Why blogging is helping my website (business) startups 2.0 (Part 1)

I’m currently working on web 2.0 startup ideas that I have. The process is quite tedious and frustrating as you have so much ideas but is not that easy to put into code, but is also rewarding at the same time, each function that works feels really rewarding. I started this blog TechFilipino, as I wanted to write about my passion (which are websites). But I got more than sharing my passion, and instead I learned valuable lessons and insights which is really helpful in starting up a website (business):

1. Research

It served as my research tool, to learn about the industry and my competitors. As I was learning the profession of blogging, you need to read other blogs or websites to update yourself of the happenings in the industry. It has served as my market research on the industry that I wanted to enter online, it gave me great insights with expert commentary and recommendations which helped me avoid certain mistakes along the way.

I was able to find what competitors did that was different and if there was any competitors that have sprung up during the past few weeks or days. It has got me very updated with the happenings in the industry. From featuring what’s new or  new features that a competitor website does that I could use to try to find ways of looking on different ways I could differentiate my web startups from theirs.

It was also a source of inspiration. I thought to myself that I could definitely do the job. I was inspired by the designs, concepts and algorithms of other websites that I found really amazing.

2. Notes

Has it ever happened to you that you came across a website a while back, and one day, you can’t remember the URL? It’s happened to me several times, where a friend of mine would pitch an idea and all I could say was that I remember seeing something similar before or not even remembering at all. I’ve tried using bookmarking but still, I forget (even checking my bookmarks). Blogging has served as my notes on my research. I always remember what I’ve written and if I did forget, I would simply go to my blog and search for the keywords that I’m looking for.

3. Promotion

One of the most common problems of startup websites (especially web 2.0 sites) is that they never get enough traffic. Some of them have great designs and concepts, but due to failure in online marketing, they didn’t get the traffic that they need. I found that there are several techniques in doing so:

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is one of the best way to achieve traffic to your website organically. How it works is it optimizes your website in such a way that it makes it search engine friendly. This can be done in many many ways, such as adding META tags in your code with the exact keywords of your website. I’m not going to be able to cover the topic on SEO here (as it is a long process and there are really many ways of doing so). I’ve learned about this topic thru my extensive research thru expert blogs, forums and other websites that has thought me all I need to know about SEO.

Spread the word

By blogging, you’ll get audiences who’ll be reading on what you write about. And as visitors and other bloggers read other blogs as well, you get to have a certain influence on what they write about and talk about in their offline and online conversations (somehow Word of Mouth marketing, WOM).

Be Human

One thing about website startups is that they want to portray that they’re a large corporation, however, they do forget the human side of things. To gain popularity there must somehow be a emotional connection, where in the website must feel human. By Blogging, it shows the human side of the website by giving them a feel of what it was like developing the website, as well as, showing them a preview of what it was like working on the project.

Update your visitors

By updating your visitors on what’s new on your website, you’re able to gain awareness on certain functions that you find unused or any new functions or features that you’ve implemented. It’s good for the website as it could potentially increase the time spent of a user of your website by having more to interact with.

Feedback

The most important part of all, which is feedback. There are times we think that we’re doing great things for the website (you’ve got to admit that we all love our own ideas), but your users might think otherwise. It might be best to read what users comment on your blog to have at least a feel of what they think of your development. I usually comment myself on websites that I review to show them my views on what I think of the website. It could be done before, during and after implementing a change / or add new features.

However, try not to ALWAYS listen (One view doesn’t reflect the whole user base or it could just be a minority that comments in the blog). Just like in Facebook’s case in their redesigning of their homepage, users have made protests to the changes and it could just be that people are hostile to change (but not necessarily bad for the website). We all need to update and find new ways of getting users to stay longer (the longer they stay the higher potential revenues).

To be continued, on the next post…

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