Online Fundamentals
Building a Web Site and Blog
Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful.
—Sir Richard Branson, CEO of Virgin
If you are good at it, people are going to read it.
—Seth Godin, best-selling author
The best damn marketing tool by an order of magnitude I’ve ever had.
—Tom Peters, the Red Bull of management thinkers1
Many people believe that the best way to find customers is to look for them. That’s a mistake. In the digital age, customers from around the world should find you. And they can, provided you create a sustainable positive online presence. The secret to billions of customers finding you is to build a world stage comprising of a Web site and a blog. These tools define who you are as a brand and shape what is yet to come for your export business. I will discuss how to market your business later on, in Chapter 10, but understand this: not having a Web site and a companion blog is like keeping your door shuttered to the world. Think I’m wrong? Take a look.
In Pursuit of Global Power: Snatching and Grabbing Curious Online Customers
Due to the explosive growth of the Internet, a Web site alone is not sufficient to promote a business, at least not if you want the entire planet to find you. That planet includes more than 7 billion potential customers—and 2.4 billion of them are online.2 Who wouldn’t want to sell to more than 2.4 billion people or even a tiny fraction of that? Whether you are a first-timer or an experienced pro, leveraging the web is a must to become globally competitive. To achieve a powerful web presence, you must use a combination of social tools such as blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as cultivate a brand presence on mobile apps and other online databases. Someday, your online presence will live on your wrist like a watch and replace everything (brick-and-mortar stores, paper resumes, photo albums, and in-person meetings, to name a few), so you’d better aim to get it right the first time around.
Plan a Web Site
While a Web site is but a part of your efforts online, it is still the most important one for e-commerce. First and foremost, your Web site should be inviting and reader friendly. When developing your Web site with exporting in mind, here are fifteen pointers that should make the build-out process a lot easier:
Tip Web hosts provide the tools you need to easily build your own Web site, or, if you want something unique and special, you can hire a web designer to create a professional site.
SEO CASE STUDY
GlobeTrade, a company I own and manage, is a leading management-consulting and marketing-solutions company dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small businesses go global. Our keywords for SEO purposes are: global small business, going global, Laurel Delaney, small businesses go global, entrepreneurs go global, and global trade. These keywords and phrases all relate to the content present on the respective Web pages. Every time an individual conducts a search using any of these keyword phrases, they find us. As a result, customers are rolling in, our page-rank position has skyrocketed to at or near the top of people’s search results, and our business keeps growing.
Identify the products or services you sell. Now select keywords that are in alignment.
Tip Many web-hosting companies offer packages that include ongoing submissions of keywords to top search engines including Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Be sure to check when you sign up for a package. These packages can be worthwhile because they help customers find you when they conduct a search, provided you properly conveyed your firm’s capabilities in your keywords. Another helpful SEO keyword research tool is Google’s Wonder Wheel (http://www.googlewonderwheel.com/).
Tip Don’t panic at the thought of having to translate your Web site into several different languages right at the start. You don’t have to. You can take it one language at a time and base it purely on customer interest.
By using your web presence to facilitate two-way communication with anyone in the world, you can build relationships with your customers, enhance your company image, fine-tune your products or services, and pinpoint your preferred profitable and loyal customers. Best of all, it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.
Reserving a Domain Name and Building a Web Site
Here are places to get started in securing a domain name and creating a Web site. Some platforms allow you to build your own site. Network Solutions is one of those platforms, and it has simple tools that are already built into the site. If you want a highly professional and sophisticated look, I suggest you hire a good web designer, especially one who knows the importance of how colors and symbols translate to a cross-cultural audience. As stated in point number one, first impressions count. Excluding Google+, all hosting platforms are scalable and have e-commerce capabilities. Here are the most popular:
Blog Exuberance: Brand Yourself Everywhere
Anyone can create a blog. Building a successful blog, on the other hand, requires hard work. Yet it’s worth every ounce of effort because, when used correctly, this low or no-cost communication vehicle can do many powerful things including: positioning you as an expert or thought leader in your industry; helping you market your products or services globally; allowing to test your ideas to see if they have wings; bringing your web presence to life; helping potential clients worldwide find you; and helping you engage in a conversation with your customers.
