I was just discussing with a friend the benefits of blogging and how it makes your website dynamic and more enticing to customers and search engines. Our talk reminded me of this post by Hubspot that I came across recently.

Many companies have useful content on their websites, but having good content is no longer enough.

The problem with many companies is not that they are incapable of entering the content mindset. It’s that they stop having this mindset once they launch their site.

Websites are static, but blogs are dynamic. All these companies need to do is turn their static content into dynamic content.

3 Reasons Why Your Website Content Should be Dynamic

1. It Keeps Your Visitors Interested

You want people to have a reason to come back to your website. If your website content is static, visitors can just browse your site once and they’re done. But if you’re putting out new content all the time, they have reason to come back. And if your content is truly interesting, they’ll even subscribe to your updates via RSS or e-mail and refer it to others.

2. More Pages = More SEO Juice

Each blog post is a new page that search engines see, and therefore a new opportunity to get found online. Packing as much content as possible into a just few pages is not an effective search engine optimization strategy.

3. Incentive to Create More Content

After companies pack their websites with useful content, they often avoid adding new content to their sites. If you don’t have a blog, adding more content means redesigning the site and complicating the layout.

Shouldn’t you put yourself in a position that encourages you to provide more useful information to your site visitors?

Presenting the dynamic parts of your site in a blog will help you gain followers, improve your SEO, and encourage you to produce more useful content for your site visitors.

Your website should contain some information about your company, outside of your blog. However, this should be reserved for basic information that does not change often. The information that does change, such as news, offerings and events should be in a blog.

Many companies are already doing the right thing by offering useful content. They just need to make the change from presenting information in a static way to doing so dynamically through a blog.

This blog post is courtisy of Hubspot

Dallas Lawrence is Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications, the US’s top crisis communications firm. He blogs on emerging digital media trends and best practices for social media engagement on Bulletproof Blog. Connect with him on Twitter @dallaslawrence.

With 450 million users globally (and millions more being added each week) Facebook is dominating the web in unparalleled ways. Yet, even as the social network has steadily grown over its short but remarkable history, many brands have remained on the sidelines of the social media revolution.

Facebook was the most visited site on the web for the week ending on March 13, 2010, surpassing even Google in week-long stats for the first time in history, according to Hitwise. The shift in user habits and audience targeting is palpable and it provides marketers, brand managers, issue advocates, and political campaigns today with an age old choice: Adapt and change or face irrelevance and extinction.

Realizing the Critical Value of Facebook

In the modern day maze that is the digital and social media realm, these lessons were again on display as the online community debated the value of the new Facebook user statistics this past week.

Viewed simply, the cheese moved again this month –- and just as intelligent companies adapted their marketing and communications models for the advent of Google over the last decade, Facebook’s dominance has forced another “change or become extinct” moment. To thrive in a rapidly changing marketplace, corporate communicators must understand that the shift now underway is just as powerful as the one that transformed Google into the modern Yellow Pages and turned a Silicon Valley start-up into a $200 billion everyday necessity.

Far too many executives still see Facebook as a vast, uncontrollable outpost for college slackers –- one better equipped for picture sharing and random life updates than corporate reputation management, crisis response, and brand bulletproofing.

But the numbers don’t lie. Almost half-a-billion users each spend an average of nearly 6 hours per month on the site –- inhabiting networks that are largely free of corporate messaging, spam, and expensive advertising. This ought to make at least a few corporate titans rethink that next $1 million Super Bowl ad buy (even if Google did buy its first in 2010).

3 Ways Your Brand can Get Started on Facebook

Facebook users are openly sharing their life’s passions, personal interests, and their affinity –- or lack thereof –- for corporate brands, political candidates, and the key public policy stances. In effect, they are openly sharing every bit of marketing data a 21st century company covets.

For those still wary of change but now ready to dip their toe into the waters and begin to understand and benefit from the power of social, there are three free and relatively painless steps to begin the journey through the social media maze:

First, evaluate your current advertising efforts and identify how they can best be tailored to Facebook. Consider allocating 10% of your current Google AdWords or online advertising budget to a 90-day trial run on Facebook. Be sure to develop clear benchmarks for success, and remember, unlike Google AdWords, Facebook ads rely on both keywords and a variety of demographic information –- information you no doubt have already identified as key indicators of your target audience(s). You can now put this information to use to further micro-target your advertising buy, narrow the net you are throwing in the online marketplace, and increase the return on your investment.

Second, conduct a survey of your employees to see who is already on Facebook and thus, who may be your company’s most social media-savvy employees. You may find that your workplace is brimming with talent just waiting to be unleashed. For now, these future brand ambassadors may be ideal candidates to develop your Facebook presence and initial advertising program.

Finally — and this may seem obvious — become a face on Facebook yourself. Become familiar with the site, its features and the value hundreds of millions of people find in the world’s most populous online community. It may ultimately not be for you personally, but as with almost every new platform, the best way to understand its value is to give it a try yourself.
For those still looking for meaning in the numbers released earlier this month, the message is clear: Not only has the cheese moved again, the entire creamery has up and relocated. It won’t be coming back. And no manner of hemming and hawing is going to change that fact.

Day by day more and more people are discovering that posting free informative and creatively written articles on the net will help you sell online more than expensive advertisements or anything else. Many are beginning to wake up to the fact that the main currency on the net is free information and that any online marketing campaign that appreciates that fact is bound to reap untold riches and success.

