This is a guest post by Bailey Digger, she writes on the topic of web design degrees.

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Much of the talk on the web today is centered around the fact that business websites seem to be becoming obsolete; what with social media taking over the online world, do people even need their own sites in order to promote their businesses and sell their products and services?

Isn’t it enough to just establish a presence on Facebook and/or Twitter and try to interest at least a few of the 500 billion people with profiles in their products and services?

Not really, because while social media is a great marketing tool, it cannot replace your company website which provides your organization with uniqueness, credibility and form. So the best thing to do is to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media to drive customers to your main website, from which you can continue to interact with them.

Most small businesses or freelancers use blogs as their main website, and if you belong to this category, you must remember to do the following:

  • Ensure that the About section is clear and concise – it should contain a short yet unambiguous description about your site, about what you do for a living, and about the kind of business you hope to achieve through your blog.
  • Organize your content into sections, each of which relates to different aspects of your business.
  • Ensure that your blog entries are consistent with the events of your business – it may be a blog, but that’s no reason to bring your personal life into it. If you want to use your blog as a journal, do so under a different profile and id.
  • Respond to user comments honestly and promptly.
  • Use your blog to promote events and launches, to invite job offers and to connect to your customers.
  • Don’t use your blog to spam other blogs or to badger customers – send out emails only to those who sign up to receive them, and make newsletters and other promotional email as an opt-in rather than an opt-out service so as to avoid being labeled as spam.

The trouble with using blogs as your main business site is that many of your visitors don’t really understand what your business is and what you’re offering them by way of products or services.

So the best thing to do would be to get a website of your own with a separate section for a blog which you can use to update visitors and customers about your policies, innovations and events. If you cannot afford to host your own site, stick to your blog, but make it as businesslike as you possibly can.

By-line:

This guest post is contributed by Bailey Digger, she writes on the topic of web design degrees . She welcomes your comments and you can contact her by email: baileydigger189(@)gmail(.)com.

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