I hope regular readers are not put off by the new blog layout. I am not very technically minded which is why blogging software works well for me, it is so easy to use. Having said that I look at friends who blog with wordpress or typepad which seem to integrate much more easily to produce a whole website.
This is Nicola’s typepad site on the Kesurokai Japanese woodworking exchange. http://nicolawood.typepad.co.uk/kesurokai/
Last year Nicola set me up a sales blog as a gallery page, it was integrated into the main site and needed a bit of deep delving into the HTML code to fit it in there but once done I could update it as easily as editing a blog post.
Now we have moved on a little and Nicola has reworked the blog to give it similar branding to my website and made it wider too, I am not sure why blogger standard settings are narrow but I like it a little wider. Most important though up at the top you will see tabs to click on to take you to my bowl gallery blog (updated with my current for sale bowls last night and 3 are off to Denmark in this mornings post) Also there is a link to our woodcarving courses and the main website.
I have no idea how hard or technical it was to set those tabs up but I am now much happier and no longer left envying my wordpress chums. Blogs are great ways of connecting with like minded folk and sharing but if you run a business it is good for your readers to jump easily to whatever it is you make. I run at between 250 and 500 blog visits a day at the moment, I enjoy it when folk make comments in the comment box at the bottom or drop me emails. Most of our carving courses are fully booked and the bowls seem to sell as soon as I put them in the gallery but I think it is important to make it easy for folk to see what you do. If you don’t show your work and tell folk how much it costs it takes a pretty dedicated customer to buy from you.
