I recently read a post at DIYthemes blog entitled “8 Best Practices for Small Business Websites.” I believe this post accurately summarizes good website strategy for the small business website. Here’s the link http://diythemes.com/thesis/best-practices-small-business-websites/

Sharon Michaels and Oleg Scherschun discuss the business building power of blogs and blogging.

Learn how to choose between a blog and a website, how to write your blog so it gets read and how to promote your blog on the Internet.

This show is great for the beginner who is thinking of starting a blog but may be a little apprehensive. It’s all about Women Enjoying Success!

Wait for the playbox to appear and then click on the white arrow in the black circle to listen right now. Be sure to turn your speakers up.

For the Special Report / transcript of this broadcast please go to Oleg’s blog:
http://www.womenenjoyingsuccess.com/getontheweb/special-report/

Women Enjoying Success radio broadcasts are also available on iTunes.

Here’s a link to the Women Enjoying Success radio site: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Sharon-Michaels

Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels – All Rights Reserved

Subscribe to Sharon’s Ezine Unlimited Success For Women

The short answer in most cases is yes!  You don’t need “technical” skills to have a nice looking Website or Blog.  You do however need basic word processing skills and sufficient curiosity to learn what the capabilities of the WordPress editor are as compared to the word processor you’re currently using.  There will be differences, but you’ll find with a little practice it’s an easy to use editor.

The great thing about WordPress is you don’t need to know HTML, PHP or CSS in order to create an attractive Website, Blog or the combination of the two.  WordPress has done the heavy lifting for you and created a platform where all you need to concentrate on is the content whether it’s text, images, audio, video or the some combination of these.

There are thousands of free themes for WordPress from which to choose the look and feel you want for your site.  In addition there are many plugins that extend the functionality of your site to whatever needs you may have and the great thing is that you can add these as you have the time and the need for the functionality.

Your biggest decision will be whether to go with the absolutely free site at WordPress.com or to have a hosted site which means you’ll need a domain name and hosting company.  The second option gives you more flexibility with your site, but it also means costs and more skills required to take advantage of the flexibility.  If the technical stuff scares you or you don’t have the time or the inclination to get into additional skill sets then I would recommend the first option.  It’s hard to go wrong with WordPress.com and the price is unbeatable.  Free!

That’s a good question.  Quite honestly, WordPress just happened to be the first Blog platform that I attempted to use and I fell in love with the potential it offered.  When I say potential I’m referring to the ever-expanding capabilities of this open source application.  If you’re not familiar with the concept of open source software let me just say briefly that for the end user (that’s you) it essentially means free, but if you truly want to know then click on the following link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

While no software product of any complexity is perfect, and WordPress falls into this category, it is never-the-less an excellent piece of software that can be managed by a relative beginner who has the skill level to use a word processor and is willing to ask for some help if he or she gets stuck.  If you keep it simple, especially at the beginning, the previous statement is quite accurate.  Any shortcomings you may encounter are usually taken care of in the frequent revisions and/or plugins (plugins are sets of code written to provide additional functionality in WordPress) that you use and make part of the WordPress experience.

It is no wonder that an ever expanding community of people with a desire to have a Web presence is choosing WordPress as the platform of choice.  Whether you merely want to have a website with a few pages of information about your business, a Blog about some important issues that you’d like to share with the world, or combination of website and Blog to promote your business, WordPress can handle your needs.

As an aside, I did have the misfortune of trying another Blog software package that  shall remain anonymous and it was an utter piece of junk.  Not only did the provider plaster the entire Blog with flashing advertisements, the theme seemed to change periodically out of the blue and it was not representative of the look and feel I wanted to convey to my audience.  It’s cases like this where free is just not worth it!

If you have ever had the experience as a small business owner of investing in business cards, letterhead or a promotional flyer of some type only to have something change that’s made it all obsolete then you’ll really appreciate the Web. 

I’ve had this experience not once, but twice when the phone company changed my area code.  More than $1,000 of printed matter was nothing more than scrap paper and I had no control whatsoever.  This can also happen because of human error like proof reading our own copy and missing a key mistake.  These can be very costly and nerve wracking experiences that can be corrected in a blink of an eye on a WordPress blog.

Yes, you don’t have to be a computer genius in order to maintain your own WordPress Blog.  What that means for you is that you have a place to send customers to find out everything you want them to know about your business without all of the expense of printed matter with perhaps the exception of the business card.  Business cards after all are relatively inexpensive and should be given out freely as one of your least expensive forms of advertising.  If someone decides to toss your card it doesn’t have the same financial impact as seeing your newly printed tri-color brochure going into the circular file, albeit both can have a bruising effect on our ego.

While you’ve probably heard that websites can be quite expensive to develop and maintain, a WordPress Blog provides an inexpensive platform that can function as a Website and a Blog.  You’ll not only have a place to tell your prospective customers/clients all about your business, but you’ll be able to extend your reach beyond those persons with whom you personally come into contact.

So, if you can significantly reduce the cost of printed matter and have a forum to potentially attract business you’d otherwise never see and you could do it all on a shoestring budget, I’d say you have a great benefit.

This is a work-in-progress at its infancy as all Blogs start with one simple post.  My wife actually encouraged me to start this Blog to give so many of her business acquaintances a place to come and get some straight talk on the benefits of having a Web presence.  Not everyone has grown up with the computer being an everyday tool. And, to some of us, computers, the Internet, the World Wide Web are all scary stuff.