Blogs built for business most often incorporate blog site platforms that allow for several methods of effective blog marketing. If you are a retail site, the temptation may be to add more “gadgetry” on your site than is necessary. A recent search for jewelry brought this point home.

It seemed as if almost every site opened with a flash presentation that inevitably hung up my browser, accompanied by mood music that I didn’t want to hear, followed by a request for info to log in when all I wanted to do is place items in a shopping cart. Too many sites make the mistake of asking their visitors to jump through too many hoops.The KISS principle applies online just as it does in any marketing endeavor.

PowerHomeBiz.com has a few blog marketing don’ts to keep in mind:

• Don’t force customers with elements like log-in or email address before checkout.
• Don’t use your business language - use your customer language. I often make the mistake of writing something that I think is clear to me, only to be met with a “Huh?” look from my husband. I think asking someone not connected with your business to act as a potential customer and see how clear the copy and how easy to understand the writing on the site.
• Don’t let technology drive your business - let your customers drive it : this of course is more applicable to big businesses rather than small businesses. Small businesses can hardly afford the basic technologies of running an ecommerce business, more so the bells and whistles customization often seen in big websites
• Don’t overbuild; think what customers want. The flash intro that nobody wants but only shows how “cool” the site is. Not.

Tags: blog, Blog Marketing, blog-platform, ecommerce_business, flash_presentation, kiss_principle, mood_music, small_businesses

This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2007 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Blog Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.