Melbourne Website Design Services

A Blog is an ideal way to provide both product and customer support and to do so in a manner that allows genuine interaction with your clients. Blogs from TOSD are based on Wordpress, an increasingly popular blogging platform. The beauty of Blogs (as opposed to forums) is that they are a more effective way to set the agenda and keep the focus where you want it. And the real icing on the cake is that search engines love them! Blogs are a great way to generate traffic.

Here are some things to know about blogs used for business:

• A Blog enables your customers to respond to the information you post, and these responses are visible to other customers. This is invaluable feedback to you as the business administrator/owner, but equally it is of great interest to your other customers who may have the same issues or queries.
• Thoughtful, informative posts help position you as an authority within you industry or market segment. This is a very effective way of raising the profile of your business.
• Topical information relating to events of interest to your customers is easily covered and in fact can be used to increase traffic to your Blog, and from there, to your website or online shop.
• Search engines respond well to Blogs and there are also Blog directories that can be used to increase traffic. Wordpress Blogs, as used by TOSD, are very well optimised for search engines.
• Blogs can be tightly linked to an online shop. From the shop end, links can be inserted after product descriptions to refer customers to additional information on the Blog. And equally, your Blog can feature articles of a more general nature with links that take customers to specific product examples in your Online Shop. This is a powerful marketing combination.
• Blogs from TOSD can be themed with headers and colours to match your Online Shop or web site. This further enhances your customer’s perception that one is a natural extension of the other.

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Website solutions from TOSD allow clients to create an information rich environment that they can manage themselves. Such websites are called “Content Management Systems” (CMS).

Key CMS Administration Facilities:

• Create pages and assign them to categories/sub-categories
• Move pages between categories without having to re-create them
• Choice of page layouts that can be assigned on an individual page basis
• Edit content with a WYSIWYG editor to format text and insert hyperlinks, images, videos, tables and lists.
• Preview results before posting
• Create and post News articles
• Assign access rights to different users.

Key CMS Customer Features:

• Consistent menu structure that makes site navigation a breeze - even on sites with large numbers of pages
• Search facility
• Content only print facility (strips off all the website header and sidebar etc)
• Sidebar inserts (including news items) make for a more visually pleasing browsing experience
• Dedicated forms make communications and bookings very straightforward.

The platform used by TOSD to create CMS websites is very comprehensive and allows for significant customisation and the inclusion of many tailored options. If you have any specific needs please enquire.

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Why is it that businesses shy away from forums? Yes, I know they require careful moderation, and yes I know forum members will have their own opinions regarding what they want to talk about, but there are still situations where forums are invaluable. Here a couple examples:

1. A business providing adventure tours. A forum could be set up to allow customers who have been on a tour to share their experience and show off their snaps. In doing this it becomes a great resource for those who are considering signing up for a tour. In other words in this scenario existing customers become an important part of the sales force! The business owner can share in the conversations on the forum, but does not have to drive them. In fact that would be counter-productive.

2. An entertainment venue/club catering to the young adult market. The club may regular nights and special events - perhaps for club members. By providing this group with a forum the business is providing them with a “voice” and a means of expressing their shared experiences (… read “Goss”). So what’s the point? The point is that in one step the business has achieved that most difficult thing: sustained and regular contact with it’s market. It is not important what this customer group talks about. What is important is that they talk about it on the businesses “patch”. With that level of contact all sorts of marketing possibilities arise.

The choice as to whether to adopt a Blog or Forum as an aid to social networking involves a balance between many issues and objectives. If you would like to go down this path start by doing some research on the Internet. There is no shortage of information out there. On the other hand, if it seems interesting but a little daunting, feel free to contact me .