Your website should be like building a fire: agree or disagree?

I get a lot of questions from people asking if they should use a blog and/or social media as a part of their business.  And I give them a resounding, "YES"!!!  

Your website should be like building a fire.  The bigger the fire, the more noticeable it is from afar, and the more people will come to it to get the benefits of a nice warm fire.

If you want a fire to be visible from a distance, you should throw on as much wood as possible.  But, you start small with kindling and grow it larger with bigger pieces of wood.  Having a blog component on your website (I recommend using WordPress for your blog and website) is like adding more sticks to your fire.  A fire won't grow larger if you build it once and set it aside.  That's the old model of web design.  But Google has changed the rules, in that you need to be putting new content on your website.  You need to keep throwing wood on the fire, in order for it to grow and get noticed.  You should be blogging at least once per week.  Write about things that interest you, recent trends, or answer questions.  Find out what people want to know (Google Keyword Tools) and craft content to answer their questions.  The more blog posts (wood) you put on your website (fire), the larger the reach your website (fire) will have.  

The same is true with social media.  The more you interact with others, the more "wood" you'll add to your fire".  Before you know it, you've added a LOT of wood to your fire, and people from all over will notice you and come.  

So go ahead, create some content (blogs, videos, media, etc) and put it on your website.  Create a schedule if you need to...just don't let your "fire" die down so no one sees it.  You'll be amazed at how people (and Google) will reward you for adding content to your website.

How do you build your website and continually "add to the fire"?

Jeff Long

"Helping you take your message to the masses through media"