people have blogs set up using this system - and it is free) as it is quite simple and can be set up in minutes, so it is a great place to start.

If you want to start with something more sophisticated though, then you could use ‘WordPress’ (http://www.wordpress.org/) which is also free. WordPress is very powerful and is therefore very popular with advanced 'bloggers'. WordPress might seem tricky to set up and use at first but you can find whole ebook on the internet that can assist you here if you wish to use it.

Click here for information on great tools to improve your business.

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Tip No 2 – ‘RSS’

If you have heard about RSS but are not sure about what it is then you are not alone - so let’s look at some of the basics of RSS.

RSS stands for 'Real Simple Syndication' (or sometimes 'Rich Site Summary' depending on who you talk to) and is basically just another way of distributing information over the web. On a more technical level it is a method of communication that uses a mark-up language (XML) to allow a "reader" (specialized software also called an aggregator) to receive published information called a "feed" - But all you really need to remember is that RSS is just a specially formatted webpage that is sent to a 'reader' on the customers PC and is seen by the customer if they have first 'subscibed' (i.e. allowed) it to be received.

So that means an individual with the reader "subscribes" to what ever feeds they are interested in reading and want to check. When you think about this aspect a little more deeply it is very different to the way email currently works because with RSS YOU get to decide what you want to receive not the sender – as an aside also this should be good news for reducing some of the ‘spamming’ that goes on – if you don’t want to receive the information then you simply turn it off. It is also good for internet marketing in that the message goes direct to customers who 'subscribe' - means there are no ISP spam filters to contend with and your message is therefore assured of being delivered.

I think RSS is not as popular as it is going to be very soon basically because it is not a standard feature in some popular web browsers such as Internet Explorer (IE). The next version of IE will have RSS as a standard feature and then I expect it will take off quickly indeed – so be prepared ………….

On that note I think that in future it is likely that syndicated, up to date content/information delivered direct to our desktop will really start to challenge email as the preferred electronic method for distributing news and information.

As a result, it is not surprising that RSS is gaining popularity daily from online marketers, corporations, PC manufacturers and publishers who are recognising that embracing RSS technology helps address the two major challenges for web based information distribution:-

1. Driving new, high-volume traffic to their sites; and
2. Efficiently supplying critical, up to the minute information to customers

Do I need RSS on my website?

Well maybe – to find out ask yourself:-

1) Do you have constantly changing content on your website?
2) Do you send email newsletters and wonder if they arrive?
3) Would you like to give a "passive nudge" to your site visitors to "come back, soon"?

If so then you might consider RSS as a useful tool to use for your business.
From a marketing perspective there are several ways you could consider using RSS, for example here are two:-

1. Research – by ‘subscribing’ to RSS feeds (at no cost) that provides information on an area of interest; and
2. Supplying Information of interest to your customers - without worrying about the non delivery of emails.

What Does RSS Do and Look Like?

Well to see RSS work first you need an RSS Reader. As a starting point to assist you choose a 'reader', supplied below are a few different RSS Readers you could have a look at if you are interested in this topic – I have been using Feedreader (it is free).

An RSS feed is a web page that lists article headlines along with a description of each article and a link to the full article. When you view the RSS feed using an RSS reader, the reader will display the headlines just like you would see a new email message, then by clicking on the headline the reader will display the description that same as you would normally view in an email message. If the article description interests you, you can then click on the link to view the full content of the article/message.

Still not sure exactly how it all works – well don’t worry RSS can be a tricky concept at first to grasp - it helps though if you concentrate more on What it does rather than worring about How it does it - so on that front here is a link to a 'DEMO' so can see it 'in action'. To ensure you get to the demo correctly please read ALL the instuction first - that is, Steps 1) through 4) - before starting the demo.

Intructions to view the RSS Demo (Note - read all the instructions before clicking on the link in step 5) :-

1) Once finished reading Steps 2- 4 below then go to step 5 and click on the link.
2) It will take you to BizToolz.com.au home page
3) Once in the home page go to the ‘Links’ area (on the left about half way down the page) and Click on the ‘Resources’ Link
4) Once in the Resources page Click on RSS Demo Link (towards the bottom under the "Free articles" section)
5) Click Here - for a RSS Demo using ‘Feedreader’ (note the download is approx 27 MB because it is a comprehensive demo - so you may need to be a little patient, but it will be well worth it).

Here are some RSS Readers (with links) you can start to look at:-

Feedreader — Windows (open source); freeware
Amphetadesk — Windows, Mac, Linux (open source); freeware
Bloglines — Web-based news aggregator; free
NetNewsWire — Mac OS X; Lite version is free
NewsFire — Mac OS X; freeware
Rocket RSS Reader — Web-based RSS reader; free
RSS Reader — Windows; freeware
SharpReader - Windows

Click here for information on great tools to improve your business.
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We Encourage Your Comments And Questions.
Click on the 'Comments' link directly below and leave your comment. There is also a 'Links to this post' option with an envelope icon to the right of the 'Comments' link if you wish to email this blog to a friend.

Labels: marketing on internet