But it doesn’t tell the whole story and it doesn’t appeal to everyone. We don’t all have the time or the inclination to sit and read an entire blog post. And sometimes it’s nice to see just who is writing this particular blog or website.

This is where the power of the video comes in. Video creates a connection between the reader and the presenter that simply isn’t there in the average blog post or article. The best approach used by some people is to record a video and then provide a shorter post underneath it that goes over the content given in the video. This works well because people then have a choice of which type of content to look at or read. Some will do both.

But people do have a fear of making videos. They worry over their appearance or whether people will enjoy them or not. But here’s the thing – it is incredibly important not to worry about appearance. Obviously you want to look reasonably neat and tidy, but you’ll do that anyway. The important thing is to actually get on your computer and to make your video. People aren’t going to tune in to see what you look like. They’re going to tune in to see what you have to say. The content of your video is far more important than what you look like. Even in the world of video presentations, content is still king.

So if you haven’t yet added any videos to your website, think about making the change and doing it now. It could be one of the best things you ever do, and it might just open your site up to a whole new audience. You’ve nothing to lose by trying.

But there are different types of content that can be added to a site. Most people opt for evergreen content – content that will always be relevant no matter when people read it. For example if you have a website about SEO, you’ll probably include some of the basics about good SEO practice that will always be relevant, even in several years time.

However while evergreen content has its place, don’t overlook timely content. This is newsworthy content that is relevant to now. This traditionally does well initially but then drops away as it is no longer news. You can probably see why you should add this to your plans to consistently update your website, because it can bring in good short term traffic for you as well.

The point is that if someone visits your site because they have found a link to a newsworthy topic, they might read it and then stay to see what else they can find. So you can use timely content to find new readers and to keep them coming back for more in the future.

The trick is to get the balance right between newsworthy, timely content and the evergreen content that people love so much. In a sense you’re giving people two different ways to find your website. But both types of people are likely to stay and read more once they are there, so you are improving your chances of finding more traffic.

If you don’t already provide timely content on your website, now is the time to do so. Make sure you appeal to as wide a readership as possible and see what happens.

Let’s think about what you want your customers to experience when they land on your site. You want them to be engaged and drawn in. But you don’t want the bells and whistles that some people feel they have to include. Think of an overuse of Flash or too much content packed into the page. These are the bells and whistles of the title. Sometimes you can have so much to choose from that you don’t want to miss out on any of it. This is understandable but you can end up scaring away the very people you drew to your site in the first place.

If you have ever heard the saying ‘less is more’ you will know where we are coming from. Good web design is all about knowing what matters and knowing what doesn’t. This might change to a certain degree from site to site, depending on the audience you are targeting. But in many cases simplicity beats complexity more often than you might think.

How many times have you visited a website only to find that you feel bombarded by information the moment you arrive? The webmaster is clearly eager for you to know everything there is to know right from the start. But their eagerness can put you off staying for any length of time at all.

Don’t underestimate the chances of this happening with your site. Make sure you enlist the help of professionals like Ratio7 to prevent that overload situation from occurring. The bells and whistles might be tempting to you, but they will put off anyone who makes it to your home page. You want visitors – either for clicking your ads or buying your products or services. Don’t send them away through eagerness.

Search engine optimisation is a vital part of any website. If you put good SEO practices into play, it’s like holding up a brightly coloured flag and waving it at the search engines saying ‘Hey! I’m over here!’ By attracting their attention you can look forward to being seen and being listed – perhaps more highly – in their search results.

The truth is that a basic knowledge of SEO will be sufficient for most people to start getting results with their website. It starts with ensuring your site is built in the right way. While you can build your own website these days, there are successful web designers around for a reason. They can often make light work of a task that might take you weeks to complete, if not months – especially where SEO comes into it. A solidly built website will always appeal more readily to the search engines, and since you want to be found it makes sense that you would want to start right.

Some people understand the basics of SEO more easily than others. In truth it is reasonably easy to pick up the basics. It pays to think about it in two different ways. Your SEO efforts must appeal to the search engines so you can be listed appropriately, and you should also appeal to your actual visitors, so they can find you for the best and most appropriate terms. This should make life easier for you, so bear this in mind when it comes to learning the ropes.

The good news is that if SEO completely escapes you, you can always enlist the services of Ratio7 to help you out. If you aren’t getting the results you would like to get from your SEO efforts, perhaps it is time to consider such a service.

How true that is. But lots of people will stride out into the early days of 2012 and follow that adage without even realising it. It might be that your business didn’t achieve what you wanted it to during 2011. No worries – that year has passed and what’s done is done. But now you have a new opportunity to do something different to change the results you got before. Will you do it?

