Starting and maintaining this blog has been, and continues to be, an education. When I first started, my concern was having enough to write about on a regular schedule.I first used stories from the famous story teller, Brian “Fox” Ellis and these went over well. I then talked about new products and new sources, but finally, as the writing instructors advise, I started to write what I know and that is the details of running this business.
Twelve years ago, when we created our first website, we were pioneers. Now we are one of millions of retail websites, but, in many ways, we are still unique. One of our main marketing techniques has been and continues to be “Search Engine Optimization” or SEO. To me, much of this is a black art comparable to alchemy in the middle ages, which claimed to turn base metals into gold. We have a very good marketing organization, Mountain Media, hosting and marketing our sites. As a result of their efforts, we enjoy very high key word page rankings with Google and other major search engines.
Mountain Media suggested that I start writing a blog to improve our website visibility and I did. This is when I discovered the problem and value of comments. Comments can be just that, a gratuitous entry either criticizing or applauding the particular blog post. Before we put in effective spam blocking software, we attracted hundreds of unrelated email comments touting some unrelated product or service, trying to piggy- back on our blog and website. Now the filtered comments that come through are mostly relevant and offer accolades, ask questions or just comment. Most come from other websites looking to improve their page rankings by commenting on our blog. Since this networking should also helps our page ranking, we mostly approve them. The only ones I have problems with are the blatantly named sites ( you know who you are). These I do not approve.
I am still learning and I appreciate comments on how I can do this blog better, but don’t try to sell me something.