How Blogging Drives My Business By Chiara from Hoobynoo World

Hoobynoo World is a place filled with happy, bouncy characters, all illustrated by myself with accompanying character profiles written by my husband, a children’s author. Before I started this business I was a freelance graphic and web designer. The business is just over a year old and running it from home, the biggest challenge is getting yourself out there and found by the general public. Like most small small businesses, I don't have a huge marketing budget so I did a lot of research on how to market myself effectively and for little cost.

The answer to that was quite simply, blogging!

Aside from the obvious benefit of creating posts to promote your product/service when you blog, you create more opportunities for you to appear in Google and be found in search. But blogging is so much more than a search engine tool, it allows you to connect with your customers and your audience, it puts a personal face on your company or brand and builds trust between you and the consumer.

In order to create variety and keep readers coming back to your blog, it's very important not to just use your blog as a sales tool but to provide valuable content that offers advice or 'How Tos' or provide valuable information that would be relevant to your readers.

I will often write fashion posts as this is relevant to the products I sell, focusing on new trends or collections. I also offer advice on social media at a basic level as it is something I have had to learn myself over the years.

As I am very involved with the handmade community, I will post trips to craft fairs, and craft tutorials. This provides a variety of content that will appeal to a wider audience bringing more people to my blog and then to my website. The other benefit of blogging, is guest posting, such as this one I am writing which provides links to my website which is good for my Google rank and SEO.

I also welcome other bloggers to guest post on my blog as this provides a wider range of interesting content for my readers and offers a different perspective. I look for bloggers who are an expert in a particular field and will offer real value to my blog and its readers.

The blogging community itself is huge, which offers other opportunities for you to connect with other like minded people. There are blogging conferences, Twitter hashtag groups and many bloggers will use Blog Buttons or a Blogroll to promote other bloggers.

The other way that your blog can help to drive your business is through advertising, many of the well established blogs feature paid advertising from large companies, this is a fantastic way to create an additional revenue stream for very little work.

So with a little effort you could create an amazing marketing tool for yourself simply by adding a blog to your website or creating a free one. Results will not happen overnight but it is much more likely to give you a return on your investment than say a full page spread in a magazine.

Chiara Stone is a designer and owner of Hoobynooworld.co.uk, where you'll find these  funky acrylic fashion jewellery, phone covers, handmade accessories, wall stickers and much more.

Top 5 Tips For Getting Your Blog Seen by Jessica Hodkinson

Blogging is one of the most talked about activities that takes place online and the option to blog has given budding writers a chance to share their thoughts and knowledge with others in an open space. So how does it all start?  Well, you take an idea and then apply your passion for writing or photography and select a platform like Wordpress, Blogger or Tumbler to publish on.

I started PR Company two years ago as a project when I was learning about digital PR and SEO. The blog was almost used as a working diary to start with and then I began writing about topical subjects that others could relate to. Someone told me about a little thing called page rank which Google uses to determine the importance of your site and typically link to pages that have the highest keyword density.

PR Company now has a page rank of 4 which makes it credible in the SEO world and I get a lot of great feedback about the blog.  I then decided to start a new project and as I have a lot of knowledge about retail/fashion, I decided to home in on a niche and select something that would be appealing to the Mummy blogging world. Harper7Style.com was born! Harper Beckham is already a little mini fashionista and appears in national press on a frequent basis. Therefore I thought this blog would have great potential now and later on in life when she becomes as big as her Mother, Victoria Beckham.

Even though blogs may look great, getting the word out there in a cluttered blogosphere can prove to be challenging.

Here are a few tips when it comes to marketing your own blog!

1. Guest Post
A good way of getting the word out there about your own blog is to guest post on others that publish content that covers the same topics as yours. It takes a bit of effort as you will need to approach editors and pitch a good topic with appeal to their readers. Most guest posts include an author name and a link back to the author’s blog.

2. Twitter, Facebook, Google+
This is an obvious one but plugging your blog on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ is a very straight forward option which provides instant results and hopefully directs traffic to your blog. Using the correct hashtags like #socialmedia, #PR, #fbloggers will also enable your post to be picked up by people searching for these topics.

