User Guide

This documentation aims to provide you with a general overview of your LocalBizBlogs account. The fastest way to get answers to your questions is by posting a question on the community discussion forum. You may also contact LBB Support through the message center in your Dashboard.

1. The Anatomy of a BizBlog
2. Business Profile
3. Blog
4. Tools
5. Business Attributes
6. Dashboard

The Anatomy of a BizBlog (top)

A BizBlog is divided into five sections: Business Profile, Blog, Tools, Attributes, and Dashboard.

• Business Profile (top)

  A Business Profile contains all the basic information about your business, including: name, contact, location, a map, and business hours.

  • 
  • Business Name The name of your business.
  • Description A basic description of your business - who you are and what you do. Summarize your specialties, and mention key aspects of your business.
  • Address Your business' address - it can be your business's physical location, a location where you conduct business (like in the case of a street vendor), or the town or city where you conduct business. The MAPS button links this address to a Google map.
  • Phone / Fax Contact numbers for voice and data.
  • Contact this Business A link to your email address, allows visitors to contact you directly via email.
  • View Website A link to your existing website, if applicable.
  • Maps A Google map to your Address.
  • Hours If your business runs a regular schedule, you can post its hours of operation here. You can set hours for each day, Sunday through Saturday, including days on which you are not open.
    If you don't have a set schedule of hours, only check "My business does not have daily hours" - and "Available by appointment only" will be displayed to visitors.

• Blog (top)

  Many businesses use blogs to engage with customers in ways not possible with traditional advertising, and to boost their online presence by building a body of content that relates to their business. LocalBizBlogs provides you with an easy to use publishing platform for incorporating a blog into your business's marketing strategy, reaching people on a more personal level.

  What is a Blog? (taken from WikiPedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog)

  A Blog, short for "Web Log", is generally known to be a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order (newest to oldest).

  Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs.

  • 
  • Posts
    • Posts are individual entries of content consisting of a title and body. A collection of posts makes up a blog. Posts are often referred to as blog posts. Think of posts as blank canvases for your business' content.
    • To create a new post, simply add the + new post link on your blog. This will provide you with a simple interface with which to add rich content to your new post.
    • All posts can be modified or deleted.
      • If you've changed your mind about a post, and would like to remove it, simply click the delete icon in the upper right hand corner of your post.
      • If you'd like to make a change, simply click the pencil icon to edit your post.
  • Post Features
    • Title
      • The Title (or subject) of your post is displayed in large, bold text on your blog, as well as on your RSS feed. We recommend choosing a title that will grab your visitor's attention while still remaining relevant to the content of the post.
    • Body
      • The body is the primary area of your post, where content is added. Use the built-in rich-text editor to format your text and create links, or add images, videos and custom HTML.
    • BlogTags
      • BlogTags provide you with a simple way to categorize the contents of your posts, allowing visitors to quickly find what they are looking for. Like to share recipes on your blog? Tag your recipe-related posts with 'recipe' and provide your visitors with one-click access to all the shared recipes inside your blog. But don't stop there - the more relevant tags you add, the more accessible your posts become.
      • Separate BlogTags with commas. For example, a pumpkin pie recipe might be tagged as pumpkin pie, recipe, dessert
    • Comments
      • A way for visitors to leave feedback on a particular post, allowing for a two-way conversation with customers. Because comments are publicly available, and allow anonymous input, you have direct access to delete any inappropriate comments.
      • At times, comments can be blunt or even critical of your business. It's important to remember that all bloggers receive negative comments, and they are expected to increase as a blog grows. Negative comments can provide valuable insight into your customers' needs and wants, and how well you are meeting them. Use negative comments as an opportunity to address their concerns, and thank the reader for their input. Never delete them. These comments prove the authenticity of your blog and make its content more interesting.
      • When creating a post, you can choose whether or not to enable comments for that post by un-checking the checkbox next to "Enable comments for this post?" LocalBizBlogs strongly suggests you enable comments for all posts.
    • Excerpts
      • When creating very lengthy posts you can choose to display them as excerpts. Excerpted posts will display only a portion of the entire post on the root page of your BizBlog, and the full post can be viewed by clicking the (more) link. This is useful for keeping your blog tidy and easy to navigate, and to prevent longer entries from hiding older entries.
    • Post Types
      • There are two types of posts, published and drafts.
      • Published posts are immediately displayed in your blog and RSS feed. They can be updated, changed to a draft, or deleted at anytime.
      • Saving a post as a draft allows you to store and refine your thoughts until you're ready to publish them. Drafts are not shown to the public and are only displayed when you are logged in.
      • Both drafts and published posts are displayed in the order in which they were created.
      • While logged in, you can sort posts by their type. By default, all posts will be displayed. To display only certain post types, just click the published or draft links, next to the "+ new post" button. This allows you to quickly see what posts are currently being displayed on your blog, and what posts you're currently in the process of developing.

