First, everybody had to have a website. Now business development is all about social networking. If you’re not running an interactive contest or hosting a dynamic blog, you’re so yesterday.

Web logs, also known as “blogs,” are hip. Even though the technology has been used since the early 1990s, blogging is finding new life in business. Blogs are simple to create and offer prospects and recruits a more intimate look at your corporate culture. But like a naïve teen who posts his picture and personal information on an interactive web page, a blog can also hurt your firm more than help it.

We’ve reviewed blogs that are so boring – a regurgitation (reblog) of content from other sites – that it creates an annoying rather than hip impression of the firm. We’ve also read blogs that are as scattered and inane as a grocery list.

The best blogs offer lots of fresh, insightful content about your firm and industry that is of interest to prospects, recruits, and clients. They may have a lead blogger such as the CEO or a partner, or they may include commentary from a niche group or practice area. The primary goals of a business blog are to give prospects and recruits a glimpse at your corporate culture and increase the fresh content on your website for search optimization.

One of the more fun CPA firm blogs we looked at is www.FromGregsHead.com, featuring CPA Greg Price at PFK in Texas. A hip design and commentary about both financial and local subjects makes this a fun local source of information. This blog won several national awards for its PR campaign at the Accounting Marketing Association’s annual conference this year. We also like marketing consultant Michelle Golden’s contribution, a blog for best practices in professional service firm marketing, at http://goldenmarketing.typepad.com/weblog.

If you have a blog or are thinking of creating one, consider these best practices to avoid the blog blahs.

Set-Up
You’re going to need some help from your web host or site designer on how to set up the blog. One of the easiest options for new bloggers is to select a hosted site such as WordPress.com, Typepad.com, or Blogger.com. These software providers set up and maintain the blog database for you at a reasonable rate, providing support if anything goes wrong. All you have to do is supply the content. Some companies set up a separate domain or web address for the blog to give it credibility in a particular industry, but posting directly on your firm’s website is easier and will drive traffic to other areas of your firm.

You may consider investing in a weblog client (word processing program) to craft your posts offline. Popular products include Ecto and Blogjet, which include features like spellcheck, smileys, and ways of formatting your posts without requiring special skills. A weblog client also allows you to start a post and come back to it later if you are interrupted.

Policies
Like any marketing vehicle, the blog should reflect your brand. Policies regarding acceptable content as well as the look and feel of the blog should be considered. Think about how you will handle inappropriate postings, photos or other visuals, and create a written policy to circumvent any potential embarrassment, not to mention legal action.

However, we do caution you about over-sanitizing your content. After it has been reviewed and edited by five committees, it will not only be months old, it will be boring.

A couple of good law blogs to check out are Denise Howell’s Bag and Baggage (http://bgbg.blogspot.com) whose author, an appellate, intellectual property and technology lawyer, talks about legal issues as well as what her son wore for Halloween (with cute kid pictures). Another good legal marketing blog is from Larry Bodine (http://pm.typepad.com/professional_marketing_bl) who includes guest bloggers and a list of his favorite blogs.

Once your blog has been running for a while and gained a following, you may decide to allow reader comments, which can be an effective form of online networking. Make sure that your blogging software offers that option when you are ready to use it. Write a policy regarding acceptable commenting practices.

It is important for your staff and official bloggers to know that content should remain professional even if on the lighter side. Acronyms and cute slang common in text messaging don’t really fit the goals of a professional services blog because not every reader will be familiar with it. Choose clarity over brevity.

Maintenance
Post regularly. If you want to be known as a serious blogger, plan on submitting posts at least weekly. It is helpful to have someone in the firm champion the blog as the writer and/or manager. This person will coordinate with your site manager or the blog host to ensure that posts are updated regularly.

Most software programs will automatically archive your posts, but you might not like how they are listed. By going into Archive Preferences in your software, your site manager can configure the filenames by date or topic. You can also organize your posts by category. This is helpful if you are writing on different topics, for example “business development” and “book reviews.” Test and review your categories early in the process so you don’t have too many posts to organize.

Content
Although some bloggers are more like web journalists who comment on anything that interests them, it’s more effective for business development or recruitment to focus most of the content of your blog on a key theme with two or three related topics. At Ingenuity, we are launching a blog that will focus on networking and mentoring tips for our Power Up! young professionals group. All information will be geared toward professional service providers who are age 35 and younger as well as the people who manage young professionals.

By focusing your content and keeping it fresh, you will quickly build a following of loyal readers who are interested in your topic and will refer others to it.

Keep your posts succinct and by all means proof them before posting! This bears repeating: please proof your content. You want your personality to shine through, but typos and creative grammar will detract from your message. You also don’t want to go back and change content once it is posted because most tracking tools will read changes as a new post.

Promotion and Tracking
Let your clients and prospects know about your new blog. Encourage them to post comments if available or email you questions and feedback. Comment on other blogs within your industry and leave your email address or URL to help other bloggers find you.

There are other options for you to increase traffic to your blog and search engine optimization. This includes RSS (Really Simple Syndication), which allows users to subscribe to your blog, and Trackback features that alert users to other relevant information about your topic at either your site or other blogs. This would be the next phase of your blogging adventure.

