Archive for the 'Articles and News' Category
Web 2.0
Thursday, January 25th, 2007What is Web 2.0?
Well depending on who you ask and what you read it can be many things. One answer is that is the way the Internet is changing to allow for ‘Social Networking’. It includes all the features of online sharing of video, photos, blogs, journals and so on…. While you may not be familiar with the terms Web 2.0 and Social Networking you have probably read other peoples comments on places like Trip Advisor or have accessed Wikipedia for information about a particular topic.
For a business it means a way for you to connect with your clients and potential clients in a way that you could only do via social networks such as the Chamber of Commerce, Trade Associations or Leads Groups. Now with the advancements in technology that allow a website to become more of a interactive site with the outside world, your leads group has become a much bigger network.
Blizzard Live! contains all the key elements of Web 2.0, but is targeted specifically towards the hospitality industry. Getting your property or management group involved with Blizz Live is crucial if you wish to stay ahead of your competitors and on the cutting edge of online marketing.
To read more visit the Blizzard Newsletter site.
Blogging Best Practices with Internet Guru Dave Taylor
Wednesday, September 13th, 2006This video is just a little more than 1 hour long but Dave Taylor gives you a wealth of information on blogging and why a blog can help enhance your website.
Bring More Traffic to Your Website with a Blog
Thursday, July 20th, 2006A recent article from SEOMoz that covers 10 Remarkably Effective Strategies for Driving Traffic gives blogs and blogging high marks. They talk about a successful blog being the biggest marketing tool you can use to help bring more traffic to your website.
A good point they make is that in order to help bring traffic to your blog you can add comments on other blogs with a link back to your own site. By adding comments on other blogs you can help bring traffic to your own blog because people reading blog A will want to know the rest of your commentary and come over to your blog to see what you might have to say about the subject in addition to Blogger A.
Invisible Marketing with Web 2.0
Friday, July 7th, 2006
In this pdf white paper Marqui brings together ideas about the changes that are in the works with Web 2.0. It talks about how a shift has taken place in the online world and how people are requesting information they are looking for rather than passively waiting for the information to come to them.
We can see this trend in all walks of life, newspaper readership has decreased as has the number of people watching TV. Many people today proactively research information online from their peers and from those that have ‘insider’ information and from sites that offer the ability to communicate with the creators. The use of feeds to request content be sent to desktops has increased with the ability to create your own search page in Google and personal pages in Yahoo and MSN.
No more so do we see this than in the blog world. Many more companies are reaching their audience with the use of blogs. Company blogs are becoming the number one referrer to a company website. Marqui talks about this and it is echoed in our own site at BlizzardInternet.com where the amount of traffic coming to and from the Newsletter blog has grown in leaps and bounds.
To read the full article, download the pdf file
Does a Blog Make Sense for your Business?
Thursday, June 8th, 2006A blog might make sense for your business if you:
- Are already doing PPC, SEO and e-mail marketing
- Have the energy and commitment to produce content daily or a few times per week - regular updates are critical to receiving the full search engine benefits of blogging
- Intend to create buzz marketing or enhance branding
- Hold knowledge and passion about a specific topic of interest to potential clients
- Want to bring return visitors to your web site; once accustomed to your blog, people will visit it often for updated information
- Plan to provide increasing amounts of content to your web site visitors
Known Benefits of a Blog
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006Improve Your Web Site’s Performance with a Blog
- Search engines frequent blogs because they are updated often - search engines reward all of this original content and visit the site often
- The public can comment on posts, which creates content naturally - the way search engines want to see it
- Visitors enjoy using blogs because the information is fresh
- Blogs provide an easy way to add information to a site
- Public comments can be moderated/edited
- Additional relevant content from a blog helps the site it’s connected to rank higher for more of your important keyword phrases
- Visitors return to the site often to check out what is new
- A blog is a great way to target a niche by offering content of interest to the group
