Marketing Your Skills: Why a Blog Beats a Brochure Site

One of the reasons I launched this new weblog is that I'd quietly grown embarrassed by the static site I'd been using as an online brochure for my professional skills.

My old Gahran.com site had degenerated into a "cobweb" because it was a relative hassle to maintain. I hadn't updated it in a long time, and it featured some broken links. That's not good marketing.

Yes, I'll admit it, I've gotten spoiled by the simplicity, speed, and flexibility of blogging tools. But that's not the only reason why I've killed Gahran.com and redirected all the traffic from that domain to The Right Conversation. The thing is, a weblog can serve as both a brochure and a conversation.

Here's how I've done that, in this case...

When I created this new blog, the first thing I did was create several postings that were updated versions of what had been static content on my old site.

Each of these items described a particular service I offer (like consulting or coaching), or some important background (like my list of selected clients and projects).

Now, for a brochure site, such content needs to be prominently offered in the main navigation for the site. This is why I created a list of links to my core static content at the top of the right-hand sidebar for this site. Similarly, in the left-hand sidebar, I offer a succinct explanation of who I am and what I do.

When you're marketing yourself, it's also a good idea to let people know what other people are saying about you. I often get interviewed and cited in mainstream media and in weblogs. So I created a tag in Del.icio.us called "mycoverage" and used it to label all the coverage of me or my work that I wished to share with prospective clients. Then I syndicated the feed for that tag into my left-hand  sidebar using the free tool RSS-to-Javascript.

I use the Typepad service to publish this blog, so I created all my special sidebar content using Typepad's Typelist feature.

Now that I've created that core content, most of the postings to this blog will concern my topical focus: what's happening in conversational media. But even after those static content items scroll off my home page, they'll still be easily accessible through the sidebar navigation. Hence, this site becomes both a brochure and a blog.

MAIN BENEFIT: BETTER EXPOSURE

Search engines favorably rank sites that update frequently. Therefore, anything that makes it easy to update existing content or post fresh content will make Google (and other search engines) like you better. Your pages will probably rank more highly in search results.

Plus, the more content you post, the more inbound links you'll likely attract. This also improves your search engine ranking.

But perhaps more importantly, if you allow comments on all or most of your blog postings, your professional site becomes your point of focus in the public conversation. This helps you expand your network of personal connections. And relationships are the root of all business, after all.

ANOTHER APPROACH: BLOG WITHIN A SITE

It's also possible to include a blog as part of your professional site, rather than incorporating all your content within your blog. For instance, Dave Taylor and Bruce Schneier both have adopted this approach. Their blogs exist in subdirectories or subdomains, and their home pages are more conventional brochure pages. Both consultants enjoy plenty of online exposure and great search engine rankings.

Which approach you adopt depends mostly on what you think would be most attractive to your target market, and whether you care to deal with uploading and maintaining conventional HTML web pages in addition to content managed via a blogging tool.

However, the net has become so search-focused that I'm starting to believe that, with very few exceptions, any independent professional should use a blog as a core online presence. Purely static brochure sites just aren't as findable or as attractive to inbound links, no matter how much you update them.

WANT TO TRY IT?

Would you like help  with creating your own professional blog/brochure site? Contact me. I'd be happy to help. I can either develop your blog for you, or coach you through the process of creating your own.

Comments

[Alan Levine]

Nice new look and dynamic approach.

Other "freebies" you get with using blog software for publishing are automatic site-wide keyword search; more consistent layout with templates; automatic RSS feed generation; optional category structure for organizing items.

Other modes blogware can do include presentations- this was done by severe tweaking of Blogger's templates for a presentation about using blogs for more than "Cat Diaries":
http://cat-diaries.blogspot.com/

and online publications- this is done in WordPress:

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/iforum/

[Amy Gahran]

Yep, Alan, there are lots of bonuses to using blog software to promote professional services instead of a standard static site.

Regarding site search: I'll be implementing that on this blog, definitely.

Overall, I think the biggest benefit of using blogging tools is they way they make you findable.

- Amy Gahran