A blog, short for “web log,” is an instant online publishing tool that allows anyone to add fresh content to a web page, share knowledge, and reflect their personality. A few of the top blogs are: Seth Godin (http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/), Anita Campbell’s Small Business Trends (http://www.smallbiztrends.com), Chris Brogan (http://www.chrisbrogan.com/), Rita Gunther McGrath (http://ritamcgrath.com/blog/), and Ries’ Pieces, by Laura Ries (http://riestypepad.com/).
The sole purpose of a blog is to share information. You use it to let your audience know you are good at something, but at the same time they learn and grow on topics ranging from making jewelry to global trade consulting or flower arrangements. You rarely use a blog to sell a product directly, unless the product is directly derived from your own work, as in the case of a release of a new book, a webinar, a podcast or tweet chat you participated in, or a presentation that your readers might like to attend.
Fact If you have five thousand followers on one platform and two thousand on another, and all of those followers pass along your posts to their constituent base, and they, in turn, pass it along to theirs, you have the potential to reach more than a million people in a very short period of time.
You can create a blog from scratch and independent of your Web site or build it as part of your site if your web host has that capability. The advantage of adding it to your site is fivefold: It brings more life to your site, increases traffic, permits visitors to comment (which is an additional way to engage and grow your customer base), allows you to listen and join the conversation, and increases your search engine rankings. The disadvantage of adding it to your Web site is that if your blog takes off in popularity and is dependent on your core business and you want to sell it (the Pittsburgh Mom blog, for example, was purchased by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), you might run into an issue if you don’t also want to sell your business, which, by way of your Web site, your blog is dependent upon.
All blogs must contain the following:
THE POWER OF A GOOD BLOG
I created The Global Small Business Blog (http://www.globalsmallbusinessblog.com), which is considered the number one blog for entrepreneurs and small businesses interested in going global. I established the blog in 2004 for the sole purpose of providing a meaningful way to share our global trade expertise and engage with our target audience. The blog now has a world following of more than twenty thousand monthly readers, with most of our new business opportunities coming to us as a direct result of our blog.
You too can achieve this same level of blog success.
The following sections outline my suggestions for creating a blog that will help your export business succeed.
Pick a Main Stage and Understand Your Audience
It may seem simple, and obvious, but if you want your blog to be a go-to source for useful information, you need to understand your audience. In our case with The Global Small Business Blog, our whole focus is on entrepreneurs and small business owners who are interested in going global. That can involve anything from taking a business global, to understanding globalization, to employing people who want to start a global career. Global, entrepreneurs, and small businesses are the three keywords and phrases that drive our posts. It’s our main stage and we never lose sight of that, nor do we vary from our focus. What will your world main stage be?
Post Frequently, Consistently, and with the Reader Always in Mind
If you don’t provide new, useful, engaging, and relevant content on a regular basis, your readers will stop visiting your site. Web readers are busy and have short attention spans. Consistency is far better than any one-time act of greatness, especially when it comes to blogging. Posting new content every day is great, but providing actionable takeaways is what will keep people coming back day after day. Whatever your style and format, stick to it. One other point: Don’t self-promote and talk about how great you are. You can post information you create relating to your world stage, but never lose sight of the fact that it has been created to add value to your reader’s knowledge pool.
Tip You can create a blog on a free blog platform and separately reserve a domain name through one of the web-hosting companies mentioned earlier. It is important to host the blog using your own domain name, as in “http://www.mycompany.com/blog.”
Inspire Your Readers
Use different methods to tell your story. Shake things up to keep your blog interesting for your readers. One day you might feature a guest blog post by a thought leader in your industry or post a YouTube video. The next, you might post your own how-to content that relates to your core theme. Ideas may be plentiful, but your time might be scarce. On some days, you might report everything a reader wants to know about a particular topic. On other days, you might do a short intro and go right to an outside link. Vary your posts in line with how readers process information. Sometimes they are in a hurry; other times they slow down and want to read every last word. Once in a while, they post a comment that requires feedback (see the next point). Vary the nature and scope of information and adjust it according to the times and what’s relevant to your readers.
Make Thoughtful Comments When Warranted
A blog’s commenting function is a great way to engage with your readers. You don’t, however, need to reply to every single comment. In our case, with The Global Small Business Blog, we do our best to comment when readers comment, but if it doesn’t seem necessary, we won’t.
Tip Don’t let your readers think that you parachute into your blog and say what they want to hear or jump all over them when they are wrong. Strive to be thoughtful with your responses, lifting the subject matter to a higher level so everyone learns in the process.
