Please note this article was first published in 21 Apr 2011. Its content may now be out of date. We recommend taking a look at more recent website building blog posts or check out our comprehensive support pages. If you are looking for information on our 14 day free website builder trial we have a large number of webpages that guide you throug the process.
Lots of Reason8 website builders have been asking about adding a blog / forum facility to their websites. If you run an online business, which would benefit from having an open communication channel / forum, message board or Blog page then fear not. It’s not as difficult as you think to add one. Reason8 websites are built with compatibility in mind and work really well with external systems to provide a multi facility site.
A Blog is slightly different from an internet forum as it is more of a journal than a discussion facility. Its content is more controlled and usually restricted and is usually written by a small group of contributors to provide specific information. The information provided in Blogs can be useful to your customers in so many ways. The content of your blog can be educational, informative, motivational, political, promotional, can provide research information, customer feedbacks, reviews or in our case provides helpful educational tutorials. Blogs allow visitors to respond to the blog material by leaving comments, which are normally received behind the scenes and usually require permission or approval before being published.
A Blog page can also be a great way to provide another form of communication between you and your customers. You can use it to promote new products or special offers, receive requests and wish lists from customers and it’s also a great way to get some real feedback from your customers.
A Blog page is an easy and fun way for you to provide specific or ongoing information to your customers and provides them with a simple way to give you feedback on that information.
There are lots of free forum and blog facilities available online, which offer very simple step by step guides to show you what to do. WordPress and Blogger are two very popular ones – simply type either of these names into your internet browser search bar to access the sites. Many offer nice clean and stylish templates and do much of the set up work for you. The step by step guides allow you to choose a design and then offer a simple control panel to allow you to add the introductory, title and description information for your Blog page. You could even use some of the information from your own website to set up and introduce your blog so that they look similar and offer a professional association to each other. With the Blogger system, simply click the Get Started button on their home page. If you already have a Google account, (which you should have from when you verified your website domain!) sign in with your details. If not set up an account now.
Give your Blog page and name and decide your blog address – yourcompany.blogspot.com.
Choose a design template and that’s it. Click the start Blogging button and you can start posting blogs and can go back any time to customise how your blog looks. DONT FORGET to edit your profile in order to add further information about your company and also to add your website domain and email address.
Copy the domain or web address for your forum or blog page, then open the editor for the page on your website on which you’d like the link to appear. Type in a line such as: “Click here to view our Blog Page”. Highlight this line, then click the yellow “Insert / Edit Link” icon > Webpage > External Webpage > enter your Blogs address in the box provided and choose yes to open in new window. Click Add to Website.
That’s it. The other major benefit is that you can promote a link to your website and so not only will your new blog help to boost your company profile online, it can actually help to increase the traffic to your site too. What are you waiting for.....
Please remember, this article was first published 21/04/2011. The content may be out of date and you cannot post comments any more. Please check out our new blog.
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