Managed Corporate Blogs

(If you would rather read this at your leisure you can download it here)

There are now over 600 million blogs in existence. The majority are still of a personal nature but major corporations are increasingly making use of this exciting medium to promote themselves, to communicate with clients, employees and other stakeholders, and to increase their overall visibility on the internet through increased search engine exposure.

Very few SME's are taking advantage of this major opportunity and NetSecrets' Managed Blog service is intended to provide all the benefits of an effective corporate blog at an affordable price. SME's no longer need to miss out!

1.0 Software

We have selected TypePad as our preferred blogging software. It produces great looking blogs, can be fully customised to match the corporate style of the client's main web site, is very easy to use yet fully secure, and has advanced tools for building links to other blogs and gaining high search engine visibility. There is a modest monthly charge for using Typepad. We can set up your own individual account for you or, for a reduced cost, we can create a sub-account for you in NetSecrets' account.

2.0 Domain Names and Domain Mapping

To get maximum benefit in search engine visibility for your blog it can help if it is on a different domain to your main website. So you if you don't want to use blog.mydomain.co.uk or www.mydomain.co.uk/blog/ but rather www.mydomain-blog.co.uk we provide a suitable domain which will be mapped to your blog. Equally if you wish to maintain a closer relationship with your main site we can add your main domain to our DNS system and set up a sub-domain such as blog.mydomain.co.uk.

3.0 Customised Design

It is important that the graphic design of your blog matches and blends with the graphic design of your main website for consistency of branding. NetSecrets will provide a custom header and other matching elements for your blog to ensure a consistent image across your online resources.

4.0 Configuration Of Your Blog

TypePad has an impressive array of options for the configuration of your blog but, without extensive study, the range of choices can be bewildering. NetSecrets will go through key options with you, such as security settings, menu layouts, archiving options, typelists, etc. to ensure your blog is effective from day one in attracting visitors and providing them with a worthwhile experience.

5.0 Search Engine Marketing

Although the well known search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, index blogs there is almost a "parallel universe" of specialised resources for blogs, such as Technorati, del.icio.us, Digg, FeedBurner, and many more. NetSecrets will aggressively promote your blog in all appropriate media to bring traffic to your blog and thereby also benefit the rankings of your main web site.

6.0 Blog Content

In some cases the client will provide the posts for the blog but in many instances the need to provide regular stories and other content can prove difficult to a busy business owner. So we can post weekly or monthly content to your blog using our in house copywriters for a fixed monthly fee, leaving you free to add your own posts at the frequency you can manage.

7.0 Additional Training

NetSecrets will ensure that the client understands how to create posts to the blog and how to respond to comments. In most cases, due to the ease of use of TypePad, this will be sufficient to run the blog effectively. Where more in depth training is needed we can refer you to experienced IT trainers who can provide one-to-one or classroom sessions for you and your team.

8.0 Ongoing Support & Promotion

To ensure that the blog meets its objectives we offer an ongoing support and promotion service to monitor its effectiveness, identify improvements to your use of the blog, introduce new features, continue search promotion, and provide telephone and email response to user queries. This comprises an intensive service for the first three months after launch to "bed in" the blog and ensure it is running effectively, followed by a maintenance phase at reduced cost to maintain and steadily improve its effectiveness.

9.0 Costs (excluding VAT)

Monthly Fee for Shared TypePad Account: £10 or Annual Fee: £100
(Alternatively we can set up a dedicated Typepad account for a one-off setup fee of £50. Current fee, payable to Typepad, is $29.95 per month)

Registration Fee for Domain Names: .co.uk domain £9.99; .com domain £19.99 per 2 years
Domain Mapping and Forwarding: £15 per year

Customised Design: £250
Configuration Service: £250
Search Engine Marketing Setup: £250
NB: If Design, Configuration and Search Engine Marketing purchased together cost is £500

Intensive Support and Promotion: £100 per month (first 3 months)
Ongoing Support and Promotion: £50 per month (month 4 onwards)

Copywriting Service, 1 post per month: £50 per month
Copywriting Service, 1 post per week: £150 per month

(If you would like to keep a copy you can download it here)