Provide Links to Better Inform Readers
You don’t have to create all the content for your blog on your own. Use the web to find valuable content from outside sources and link to those resources constantly. Say we post an article about the global star PSY (http://www.youtube.com/artist/psy) but our reader doesn’t know who PSY is. We can link to a video of the performer to ensure that our site keeps our readers informed and constantly learning.
A blog with lots of words and no cool graphics, charts, illustrations, or photos isn’t an inviting page for visitors. Whether it’s your own photography, taken from the public domain, or purchased as stock photography, graphics should power blog posts. A strong graphic can tell the story, elicit emotion (e.g., a video of a starving baby being fed a nutritional product), or be used to entertain (e.g., a photo of an elephant-sized shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day). Can you imagine reading and enjoying content on popular Web sites that doesn’t have an accompanying picture or chart? Make it a point to do the same on your blog.
Connect with Your Readers Intellectually and Emotionally
Sure, you can provide lots of great content on your blog, but if you don’t connect with your readers on some sort of emotional level, they might not come back. Colors, imagery, and symbols all affect the mood, feelings, and emotions provoked by a blog. If you want to achieve a global reach, be aware of the color preferences of different cultural audiences and then use colors accurately and effectively. The Chinese flag, for example, is mostly red. Red also represents good fortune and happiness in China. India, on the other hand, is known as a country of saturated colors, with red and green used as standard color choices for clothing and yellow and red for traditional weddings. In the United States blue is known for trust and stability and in New Zealand red is considered a sacred color. Color symbolism can be very powerful and can make or break the success of a blog. Understand the meaning of color and you will see greater success in blogging by reaching a far wider audience worldwide.
Check Your Facts
Blogging is a little like reporting: One mistake and it can be fatal in terms of tarnishing your online reputation. Check sources and resources not once but twice to make sure information is reliable and accurate. If it’s hearsay, don’t blog about it.
Market the Blog
I do not believe in the theory “If you build it, they will come.” Rather, I believe in doing hard work to market your blog everywhere you and your team go. That means if you write a guest-post column for a major newspaper, your signature or byline should include a link to your blog. If you write an article for a hot online property, a link to your blog should be included. If you conduct a webinar, mention your blog at the beginning and at the end of your talk. You should also take the media outlets in which your work appears and promote them through whichever social-media and networking platforms you use, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Label Your Posts
Another thing you shouldn’t overlook is attaching labels to your blog posts to help identify your content to search engines (look back at number six in the “Plan a Web Site” section). Just because you create a blog with relevant content doesn’t mean it will be easy for readers to find. To gain insights into how to get to the top of the heap in search engines and to inspect traffic reports about your Web site and blog, visit Alexa (http://www.alexa.com), Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/), or Compete (http://www.compete.com).
Here are the top three platforms for creating a blog. Most of them are either free or charge a nominal fee (around $30 a year per blog). That fee is based on whether you elect to go with a custom design upgrade (referred to as CSS, or cascading style sheets) to make major changes to the blog’s layout or point your existing domain name to a new IP address, which can be provided by the web-hosting provider.
Summary
Don’t let your Web site or blog be doomed to mediocrity. Make it sing. Preferably, make it sing a song the world relates to. Impart your knowledge and share your passion with the world. Next, I will coach you on how to create a social media and social networking presence where the whole world will find you.
1 “The Importance of Blogging by Seth Godin and Tom Peters,” Personal Content Creation, October 23, 2013. http://professionalcontentcreation.com/importance-blogging-seth-godin-tom-peters.
2 Internet World Stats: http://www.internetworldstats.com/.
3 “Global Mobile Statistics 2013,” mobiThinking, accessed October 23, 2013, http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#subscribers.
4 “Global Mobile Statistics 2013,” accessed October 23, 2013.
5 Nitish Singh and Arun Pereira, The Culturally Customized Web Site: Customizing Web Sites for the Global Marketplace (Oxford, UK: Elsevier, 2011): p. 3.
6 “Economy & Trade,” Office of the United States Trade Representative, accessed October 23, 2013, http://www.ustr.gov/trade-topics/economy-trade.
7 “Select Country; Select Country: Developing a User Friendly Global Gateway,” John Yunker, UX Magazine, last modified December 30, 2010, http://uxmag.com/articles/select-country-select-language.
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