by Todd Lucier on January 8, 2010
1. Add a Feedburner Subscription Box. Make it easy for your readers to subscribe to your posts by email. Over time, you subscriber list will grow. Think of your blog as an ongoing E-newsletter. Burn the feed for your blog at Feedburner.google.com and monitor your blog stats. Use the free widget to publicize your blog with an email subscription form.
2. Make your blog searchable. Having a Search Box on your blog makes it easier for folks to find content that you may have written about in the past. Search on my blog is also useful to me. I use search when writing my blog to quickly find and link to relevant articles I’ve written in the past.
3. Add a Facebook Fan Box. Alright, I know this blog doesn’t have a Facebook Fan box, but that’s because I don’t have a Facebook Fan Page. Most Tourism businesses and regions are different in this regard – AT LEAST THEY SHOULD BE. If you don’t have a Facebook Fan Page stop reading this post and build a Fan Page. Read this post on the number of Canadians who use Facebook with some great charts showing how popular Facebook is these days in Canada! Then check out this post and add a Facebook Fan Box to your Blog (updated).
4. Make your blog social by adding a Google Friend Connect Box that encourages your fans to connect with a Google, Yahoo! or Twitter. I also recommend TwitterCounter.com Widget that is pretty nifty way of connecting your Twitter Community. It shows the Twitter folks who have recently visited.
5. Add a Disqus Commenting System. The heart and soul of any blog is the conversation that takes place with readers. Disqus Commenting System is a fav because it makes it easy for readers to comment with whatever social profile they prefer. It also allows Guest Commenting.
6. Allow Guest Commenting. OK, I admit it, this one is a pet peave. I often come across blog posts that get me excited about commenting and they limit commenting to members! PLEASE make it easier to comment by using a comment management tool and permit guest comments. Comment spam takes a bit of time, but its a sacrifice your readers want you to make.
7. Visit your Blog Guests. Your readers often have an online life too! Follow them on twitter, visit their facebook pages, read their blogs and comment on their Web sites. It’s just good karma and will help you grow of a wider community of fans and friends. One of the reasons I enjoy Twitter and FriendConnect widgets is it makes it easy to click over and see what my visitors up to.
8. Draft a new About Page. This is really high on my list of things to do for our tourism Web site as well as my blog. What better time to consider what makes your blog tick than the turning of a new year. Start by taking a few moments to answer three important questions.
- Who are you writing for? Think about who your readers are, what interests them and why they might subscribe to your blog.
- What topics do care about? What kind of writing or multimedia content do you focus on?
- What makes you tick? What gets you excited?
9. Make it easy to contact you. Determine an action you want your readers to take if they want to connect, then provide the contact points that you want folks to use. For most tourism industry folk providing access to your email address and phone number are critical, but consider also providing links to your Google Profile and other social networking profiles if you want folks to connect with you there. If you have a Google account, you may also want to add a simple Google Docs Web form to collect incoming requests for more information.
10. Feature Guests and Link to Others. If you see something that you think your readers would be interested in, link to it. If you see someone doing something interesting in your community, quote them or invite them to join you for an audio podcast. Writing about or featuring others on your blog can expand your audience by appealing to the audience members of your featured guests. One of my favourite things to do is record Skype conversations with Audio Hijack Pro and post them on my blog.
Supercharge your blog in 2010
Choose one of these ideas that is new for you and spend a bit of time this week adding it to your blog. Your fans and readers will thank you for it.
Got any ideas to add? What are you doing to supercharge your blog in 2010?
by Todd Lucier on November 30, 2009
In less than a day you can have a great mobile-ready Website that delivers all the content you need to satisfy the needs of your iPhone and other smartphone carrying guests before, during and after their visit to your region.
Why ensure your content looks good on a handheld?
- 60% of the world’s population have a cell phone. (3.1 Billion cell phone contracts)
- Cell phone users replace their phones every 18 months; the vast majority of new phones are smartphones.
- 91% of cell phone users have their phone within arms reach 24/7; providing users with impulse access to Web content during the “in-between moments” in a day.
- listen to podcast episode with Hilton VP on the explosive growth in handheld sales for the hotel chain.
WordPress.com blogs are automatically optimized for iPhone and Google Android phones; another reason why it’s time you started blogging with WordPress.
Make your WordPress blog a fully functioning iPhone-ready and Android phone-ready Website without worrying at all about being a code monkey.
Create an account at WordPress.com and add a blog. Treat your blogsite as a free iPhone-ready and Android-ready Web site. Both phones use the Webkit engine that powers Safari Web browsers and these phones will co-rule the handheld landscape along with Blackberry. Soon Blackberry is expected to join the Webkit/Safari browser handheld crowd too.
Get your mobile site started with the right content on a WordPress blog
Choose a Theme and Banner
It doesn’t matter what theme you choose, just pick one that has space for a banner image.
Banner Image: In the theme settings for your blog choose a banner image. Give your Blog your Business Name as it’s title and include your main phone number in the Tagline setting on the General Settings tab for your blog. Remember viewers may be looking at your site on their phone. Your phone number will automatically be a link, allowing your iPhone/Android site user to click the number to dial you with their phone!
Create Permanent Pages you think handheld device users and blog readers will appreciate:
- About us: Include Contact Info.
- Check Availability: Consider using a page with a Google Webform.
- Link to your TripAdvisor page: Encourage guests to write a review from the road when they check out.
- Map: Embed a Google Map on this page. (iPhone users can click on the map to link out of the blog to iPhone Maps app)
- Seasonal Rates: iPhone or handheld specials?
- FAQ’s: Include things to do en route
- Media: On iPhone, Audio Podcasts can play in iTunes app, Youtube Videos open in the Youtube app and photo libraries on Flickr or Picasaweb can open in their handheld media format. Be sure to link to your favourite picture folder on Flickr.com or Picasaweb.com
Flickr Photo Page looks great on iPhone:
Turn on the Mobile Theme for your WordPress Blog
By default, the mobile version of your site is on, but check just to make sure.
On the Appearance tab click on Extras.
On the Extras page, Display a mobile theme box should be checked.
What happens now?
When viewing your WordPress.com blog on iPhone or Google Android device your new WordPress blog site automatically renders beautifully with WPtouch theme by BraveNewCode. W0rdpress.org (self-hosted blog) users can choose from a few plug-ins to render your site for iPhone (WPTouch among them). A nice feature of WPtouch is that users can choose to turn it off and access the full version of your website simply by switching the mobile on/off switch at the bottom of each page.
Publicize your iPhone Page
As with the regular WordPress view of your blog, the site home page of your site shows the most recent posts first. The permanent pages-list at http://YourURL.wordpress.com/?pages-list is a great page to link to from your existing Web site as the iPhone or mobile version of your Web site. Consider treating this pages-list page as your mobile home page.
Ask your guests to bookmark the iPhone blog version of your Website on their iPhone.
Pages list view of your blog on iPhone:
The Drop Down list in the upper right corner of the iPhone site brings up:
- a search box,
- home page
- links to permanent pages,
- post archives.
Special Pages for YOUR Ideal Guests:
No one knows the needs of your guest better than you (except your guests themselves). Create pages you know your ideal guest will appreciate. Imagine for instance that bus tours are a key market segment for you. Consider a page dedicated to the guests traveling on the bus. Give the link to travel trade and have them include it in literature to your bus-traveling mobile phone toting guest so that they can view your content en route.
Get Blogging!
There you have it: A free iPhone-ready, Android-ready version of your Website; another great reason to have a free WordPress.com blog for your tourism business.
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