Blogs are websites

The old-school way of thinking is that blogs are mickey-mouse versions of 'real' websites.
No more, and not in the future.

Blogs are displacing the classic website for a variety of compelling reasons.

The full-sized functionality of blog software, and the enormous uptake of the Open Source software movement opportunity, have made blogs directly compete with CMS - Content Management Software.

We've been using CMS to make easy-to-edit 'websites' for our clients. And guess what? Blogs ARE CMSes! They have many of the same features, and a lot of the underlying robustness required.

ContentRobot has some nice resources on this:
http://www.contentrobot.com/category/blogging/business-blogging

Mobility is one of the great technology themes of our time. Think about it - cellphones, laptops, the internets ... device location independence. Blogs equal mobility/independence of the authoring resource - it goes with you no matter where you are. A web browser, no proprietary software. Any time, any place.

Mobility - and democracy of use - are what will make blogs the indispensable replacement for the static web. Now your blog does what your business requires - not what the IT department has time for.

Landing pages: people aren't stupid.

I'm reviewing the results from a recent Marketing Experiments on-line 'diagnostic clinic' of some submitted test websites. They talk about a formula that encompasses visitor 'friction', 'anxiety', propositions ... all well and good.

What really stands out is the potential upside of paying attention to where you have people land on your website. And what they see when they arrive - 'Landing pages'

So there's the diligent research into keywords, phrases, categories and segments (right?), then the up-front come-on of the PPC ads, tailored to those categories ..... then .... pphhhht (that's the sound of those deflated expectations).

People aren't stupid. They expect the promise (ad) to deliver - with content that is not only relevant, but engaging to *them*. Not configuring landing pages to dovetail with the finely tuned visitor categories ... well, that's just silly. And wasteful of marketing dollars.

So really, how do you implement a landing page strategy?
What if you are using a CMS? Problem?
Who can best create / publish / test / the pages so they can be weeded out, just like an Adwords ad?

Stay tuned. We have some on-the-ground experience to pass on...