I’ve shared many times about how I’ve used blogging to achieve some of the goals in my business. And let me just say, there is some new info here that you might find insightful, so keep on reading.
As I was finishing up a post recently that took me over 8 hours to put together, I had my usual feeling of immense satisfaction that I had created this little piece of information, beauty, and a little bit of story that would rest on my site for as long as I want.
It is something I can edit, move around in my blog, update as I see fit, even remove later if I want, because I have complete control.
I basically crafted something with my own words and images that would:
Attract the right client to me by helping show that I am knowledgeable, capable, and worth the amount of money I charge.
Send some beautiful imagery out into the internet that I took myself, effectively tagged and optimized for saving to Pinterest, which would in turn, someday, potentially drive traffic to my site and then help Google see it as a valid authority.
Contributed to my library of resource or reference materials that I could, at any time, tap into to send to clients, potential clients, blog readers, even friends out on Facebook who need info or examples of something, etc.
Relying on Instagram or Facebook as a place for all your content creation, to me, is kind of like throwing away SEO. You aren’t creating anything that will serve as a destination for more info, more depth, nor are you building your website’s authority.
Don’t forget to build content on your own website. If you’ve built it elsewhere, then embed it into a blogpost to rest on your own site.
There’s just too much value there to put it all somewhere else.
Sure, share photos on Instagram, espouse ideas in a Facebook group, give advice on YouTube, but don’t forget to feed your own base, your platform, periodically, to build authority and to serve as the final destination place for all that great content.
As someone who has put in the time, effort, and financial investment, I for one, consider much of that well spent.
10 years down the road, you will thank yourself for putting the time in to build your own site.
Here’s one example of one of the benefits of blogging vs. only posting on social media.
When I was on blogtour with Modenus at KBIS in January of 2016, one of our sponsors was Thermador. (Love that brand!)
I wrote a blogpost about their products linked below.
Now, because I then pinned one of the images to Pinterest, and because Pinterest has a long-life in the social media marketing world, that pin hung around.
It did well.
It did very well.
3 years later, that particular blogpost has had 14,305 hits on my site, this year alone, in 2018.
Here’s one of the pins that I pinned to Pinterest from that post.
This image from my blogpost has driven 14,305 hits to that post in this year, 2018. That’s almost 3 years later, with multiple pins in Pinterest. It was first pinned in early 2016.
In 2017, that post had 7265 hits, so you can see how it caught on and gained momentum way after it was published and first pinned in 2016.
I assume it has been giving Thermador some link love too. After all, why would you click through that pin unless you wanted to find out more info about that big range?
That’s something brands need to be aware of. Especially when starting a collaboration something like this.
Not that Instagram isn’t great with big influencers…..but if they want long-lasting marketing and traffic-driving to continue on down the road, well, blogposts are where it’s at.
(Now, there is no guarantee any blogpost will take off in the online world, however, it is worth trying. That is not my highest ranking post, not even in the top 25, but it is the one post I did for a brand that has done pretty well.)
Read the rest of this post and then come back and check out these two links that back up my comments here.
This link, below, was shared by my friend, Janet Coon of Shabbyfufu blog, and it has to do with the long life of blog content that can be searched and the benefit of that for brands. >>>>> The Resurgence of The Blog and Why it Matters
This is a podcast where I was cheering (alone in my car where I was listening), when Seth Godin, interviewed by Michael Stelzner of the Social Media Marketing Podcast, shared these interesting facts about blogging. (And if those two industry leaders don’t have a grasp on social media right now, then I don’t know who does.)
Short Cut ——You have the option to listen to that entire podcast, OR you have the option to go to the link, scan the post down to where “Blogging” and then “The Benefits of Writing” is in bold, and read there.
Ha ha…..see what I did? I just showed you the value of scannable content. :-)
Blogging Can Get You Great Clients
And to those of you who think that blogging won’t get you good clients…..I am really the perfect example of how it does, finally, after years of experimenting around with different perspectives and viewpoints.
While I filter my clients heavily to get the best fitting full service clients and I use my blog to do so, this past year or two I’ve had some of the best clients I’ve ever had.
And guess what? They were not referrals.
None of them had heard of me before they found me on the internet. All of them had read my blog extensively before hiring me. These clients are far and above better quality, they were respectful and listened to my ideas, took my advice and have more money to spend on their projects than any client I have ever gotten by referral.
They have said to me at times, “Whatever you think. I trust you, Carla”.
A client who comes to you via a referral most likely has not read through your website that much. They likely flipped through it after getting your name from a friend or contractor, but usually called you to meet before they did much in depth research.
(To be honest, I put referrals from others through a more strenuous filtering process than I do someone who found me via my blog or someone who said they’ve been following my blog for years.)
I want people to view my projects, read my info about how I work, get all in with what I can do for them and how much it will cost, BEFORE they call.
That makes a great client.
Blogging to create your reference library
This week I had one of my Designed in a Click consultations with a reader of my blog. She was in the middle of a bathroom remodel and was concerned about layout and the tub she had.
Basically, she wanted to make sure the decisions she was making were not going to be mistakes and that she would be sorry later.
I read through the concerns and sent some options and solutions for her design questions. To further elaborate and share examples of what I was describing, I sent 3 links to blogposts I’d already written, like this one.
She showed her husband the response I sent, and let me know that even he thought there was a lot of information with the links included. :-)
It was so nice to just jump into my site, grab a link, and let it do further explaining.
So, don’t forget to build out your website with a beautiful blogpost every once in a while. That time you spend will likely be worth it in the long run.
Now, pop back up to those two links I posted above and read that section through. You’ll see. :-)
I was impressed last year to have learned so much about Thermador while at KBIS. The induction cooktop, the 30” 5-burner Pro Harmony Range, and the star burners were all new to me then; and...