Sitting down and making plans to change things is one thing. But you have to put those plans into action to achieve the alternative results you want. Set dates for these goals so you are accountable to them. Don’t just decide you want a new overhaul of your website so you can earn more from it in the coming year. Decide when you want to do it and start looking for a company that can help you achieve this new goal.

Lots of us start the New Year with resolutions of one kind or another. But you don’t have to carry on down the usual path of forgetting all about them and falling back into your old habits by February 1st. Seize the opportunity to do something new and worthwhile with your business. Do something you’ve never done before – you might be surprised at the results you get.

Breaking out of your usual pattern can be difficult. But planning for changes is the best way to achieve it. If you’re not convinced, look back on the plans you had in the past. Do you still feel they were the best you were capable of? Perhaps they were at that time, but you’re a different person now. Your business might have progressed too. New plans for the future are a good gift to give to you for 2012, so don’t waste the opportunity to make the most of them starting from today onwards.

Even if you have reluctantly admitted that your blog fits better in the second category than the first, it’s not too late to do something about it. There is an affliction in blogging that we might call shiny new blog syndrome. When your blog is new you want to blog on it all the time. It’s exciting, thrilling and has the potential to be a money spinner.

But eventually you get bored with it, probably because it isn’t making the kind of progress you wanted it to. The problem is that most people give up way too soon. It’s only by blogging regularly that you can hope to produce a blog that will enhance your business or simply make money for you in itself.

Think about this for a moment. Let’s say there are two similar businesses in the same line of work and they each have a blog. One has ten blog posts on it, whereas the other one has a hundred. This means the second blog has ten times as many ways to attract visitors as the first blog. The more posts are added the more chance there is to get the stream of visitors wanted in the first place.

Do you see how this works? Regularity is half the battle when it comes to blogging. If you are consistent and you continually add new posts, the search engines will see your blog is current and rank it higher accordingly. In addition to this you’ll have more ways to attract an audience – and that audience could end up going into your sales funnel to produce more sales in the future.

The trick is to get past the shiny new blog syndrome and reach a stage where regular blogging is a habit. Once you’re there you can look forward to the real rewards from blogging – rewards that will continue to pay dividends long into the future. Isn’t it worth persevering with regular posts?

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

The Ratio7 Team.

Here’s an example for you to consider. Lots of people make the mistake of getting their businesses online and then doing nothing more to develop or enhance them. But if you stand still you end up going backwards, because other businesses will be working hard to try and pass you. If you’ve been guilty of this during 2011 don’t worry – you could change things and be pro-active during 2012. You just have to take that first step in the right direction.

If you don’t yet have a website to promote your business, you can make that your goal for 2012. If you do have a website, make now the time to take a closer look at it to see whether you can improve on it for the New Year. Lots of people think that developing their business means pouring lots of money into it. But this simply isn’t the case. Don’t equate money with development – equate pro-active thinking with development instead. That’s the beauty of working online – you can easily think about different things to do to make your business better for the New Year.

The worst thing to do would be to sit back and carry on doing as you’ve been doing in the past. Many of us will have New Year’s Resolutions for January 1st and beyond. We might want to lose weight or kick a bad habit. But many more would like to have an online business they can earn money from and be proud of. If you have one already, make sure you construct a solid development plan for the New Year. Whatever the financial climate might be, you’ll feel better and earn more if you do.

Multiple revenue streams are always the best way to earn money. Even in a good economic climate if you only rely on one revenue stream and it disappears, you’ll be in dire straits very quickly indeed. Fortunately the internet enables you to earn lots of revenue streams if you put the time and effort into setting them up in the first place.

But when one of those streams dries up, it can still be disappointing. The question you have now is what you will replace it with. The first step is to find out how much cash you will lose each month from not having that revenue stream in place. This is the amount you will need to replace to get the same level of income back again. Of course if you can replace it with more cash, so much the better.

Think about whether you want to replace the lost income in the same way. For example you may have lost an advertising contract on your blog or website. Do you want to replace it with another advertising agreement or do you want to do something else instead? You might want to add reviews of certain products in the hope of earning affiliate income from them for example.

The most important thing is to brainstorm as many ideas as possible as you try to find an alternative stream of income. The great thing about this is that you can usually find more than one idea to put into action.

Have you ever heard the saying that when a door is closed a window is opened somewhere else? Think of this as shutting a door and opening two windows. Or possibly three – you just never know. But the best thing is that where one income stream has disappeared, there are always others lurking around waiting to take its place.