This marketing tool is being made even more effective by the day as more and more web sites, that enjoy high traffic, choose to provide the facility for articles to be posted free.

However one of the industries that have been rather slow in waking up to this gold mine is the tourism sector. Those of us who may have been lucky enough to go for a holiday in some far off place recently, will know where they got their information. The Internet is naturally where millions of potential tourists and travelers hungrily seek information every day on where they are headed.

And tourism practitioners have a huge advantage when they choose to use articles. In which other industry can you lavishly describe your product, right up to the tiny details without losing your readers – especially on the net? Where else can you mention the name of your establishment, bang in the middle of the article and still retain its’ respectability as an informative, useful piece?

And you really don’t have to limit yourself to writing about your product. You can write about hundreds of other subjects that are closely related to it.

For example a small tourist camp in the middle of some game park in Africa where lions are found, can write a fascinating piece about the habits of these well-loved big cats. All they have to do is ensure that the call to action, usually at the bottom of the article, refers back to them. Mandurah’s Dolphin Blog is a great example of this principle in a local market. http://mandurahsdolphins.blogspot.com/

You can then offer either a regular ezine, refer people to your web site, or find another way to supply tons and tons of free information to people who are guaranteed to be hungry for it. There are scores of other directions your articles can take. From giving useful tips to historical information, coming events, to writing about the cuisine on offer. A piece can even be pegged on a current news item. The possibilities are really endless.

Even obscure unknown accommodation houses can post articles about their neighbourhood or the town where they are situated and dramatically change their fortunes.

The really exciting thing about the net is that it allows the small fry to compete and get the better of the big fish. So while all those other lavish destinations are spending millions advertising their destinations all over the world, the small guy can quietly post their articles on the net and get much better results with a budget that is next to zero.

The original article was written by Christopher Kyalo and I have altered it slightly to reflect local values.

About the author: Christopher Kyalo is a writer/marketing expert who makes money online only by posting free articles. Get his free course at bizboom at freeautobot.com and visit his blog http://big-online-story.blogspot.com. He can be reached at strongwallafrica at yahoo.com.

Aerial view of the Freeway - Photo: Southern Gateway Alliance

There has been a lot of talk over the past few months about the loss of tourists and trade coming through Mandurah now that the new freeway has been opened. What can be done to make people turn off the freeway and come into Mandurah and visit the Peel Region? Sure putting some tourist signs on the freeway at the turn off is a good start, but just a sign isn’t going to make a traveller suddenly decide then and there driving at 110kph to put on the brakes and say, “Hey let’s check out Mandurah”.

Most drivers have already decided on a destination for each day long before they actually get in the car and head off and trying to change their mind mid journey is nearly impossible. So what needs to be done is to get into the travellers decision making process when they are planing their journey so that when they see that sign at the turnoff the decision is a lot easier. How to do this? The internet is the largest reference tool used by travellers when planning a trip and tourism is now the largest industry on the internet. What Mandurah and the Peel region needs to do is build an online presence that is both informative and entertaining that will engage travellers and drive them (pun intended) to a website achieved though high organic search engine results.

By having a website that is constantly refreshed and updated with interesting content via a blog, then broadcasting this content on tourism related social media sites will ensure that Mandurah and the Peel region will rate high on search engine rankings. A website that is static and unchanging is just as effective as that sign at the turnoff, once you’ve seen it you know what it says so there is no point looking at it again next time you come across it. Creating exciting and interesting content on a website that is constantly refreshed will portray Mandruah and the Peel as an exciting and interesting place to visit. Events, festivals, attractions, deals, packages, people, lifestyle all of these and more can be used create new content and engage visitors.

Nobody else is going to sell Mandurah and the Peel, it’s up to everyone in the region to spread the word and the most effective selling tool available to small to medium businesses is word of mouth and social media is just that, digital word of mouth. Having a co-ordinated campaign to spread the word is the best way to get into potential visitors minds during the decision making process of their trip and getting them to turn off the freeway. If Mandurah and the Peel is marketed as an experience and not just a destination then half the work is done.

What do you think can be done to get people off the freeway? I’d love to hear your ideas.

Your website may very well be the most powerful tool in your marketing kit. Not only is it the place prospects and clients go to learn more about you and your services, but it has a huge impact on their ultimate purchase decision. In fact, only 3% of the 200 buyers surveyed – from companies of all sizes – say a provider’s website has no influence whatsoever over their purchase decision.

The survey was conducted by RainToday.com and included more than 200 buyers responsible for more than $1.7 billion in professional services purchased, such as accounting and financial consulting; architecture, engineering, and construction services; human resources consulting; IT consulting and services; legal services; management consulting; marketing, advertising, and public relations; and training services.

The influence of professional services websites on purchasing decisions has increased significantly over the past four years. According to the survey, 74% of buyers report the service provider’s website holds at least “some influence” over their ultimate decision to buy services from the provider. This is 23 percentage points higher than in 2005 and represents a significant increase in the importance of websites.

With well-designed websites businesses can:

Establish that they are professional: through professional design, writing, and arrangement of content.
Establish that they are worthy of consideration: through an overview of their services, their client list, biographies of their professionals, and case studies that show how they helped clients and delivered what they promised.
Establish themselves as an authority: through blog posts, publications, videos, and other resources to help build credibility, reliability, and trust-all essential elements necessary to win clients.

Here’s a test, look at your website through your customers eyes, does it have come up to scratch? Do you think it portrays you as an authority in your field? Would it motivate you to buy from yourself?