“Can starting a blog really grow my interior design business?” That is a very pertinent question to ask yourself if you’re looking to grow your business.
The definitive answer is, YES! Blogging can and will grow your interior design business, but you have to do it right. More and more people are starting blogs everyday. Whether they are personal blogs, sports blogs, movie blogs, product review blogs or business blogs they are popping up everywhere! So should you start a blog? If you haven’t yet, it’s time to join the ranks of your fellow business bloggers and get in on the benefits of blogging. Keep reading to find out 5 ways that you can use your blog to grow your business.
1. What’s Your Specialty? Look at your business and make a plan. What are you really selling? Comfort, peace of mind, organization, beauty, functionality, confidence? What are a few important points about your business that you’d like to communicate? Experience, problem solver, easy to work with, stays within budget. Make sure that you’re specific. The more your blog answers your prospects questions, the better and the more likely they are going to come back and read it and get to know you.
2. Keyword Research. Determine the best keywords that relate to your business or specialty. Write your posts and articles around these keywords. Learning about your own specific keywords is essential to driving traffic to your blog. This is a basic foundational principle that must be performed when it comes to doing anything online.
3. Your Own Domain. One thing about blogging is there are many sites where you can get started for free. This is a great opportunity to spend no money while learning. However, I highly recommend purchasing a domain and hosting your own blog. This is an absolute must in my book. When you have your own domain the search engines recognize your blog as a unique site and they push it closer to the top of the search pages, especially if you’re able to use your keywords in your domain name and throughout your blog.
4. Social Bookmarking. When people read your blog posts and like what they read you can encourage them to bookmark your posts on sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, and Delicious. You can also bookmark your own posts. These actions along with linking to other sites is a great way to get favorable recognition by the search engines.
5. Forums. There are all kinds of forums where you can meet prospects and potential clients. You can post links to your blog and share with people who are looking for what you have to offer. Posting where your prospects ‘meet and gather’ is an ideal way to get your name out there – special interest groups like sailing clubs, golf groups, architects, real estate agents, your local chamber of commerce, Facebook groups, etc.
As you can see these are just a few of the endless ways blogging can help grow your interior design business. As you blog, you will become more personal to your readers and you’ll get to communicate the strengths of you, your business and your products.
Next time a fellow designer asks you, “Can blogging really grow your business?” You can answer with a resounding “Yes! Blogging can help grow your interior design business too!”
For step-by-step instructions to help you set up your interior design business blog simply and easily, download our e-book “Boost Business with a Word Press Blog”