3. Comment on other blogs
Commenting on other blogs and leaving a link to your own blog is an option that will enable you to tell others about your work and it will also assist with SEO efforts which means your blog could quite possibly rank higher. However be cautious as this can also look quite spammy if overdone or comments are placed on irrelevant blogs. You need to make the comment worthy as leaving a comment about ‘Fish and chips’ on a beauty blog about skin care just wouldn’t work and it would probably get deleted.

4. Get involved with conversations on websites that have high authority
This takes a little more effort but networking and getting involved with debates on websites that carry authority like the Guardian Online, will give you the chance to plug your blog and get it out in front of a large audience. Here is an example of something I took part In: Working in Fashion PR: ask the experts.

High end links like this are also very valuable in an SEO strategy.

5. Word of Mouth
A very obvious method but one that can be just as effective,  speaking to people and telling them to go online and take a look at your work. If they like what they see, they may follow you and spread the word to others.

For more information on Jessica Hodkinson and PR Company, visit prcompany.org.uk. Jessica works as  Senior PR and Marketing Exec for Daniel Footwear. Jessica recently won a competition with Nokia and will be reporting at Social Media week in Mumbai.You can follow Jessica on Twitter @onlineprpixie and @harper7style.

Sophie Hill of postcardwall

postcardwall is a blog about art, inspired by postcards. I began the blog in 2009, starting with my own collection of postcards gathered from exhibitions and museums across the world. Covering the walls of my university room, the images formed a wallpaper of visual memory. They not only recalled times and places, but that elated feeling of discovery that came with my finding and loving a work of art. After finishing university I decided to start a blog about the collection, uploading a postcard each day and writing about it, the aim being to exhibit the wealth of art available and to inspire people to seek it out.

With postcards found everywhere from large institutions to unknown galleries, postcardwall creates a platform for all kinds of art. Being inclined neither to historical nor contemporary, a Caravaggio may hang alongside a newly graduated student. postcardwall is unbiased, exploring the rich and varied fabric of our artistic history from the ancients up to the present day. I write about each postcard to recall and remember these fleeting and permanent displays. Words are added not to judge, but to elaborate and provoke further interest and discovery. The descriptions are incredibly visual, drawing technique and detail from the work and making each element come alive. Dancing alongside the image, reflecting and refracting both subject and mood, poetic in style, my text provides a harmonious counterpoint to each work.

postcardwall has become something of an artistic resource with over 300 postcards of painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, wallpaper and furniture ‘on the wall’. Listed by century and with a search capability that allows you to search on anything from an artist’s name, an artistic movement or just a word, images from around the world can be pulled up alongside one another. Looking for pictures of trees, the results appear across centuries, mediums and artists; visiting a country or city, one can find the works to look out for.

Though the postcards began from my collection gathered over time, they now often mark current exhibitions; uploaded at the beginning of a show to entice readers to visit the real thing. I visit graduate shows every year to draw attention to emerging young talent, and invite artists, or indeed anyone, to send me their favourite postcards as new subjects. The reaction from artists has been great, as they find I depict aspects of their work through my words that deepens appreciation.

postcardwall has been featured twice as an exhibition, at the Mall Galleries to celebrate reaching 300 postcards ‘on the wall’, and at VEGAS Gallery alongside the original works of a selection of artists featured on postcardwall. One of the most wonderful reactions to postcardwall on exhibition was the number of people spurred into memory by seeing a postcard once owned or sent. The fact that the blog stems from a postcard is part of the appeal. There is something accessible in a picture postcard; one can take it away to consider, and later nostalgically remember. They are a means of quick communication, leaving someone a note embellished by a fitting, or simply pleasing, image.

It is the reaction from both followers and artists that keeps me writing. My most rewarding moment so far has been an artist asking if they can use an extract of my blog post on a catalogue promoting a solo exhibition. It was incredible to know that my words had captured someone’s intentions so well that they wanted to use them alongside their work. I also love it when people tell me that they’ve discovered new artists through reading my posts. It’s one of the main aims of the blog and it’s great for the artists.  

I add a new postcard to the wall each week, continuing to build the virtual wall that now holds over 300 images and over 60,000 words of art history and contemporary criticism. I am so pleased postcardwall now has followers from around the world who visit the wall once a week to read my latest post.

My Four Top Blogging Tips

- Don’t be afraid to write how you want to. Part of the wonderful freedom of blogging is that there is no ‘house style’ to which you must confirm; you can have your own voice.
- Write when you feel like it. Words will flow when you’re in the mood – there are no deadlines.
- Link twitter and facebook to your blog, it’s a great way to draw attention to old blog posts that people may have missed.
- Always allow and read comments. It’s invaluable to see reader’s reactions.

