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That's the approach we take. We sell security camera system products directly to consumers through our Discount Security Cameras website. This website is a traditional online storefront that provides a wealth of information about the products that we sell.

The challenge, however, is that many of our customers and prospects don't know much about security cameras and security camera systems. They have the desire to have a security camera system, as well as the desire to install it themselves, but they lack the knowledge to support that desire.

The solution: educate our customers and potential customers

We have solved this problem by creating our Security Camera Systems Interactive Learning Center (ILC). We built our ILC on a blogging platform because it allowed us to create a solid and professional looking site quickly -- it actually took us less than a half a day to build the site and start to populate it with content.

Our ILC provides our customers and potential customers with:

• Introductory and advanced articles
• Introductory training videos and product specific training videos
• "Caught on DVR" videos where you can see examples of real activities (crimes and accidents) recorded by security camera systems

We added interactivity to the site by allowing the customers to comment on the content, as well as rate it. This let's us know if our content is what our customers are looking for.

Whether a customer is looking to do-it-themselves or simply looking to become educated, our learning center provides them with the necessary information to satisfy their needs. It also has the added benefit of providing them with a forum for asking questions and for clarification. It provides another way to communicate with us other than the telephone and email.

Benefits for our business: more potential customers

The ILC introduces us to potential customers as a trusted source of information, not just a company trying to sell them something. This means that we have a very different relationship with them if and when they decide to move on to purchase. Because the ILC is educational in nature and not commercial, it does a better job of attracting links from other websites. The ILC, as well as our main website, benefits greatly from these links. Additionally, the ILC is starting to attract a significant amount of organic search traffic helping to "introduce" us to a wider pool of potential customers. In fact, a substantial portion of traffic coming to our ILC is actually moving on to our commercial storefront.

While we are still early in this process, we do believe that both our customers and our business have benefitted from our new learning center, and highly recommend this approach as a way any company can increase website traffic, build customer satisfaction, and, ultimately, close more business. You will engage your customers at a different level and your business will benefit significantly as a result.

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About the Author: Maureen Page is vice president and co-owner of Discount Security Cameras. She blogs at Discount Security Cameras Interactive Security Camera Learning Center.