WHY BLOG?

Blogs allow you to communicate and build an audience through online media.

In this package, we’ll teach you to direct that audience traffic to your website to improve your SEO (search engine optimization – or getting more highly ranked on search engines like Google) and how to convert that traffic into sales. Your blog can also be used to supplement your website, promote events or add new information online immediately.

BENEFITS

• Once a blog is set up, it’s free to post messages, update your products or services, add new photos, offer ideas to your readers or use the many tools available in blogging.

• You’ll be able to add information without paying expensive programming costs. Your blog posts will be indexed by Google enabling worldwide readers to find you. If your blog is housed on your website it will also benefit your Search Engine Optimization.

• We’ve spent decades finding and testing the best talent at the best price to bring our clients the expert blogging teams. Our marketing & communications expertise is delivered through supervision of each project, offering your guidance throughout the process.

• Developing readership and content is an art which varies for each business. Like any marketing communications it must be developed for the blog media: a culture of sharing information without overt promotion. So, to benefit your company’s marketing, we provide one hour of content advising and editorial calendar planning to guide you in this area, as part of this package. (*additional consulting is billed at $150.hr)

• Building a blog requires planning, technical set up, design selection, and then adding your content or photos. We’ll also provide a standard one hour of training to teach you how to add or make changes to your blog. Most people really can learn to use their blog in our standard one hour tutorial.

• A blog, like a website, is hosted on a domain. We can set that up for you once your credit card information is provided. [Domain registration and hosting for a new site are charged to the client’s credit card. Includes feed validation for blog and podcast. All passwords and access information provided to client.]

BLOG PACKAGE

• Set up and configure your blog with technical requirements (see below**)
• Guidance & recommendations to narrow your design choices (1/2 hr. limit) – choose from 1,000 designs!
• Tutorial (1 hr. limit) on adding text, images, links, making changes and managing your blog. Most people can learn to use their blog in just one hour. If you wish additional training time, we can provide that through additional support services (see below).
• marketing & editorial consultation to advise you on the best use of your blog and how to integrate it with other marketing efforts.

Added benefit – marketing & editorial consultation

• Expert Marketing Consultation is included in this package
• We can advise you how to find licensed images to purchase, if you need those.
• We have literally hundreds of resources to help you – from instructional articles to social media tools!

COST: $800

Payment schedule: $500 paid up front; $300 paid upon completion

Want additional support?

Additional consultation, content development or writing, design selection are billed a $150/hour. Additional Advanced Blogging Tutorials: $150/hr.

HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE?

We’ve built blogs in 3 business days, once the content and images were provided. The total time depends on how much additional support you need from our teams for selecting your design or developing content. You should allow a week from your initial delivery of information so we can schedule your blogging tutorial within that time frame, too.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

**Hosting Requirements for Blogging & Podcasting

Domain Name

You should have complete control over your own domain name. Some web hosts offer to register the domain name for you, but they don’t give you separate control of it, and they may create problems about moving the domain to a different hosting company. It’s best to be able to control your own domains. We recommend Blue Host ($6.95/mo.) or GoDaddy.com. If you already have a domain that supports a wordpress blog, we’ll need full user name and password access to configure, build, upload and test your blog.

**WordPress Installation and Configuration: $500

Install commonly-used plugins (for podcasting, video, backups, AdSense, etc) on your website.

Configuring special plugins (like forums and e-commerce) requires additional time at $175/hr.

**Custom WordPress Theme Design: $500-$750

There are thousands of free blog designs, or ‘themes’, as they’re called in blogs, but you may still want something unique to your own blog. Theme design can be designed to match your main website if the blog or podcast is for a business.

Website need an update? Ask about seamless blog integration and easy updating. Prices are estimated depending on your exact requirements.

The clearer idea you have of what you want (how many columns, what kind of colors and fonts, images for the header or background, etc), the easier and less expensive this process is.

Extras for Podcasters:

iTunes, Album Art, Comment Lines

iTunes & Directories: $225

Submit your podcast feed to iTunes and add 1-click subscribe button to podcast website. Submit podcast to Zune Marketplace. Register podcast with the Podcast Alley directory.

Podcast Album Art: $225

Based on your existing logo or theme design. In 600 x 600, 300 x 300, and 144 x 144 pixel jpg files.

Phone Lines: $225

Set up K7 or Kall8 listener comment line to send recorded comments to the podcaster. Set up PhoneCasting and/or FoneShow so that people can hear the podcast by phone. (Not recommended for shows longer than 30 minutes per episode.) Incorporate these numbers into the podcast theme