If neither you nor your staff have web development chops, you’ll likely be searching for a designer that can build you a site from scratch.  A well designed website is a great asset, but business-wise, hiring help from the outside can pose a few problems.

Mainly, it can be expensive.  And while the initial investment in a good looking, functional site is well worth it, the second issue is that websites (and your business) will change.  If your website is custom built, you’ll have to go back through the designer (if he or she is still available) to make updates — and it may cost you each time.

If you like to be in control of your web presence at all times, and save some money in the process, consider the advantages of using an online blogging platform as your company’s main website.  Here are some of the pros.

Attractive Design

A hosted blog with the right theme or template can look as good as a custom website.  Whether your platform is WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, or Posterous, there are plenty of well-designed (and often free) themes you can download, plug in, and customize easily.

Some customization resources include:

- Wordpress Theme Directory
- Deluxe Templates for Blogger
- Tumblr Theme Garden
- Posterous Themes

If you really need something that’s one-of-a-kind, ask your web designer to build you a blog theme instead of a static website.  This way, you’ll have a custom site that you can update yourself for the long term.

No need for web hosting services

While web hosting for static pages is relatively inexpensive these days, accounts on these blogging platforms are absolutely free, and all of your data is stored on the web.

Creation and updates are free and easily accessible

Blog accounts are free to register and easy to maintain via the web.  Like web e-email, anyone on your team with a login and password can access and update your site as needed.

Updates don’t require coding or developers

Once your blog site is in place, making changes and updates doesn’t require any technical skill.  Simply add a post, edit a post, or re-arrange your layout.

A platform for dynamic content is built right into your site

Even if your business model is fairly straightforward, and doesn’t require a lot of community engagement, it’s still a good idea to publish something every now and then to let customers, employees, and investors know what’s up.

Even if it’s just a re-hash of your monthly newsletter, some dynamic content on your “Internet Storefront” reminds visitors that your team is still hard at work behind the scenes.

If your business is ready to take the next step toward social media engagement, it’s very easy to add Twitter widgets, Facebook Fan Page badges, and other items that will connect your website to your social campaigns.

Important things to know

If all these advantages make sense for your business, there’s still a bit of homework to be done before you take the blog-site plunge.  Take note of these guidelines to ensure your website meets the professional standards of your business.

Learn a bit of HTML

While most of the functionality that makes blogging platforms easy and fun to use is baked right in, knowing the basics of HTML will go a long way to ensuring that your site will look and read the way you intend it to.

WordPress actually has a static front page feature built into its settings, making it one of the best options for a business site.

Unfortunately, the other blogging platforms mentioned above do not yet have this functionality, but you can “trick” them into creating a front page.  Simply add a blog post and date it years in the future.  Thus, it will always be the “newest” post, and always appear at the top of your site.

Matt Silverman

Your Twitter follower count doesn’t mean a hill of beans. The original purpose of ‘follower-count’ was to give Twitter users a quick and simple way to gauge their audience. It allows you to see how many individuals you are following, and how many individuals are following you back. Unfortunately, something terrible happened. People learned tips on how to game the system to inflate their follower-counts.

Users started taking advantage of auto-follow services to swiftly create fake relationships. The basic idea is: if you follow someone, they’ll auto-follow you back providing you still follow them. This works for a while, providing both participants maintain a practical amount of relationships.

Unfortunately, both parties repeat this process until they are following so many people they cannot reasonably maintain. Everybody is in it solely to get their own message out. Its like entering a stadium full of shouting people, in an attempt to have your message heard.

The real you comes out on Twitter, and you are not fooling anyone. Now, clearly people who use this tactic feel their is some motivation for doing so. Here are two potential reasons why they may think this strategy pays off. First, they may think Twitter is just all about the numbers. If they get thousands of followers, maybe a few will actually listen to what they have to say. Second, they may think that having a high follower count acts a social proof to make them appear important. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.

Folks that use Twitter to form real business relationships can instantly spot this phony behavior. These are people who actually want to network, and would make excellent business contacts. However, they instantly lose all respect for auto-followers when they spot their follow-stats.

In other words, the people who make the best business contacts ignore users engaging in this behavior. Nothing screams networking-amateur louder than someone trying to take advantage the system for private gain. And, in a world where respect is hard to come by, this is a big reputation killer.

Wondering building real substantial relationships in Twitter? If you want to build relationships with like-minded people, you need to focus on quality over quantity. Ignore your follower stats for a while, and focus on connecting with people who share your small business goals. You may not have a massive audience, but you’ll have greater influence within your network of true followers.

written by Dawn Jennings