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Using Your Blog for Your Website and Ecommerce
August 12, 2009 Andy Wibbels, Six Apart
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Andy Wibbels
• Trainer and product manager at Six Apart
• Author of Blogwild: A Guide to Small Business Blogging
• Blogs at – ‘Real’ blog
andywibbels.com – Random microblog:
cutesexyfunnyawful.com – Ranty personal blog at
andymaCc.com
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Agenda
• Blogs vs. Websites
• Common Myths About Blogs • Demo: Building a Site with TypePad • Adding Ecommerce to Your Blog
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Blog vs. Website
• You read blogs every day and may not know it
• To your customers the technology is secondary • StaCc website
– Poor SEO – WaiCng/paying for designers for every update – WaiCng/paying for IT staff for every upgrade
• You don’t need a website
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h6p://la:mesblogs.la:mes.com/
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h6p://www.wagreflex.com/
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h6p://www.nesn.com/
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h6p://www.be6erwatersolu:ons.co.uk/
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h6p://www.charingkent.co.uk/
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h6p://www.cardsbyginashaw.com/
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h6p://blog.madsencycles.com//
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h6p://blog.madsencycles.com//
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Some Popular Myths
• Blogs are just personal points of view (rants, etc) • Blogs look unprofessional • Blogs take too much Cme
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How to Create a Site in TypePad
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Load in Your Content
• Add some posts
• Create a Page for each part of the site – Welcome – About Us – Products – Contact
• Domain map the blog • Customize the design…
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A default TypePad theme
‘Journal, Black’ template with a few posts loaded in and pages made for Welcome, About, Buy and Contact.
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<< Add horizontal navbar.
Page 18 << Add footer to the bo6om
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<< Set the ‘homepage’ to our Welcome page
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<< The blog is s:ll accessible.
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Change to single column…
…with sidebars underneath.*
*tutorial on the way!
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Add a custom banner!
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Change styles of navbar.
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Add a custom background >>>
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Increase font size for body text.
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What’s Next?
• Once you’ve got the site up and running you sCll need to be able to: – Generate leads – Build customer database – Drive sales – Fulfill orders – Integrate with other tools and third‐party services – Connect to the social web
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Generate Leads
h6p://typepad.com/one/typepad‐services.html
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Build Customer Database
h6p://andywibbels.com/
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h6p://formspring.com/
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h6p://freshbooks.com/ discount code TYPEPAD1
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h6p://togo.ebay.com/
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h6p://checkout.google.com/sell
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h6p://paypal.com/
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PayPal Storefront Widget
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h6p://bit.ly/add‐etsy
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h6p://www.sixapart.com/typepad/widgets/
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Get Started! hcp://typepad.com/ Use code: AW610 (10% off for life)
Complete archives of the series: h6p://typepad.com/small‐business‐blogs/
h6p://sixapart.com/adver:sing/ h6p://www.typepad.com/one/