How to start a blog for your creative business in 2021

 

I see you; you’re spending hours upon hours creating beautiful items, designing and crafting, but no matter how many photos you post on Instagram, people just aren’t buying. I hate to break it to you, but your art alone doesn’t sell itself in this digital age. And images just don’t have the clout that you need to get yourself up there in Google rankings.

If you’re just relying on social media to get yourself in front of your audience, it can be a hard, long slog. For starters, you need to build an audience. And I mean a real one, not just a hundred or so followers. And then you need to spend a good portion of time engaging with them. You have to build relationships, so that people get to know you. It’s a lot of work. And you know what else? By hanging around on social media alone, you’ll never, ever get yourself on Google.

I guess that if you’re reading this blog post, you kind of already know one of the things you should be doing. Yep – blogging. Because creating a consistent blog for your business is the first step in stamping your authority all over this thing called the internet.

But where do you start? Well my friends, I’m here to answer that very question for you! Read on if you want to become a blogging superstar in 2021.

Plan out your posts

Have a brainstorming session and come up with a few ideas for your posts. Use those customer questions as a starting point, or list out a few ideas for ‘how-to’ or ‘behind the scenes’ type posts. Try to think of subjects that will grab your readers’ interest. For inspiration, look at what your competitors are writing about (but don’t copy!), look at what’s getting the most interest on your social posts, or turn to SEO search sites like Ubersuggest, Answer the Public, or Reddit.

Don’t think that you’ve got to write a huge 3000 word essay – I’d aim for a minimum of 600 words. Generally, if you can write around 1000-1200, you might find that you get a little more traction, but don’t waffle for the sake of it. Consistency is more important than the word-count.

When you’re planning your post, the main things you’ll want to consider are:

• Your subject
• The Title
•  The key points to address
•  Your keywords

All of these might change and evolve as you write the piece, but write them down and let them guide you.

I’ll quickly break those points down a little further:

The Subject

Don’t get too over-complicated with this one. It’s probably the easiest part, and I’m guessing that you already have at least a few ideas. If not, take a few of the suggestions I made earlier for inspiration.

The simplest subjects always do best; try and think about who it is you’re writing for. If they asked you about it in person, what would you say? How would you explain it in a way that they could understand? What main points would you highlight?

The Title

You’ll want to think about your keywords when you write your title. Consider what words your audience will search for in order to read your post.

Key points to address

I always find it useful before I start writing a new blog post to make a quick list of the points I want to make. That way, I have a kind of ‘map’ to follow, and I can spend some time fleshing out my thoughts and ideas from there.

Remember not to get too caught up in perfection – the beauty of writing on-screen is that you can go back and edit! Done is definitely better than perfect! Just get those ideas down, and then either read it back aloud, run it through an online reader, or ask someone to read it through. This way, you’ll get an idea of how it sounds, and whether it makes sense.

Keywords

People tend to get really stressed about the issue of keywords – don’t. Write yourself a list of words and questions that people would enter into Google in order to find your business. And then when you start writing your blog post, try to incorporate them as naturally as you can.

You absolutely do not have to cram them in as many times as you are able, just make sure that they are there at least 2 or 3 times each. Don’t forget to include them in your titles too, and tag your images if you use them.

Start writing!

There’s a saying, “Done is better than perfect” – it’s easy to let the fear of starting to write paralyse you when you first start your blog. My advice is to just start writing – if you don’t like your first draft (few of us do!), then you can edit and re-write later.

Use the information you’ve collected during the planning phase to put your thoughts down in a coherent order, and then go back and change things as you need to.

You can also think about enhancing your post by using images, graphs, and even video to illustrate your points – which is also great for repurposing for social media.

If you would like help or advice about starting a blog for your creative business, email me any time at shirecopywriting@outlook.com

About me

Tereasa Hedges, freelance copywriter for creatives, designers and makers.

I’m a freelance copywriter who specialises in writing content for creative people, helping you to reach larger audiences through blogging, web content, email marketing, and a little bit of social media for good measure.

Want to work with me? Contact me for a chat via shirecopywriting@outlook.com