Keep it simple in the beginning to decide if blogs are the right marketing tool for you to share quick tips, trends and advice. We think it’s a fascinating new/old tool for communicating your brand and key services.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org

This free encyclopedia offers definitions of blog terms.

http://paulstamatiou.com

See his article on “How to Start Blogging” May 14, 2006.

http://www.technorati.com

This site shows you the latest news among bloggers.

http://blawgreview.blogspot.com

This site bills itself as a carnival of law “blawgs.”

It seems like only last year (maybe it was) that firms called us clamoring to get “something up on the web.” Anxious to get a billboard on the information super highway, they filled in a template with the words from the firm brochure, posted a few shareholder photos and breathed a sigh of relief.

Firms that still have their first or second generation website are missing some critical opportunities. When referred to a new firm, most prospects go first to the website. When seeking a new job, most candidates go first to the website.

If your website looks staid, boring, and “template-like,” that one chance to make a great impression is over. The key to great websites is to think through who will use it, and how to communicate not only your services, but your unique culture and the value you bring.

Besides differentiating your firm from the pack, your website should also provide value and a reason to return. There are far more bad websites out there than well-designed ones, even among the Fortune 500. Your company has a great opportunity to shine online for recruitment and business development.

Web Strategy

Before you write one word or design one page, consider what you want your website to do. Do you want it to speak primarily to prospects or recruits? Is it an information service for clients? Is it something cold shoppers for your service should be able to find on a search engine?

Making it pretty is not enough. Be clear about your target market and what you want to communicate to them. When we work with clients on a website, we like to establish some key messages about the firm that can act as a guide for content. This sets a tone and ensures that this firm’s website isn’t a cookie cutter.

Start your website with a map of pages and how they link together. The worst sites offer no sense of direction so users are forced to hunt for simple things like contact information or a company summary. A web map can help you lay out content in a way that is easy to navigate.

Too many companies try to explain every detail of their services online, while others assume that prospects “just know” what they do and explain nothing. There is one school of thought that says you don’t want too much detail online — competitors might steal your message and processes.

The best way to think of your website is like a dynamic executive summary — just enough detail to intrigue prospects without handing intellectual property to your competition. For example, you don’t want to archive proposals or list jobs on bid. Depending on your niche, you may not even want to list specific clients on testimonials or case studies.

The Society for Human Resource Management offers these suggestions to create an attractive informative website to prospective employees researching your firm:

• Keep content to a single page, using links to other relevant pages.
• Emphasize company benefits, monetary and non-monetary.
• Personalize career content for experienced hires, recent graduates and interns/trainees.
• Include application guidelines and clear Contact Us information for the firm and each department.
• Include an outlet for feedback, questions, and surveys to capture visitor data.
• Depending on your market, consider tools to forward job postings by email and translation of content to other languages.

According to the Riley Guide, a comprehensive guide to the job search, companies should offer at least some of the following pages:

• News or What’s New
• Mission Statement and/or Description of Services
• Career opportunities, job listings and application guidelines

The Riley Guide also encourages applicants to review the overall look and feel of the site as a general impression of the organization. Are they funky? Conservative? Well organized? Cluttered? This initial research may determine whether or not a job candidate or prospective client ever contacts the company.

Other sources of information that job applicants and prospective clients may use in their research include business rankings, press clippings, and testimonials from current and former employees. Some firms offer streaming video of the firm headquarters and employee interviews to give visitors a sense of the culture. These items can be incorporated on the website’s News and Career pages.

Don’t add too many bandwidth-taxing bells and whistles. Introduction pages that force you to click through to the real content can be a nuisance. Graphics and moving icons take longer to download and not everyone has the latest online technology. Design your site to accommodate the lowest tech users out there.

Search Optimization

Everyone wants to rank high on Google and other search engines. There are many ways to build a website that will rank better. When using general keywords related to your business in a search engine, where does your website pop up? This is one test to determine where your website ranks among the competition. Go from general to specific: “Twin Cities CPA” to “Twin Cities CP Manufacturing.” Or try “Personal Injury Lawyer Minnesota” and “Worker’s Compensation Lawyer Shakopee.”

You can boost the ranking of your website by doing several things. First, choose keywords that are unique to your business. Brainstorm these words and phrases in your website committee and make sure they are used frequently in your site content.

Try to establish external links to your website. Have your company name posted on organization websites to which you belong, contribute articles to trade sites, and allow relevant websites to link directly to yours. Just having your company name listed on another website can help boost your ranking.

Update your content regularly. At Google, fresh content is a key factor in moving sites they’ve recently discovered out of their “sandbox” to an official ranking.

Finally, have your website designer develop meta tags with your keywords in them. Meta tags are the words that show up at the top of each web page as well as the description of your site when it shows up in search engine results.

Design and Writing

It’s easy to pick out self-designed pages. The copy is bland and stilted like it was copied and pasted from multiple documents. Frequently, we find typos and bad grammar.

One thing we cannot emphasize enough is quality, from professional photos to design that is consistent with your brand. Hire a good photographer and ask for photos that show character. Visually appealing people with well-written bios, great quotes, and good credentials make a huge difference.

Use a professional writer who has experience with websites. It also helps if the writer understands your industry. Have that person write the sections that matter most: your Home Page, Services, and About Us. If you are having trouble recruiting, hire a writer to add some snap to your recruiting section. If your firm is moving into a construction niche, work with a writer to develop key messages and web content that makes your firm look like the logical choice.

Your website should be included in the budget for marketing and business development. Take it off the back burner. An old website can do more harm to your firm’s image today than ever before.