I’m trying to find ways to promote my virtual office service on the net… and its a bit of a learning curve… alot of sites … like boards.ie have rules that you can’t promote your business… ( in my opinion it may be of interest to people asking questions about starting a business in Ireland.).. so whats a person to do… is it just a matter of finding any free listing site (directories) that you can and submitting details… any tips on which ones are good… popular etc… any feed back would be welcome.. ( this is my first reply on any ‘blog’ … so be nice : ) ..

cheers
DK

I’d agree with everything you’ve said except for one point:
“Businesses that use domain names to describe what they do instead of using a company name”

You seem to view this negatively and I would have to disagree with you. I’d generally encourage people (and companies) to register semantic domains instead of using hard to spell or awkward company names.

As long as the company / business lists their contact details I don’t see any good reason for them not using a domain name that describes what they do.

Or maybe I misunderstood you?

Michele

I think a lot of people are a bit intimidated by blogging, especially when they try to link it to an online identity, whether personal or professional.

It is good to see you opening up a discussion on such a relatively new medium.

Still we have to be carefull of the “UTV Effect” – when they first joined the dialup market they were very interactive with customers both in their own fora and on Boards. As they grew they became less and less interactive and became more like an incumbent.

This “volte-face” lost them a shocking amount of goodwill.

I agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying.

Only last week I was at an IIA/County Enterprise Board seminar on ‘new media’. While the speakers were excellent from my point of view (I know what a blog is, and don’t run a business) they all made the point that businesses should have blogs, but only touched on how to go about it from either a technical or a practical point of view.

The whole issue of keywords and such stems from a simplistic over-hyping of SEO. Yes, search engines may love keyword laden blogs, but users certainly don’t.