Until recently, when someone has been telling me about the new website they are having designed, I have asked whether they are incorporating blog functionality. I’ve stopped doing that, because what seems to happen is that those who get interested and then go and ask their web designer the question seem to get nowhere.

In one instance, a person was told that yes, a blog could be incorporated, but it would be “very expensive”. I wondered how expensive it would be for a good web designer to incorporate a WordPress blog, for instance - i.e. open source, free download.

That lack of awareness of how blogging can enhance a website may be more of an Australian thing, as business blogging has not (yet) taken off here. Maybe web designers in the USA and Canada and Europe are much more switched on and able to respond more helpfully to questions about incorporating a blog in a website – better still, volunteer the idea, with confidence that they can deliver added value to the customer.

Be that as it may, I was delighted when my friend and colleague H. Dean Hua decided to move on from being a financial adviser and set up Sachi Studio, with the motto ‘marrying web design with strategic blogging solutions’.

This is good for business blogging. Dean knows blogging and is a blogger. He is also very business oriented and in my experience does not promote blogging for the sake of it, but – as the firm’s motto suggests – as part of a strategic approach to a business’s online presence and overall business strategy.

He is also an excellent listener and a great asker of questions and promoter of discussion, as those of us know who are members of the Networker’s Network and Website Evangelism groups which Dean hosts on Ryze. So anyone bringing their web project to Sachi Studio can expect to be listened to properly and helped expertly to understand the online strategic options available to them.

In short, I couldn’t think of a better person/firm to refer someone to who wanted a business-oriented web solution, with inbuilt blog functionality – including anyone whose question is “why would I want a blog with that?”