• Tools (top)
  

  LocalBizBlogs has developed a series of tools to enhance your BizBlog. Think of tools as widgets for publishing content about your business. For example, use the Events Tool to display your business' upcoming events on your BizBlog. Tools make adding new content simple. Tools also allow people to share your content with their friends via email, tapping into their word-of-mouth networks.

  • Tools Manager
    • The Tools Manager allows you to activate tools (like coupons, events, menus, etc.), adding extra functionality to your BizBlog.
    • To add a tool to your BizBlog, simply open the Tools Manager, find the tool you'd like to add, and click the "enable" link. This will automatically add the tool to your BizBlog. For more information on using tools, visit the articles section of The Exchange.
    • You can change the ordering of your tools by grabbing the tool's title-bar and dragging it above or below another tool.
  • Tools Currently Available:
    • Events Tool: create and share an online calendar of events.
    • Coupons Tool: create and share printable online coupons.
    • Menu Tool: allows restaurants to create a web version of their menu.
    • Photos Tool: integrates directly with your Flickr account, pulling photos into your BizBlog.
    • Video Tool: allows you to embed Google Video and YouTube videos.
    • Links Tool: Pull links from your Del.icio.us bookmarks.

• Business Attributes (top)

  Attributes are aspects of your business that define your overall goods and/or services. They help visitors find your business through the LocalBiz Directory, and serve as a quick reference to understanding your business' offerings.

  • Features
    • 
    • Features are services your business provides, from having a great view, providing wireless internet access, or just being open 24 hours a day. Adding these features to your BizBlog allows visitors to more easily find businesses that cater to their needs, and also separates your business from your competitors. Features can be added by dragging them from your Dashboard and dropping them into the features area of your BizBlog.
    • Features you can currently add to your BizBlog (more will be added over time, upon your custom requests):
      • Free WiFi
      • Paid WiFi
      • Delivery Services
      • Reservations
      • Safe Space
      • Liquor License
      • Open 24 hours
      • Pet Friendly
      • Scenic View
    • BizTags
      • 
      • BizTags are keywords that describe your business. They help visitors find the kinds of businesses they are looking for. For example, an ice cream shop may use the following BizTags: ice cream, milkshake, dessert, soda fountain, date spot, party.
      • When clicked, each BizTag will take you to a page displaying businesses that have that same BizTag associated with their business.
      • Each business is limited to 15 BizTags, so choose them carefully.
    • RSS Feeds
      • 
      • Each BizBlog comes equipped with 3 built-in feeds that automatically broadcast a component of your BizBlog: Blog, Events Tool and Coupon Tool. These are RSS (Really Simple Syndication) Feeds, which allow websites, web browsers, and other RSS clients to subscribe to and pull content from your BizBlog.

• Dashboard (top)

  The Dashboard is your main control deck, where you manage your tools, monitor traffic to your BizBlog, read or send messages, and administer your account. The Dashboard appears at the top of your BizBlog only when you are logged in.
  
  Open and close it by toggling the Dashboard button.

  
  • Features
    • Features are services your business provides, from having a great view, providing wireless internet access, or just being open 24 hours a day. Adding these features to your BizBlog allows visitors to more easily find businesses that cater to their needs, and also separates your business from your competitors. Features can be added by dragging them from your Dashboard and dropping them into the features area of your BizBlog.
    • Refer to the Business Attributes section for more information on Features.
  • My Account
    • Currently, this Dashboard feature isn't available. Eventually it will display your LocalBizBlogs account status.
  • Message Center
    • The Message Center is a communication tool for sending and receiving messages to other users or the LocalBizBlogs staff.
  • Visitor Tracker
    • The Visitor Tracker provides you with a graphical representation of your Blog's activity for the day, week and month. The Visitor Tracker will provide you with a graph of page hits, as well as information about unique visitors and comments.
      • Unique Visitors - this number represents the individual computers that visited your blog. For example, if you visit your BizBlog from the library computer in the morning, and then again at the coffee shop with your laptop that evening, this would count as two unique visitors.
      • Page Hits - the number of times your page was viewed, total. It will always be greater or equal to your unique visitors. This number will increase every time a visitor loads your BizBlog.
      • Blog Comments - a count of how many comments your blog received over the given time period. Blog comments are currently not being calculated.
  • Tools Manager
    • The Tools Manager allows you to activate tools (like coupons, events, menus, etc.), adding extra functionality to your BizBlog.
    • To add a tool to your BizBlog, simply open the Tools Manager, find the tool you'd like to add, and click the "Enable" link. The Tool will automatically appear on your on the right-hand side of your BizBlog. For more information on using Tools, visit the articles section of The Exchange.
    • You can change the ordering of your tools by grabbing the Tool's title bar and dragging it above or below another Tool.
  • Tools Currently Available:
    • Events Tool: create and share an online calendar of events.
    • Coupons Tool: create and share printable online coupons.
    • Menu Tool: allows restaurants to create a web version of their menu.
    • Photos Tool: integrates directly with your Flickr account, pulling photos into your BizBlog.
    • Video Tool: allows you to embed Google Video and YouTube videos.
    • Links Tool: Pull links from your Del.icio.us bookmarks.