To find out more, visit postcardwall.wordpress.com, become a fan on Facebook and follow on Twitter @postcardwall_ 

Heather Young of Growing Spaces on blogging about interiors

Thinking back, I think my career in interiors was probably inevitable. Many of my childhood memories involve DIY as my parents renovated our family homes (and we’re talking major renovations, not just a lick of paint here and there). In fact, my mum often jokes that I actually learnt to walk on floor joists as there were no floorboards down when I started to toddle.

For my 12th birthday present, I wanted to give my bedroom a makeover. I picked a colour scheme (navy blue), chose some bed linen, and my mum helped me to make new curtains and reupholster an old sofa bed. I felt so grown up, and I think from that moment on I was hooked on the idea of making a space my own.

I got interested in journalism after a work experience placement when I was 14 or 15 at a film magazine. It seemed fun, exciting, energetic, creative. From then on, I knew it was what I wanted to do, but I had no idea what area of journalism to head into until, by complete chance, I scored a work experience placement after university at a successful interiors magazine in London. Suddenly it all fell into place, and I recognised that interior design really was my passion, and that I could actually combine that passion with a career as a journalist. I think before that point, I didn’t really even know that there were interiors magazines out there.

Over twelve years later I still love anything home-related just as much as I ever did. An ideal day for me would be pottering around the house, working on some mini styling project, or rearranging the furniture for a bit of a change. Now I have a young family (my twins are nearing four years old), my pottering opportunities are rather limited, but when we relocated from London to leafy Berkshire a couple of years ago, I had a house that needed lots of work, and I saw an opportunity to start a blog about the project, as well as offer advice and inspiration along the way.

Growing Spaces wasn’t my first blog – I’ve been writing a blog about family life with the twins since 2010 – but it was my opportunity to start an interiors blog that was firmly focused on ideas that work in a family home, and that would address the challenges of family living and how to adapt your home and style to accommodate young children.

I’m still working as a freelance interiors journalist, so unfortunately I don’t get to blog as often as I’d like – one of my major frustrations is that the blog has to go at the bottom of the priority list, and I don’t have time to turn even half of my ideas into blog posts. The list of projects, how-tos and things I love that I want to blog about keeps growing longer, but the great thing about interiors is that a lot of these ideas won’t date.

My blog isn’t based on the latest trends in homeware, or the hottest home buys out there right to snap up right now. As well as offering some inspiration through our own renovation project, posts on Growing Spaces are more about home styling, or sharing clever storage ideas or a how to on a quick and simple decorating project.

There are a lot of amazing interiors blogs full of stunning photography that I love to read, but I hope my own blog offers something a bit more accessible and real – a lot of my readers have come to Growing Spaces from my parenting blog, so family-friendly ideas is really want I want to deliver.

My top three blogging tips would be:

1. Be passionate about what your blog’s about. If you don’t find your subject matter interesting, no-one else will either!

2, Make a note of any blog post ideas as soon as they come to you. I scribble things down on bits of paper, type them into Evernote on my phone or ipad, or send myself an email.

3. Be patient with your posts. I’m one of the most impatient people I know and once I’ve written something I want to click ‘publish’ straight away. But often I’ll write a few posts in the space of a few days, but then I won’t be able to blog again for a couple of weeks, so I schedule some of those posts to fill the gap.

Heather Young is a homes-obsessed interiors journalist and blogger. To find out more visit www.growingspaces.net.

What do the recent Facebook changes mean to your blog? by Liz Pulo of Lizosaurus.com...

As soon as the Facebook Pages feature was released a few years ago, hundreds of bloggers signed up and encouraged their readership to engage with them on a new platform. For many, this brought a whole new dimension to their blogging.

A new community formed – a combined group of those who were already engaged on your blog, and those who had found commenting too daunting in the past. It looked as though Facebook Pages were the magical solution to blog engagement.

That was until early this year when Facebook decided to shake up some behind the scenes algorithms. Have you noticed a drop in engagement? Not as many people seeing your posts as they used to? You're not the only one.

What is Reach?

To put it simply, reach is the number of people that have seen any one of your Facebook posts. It's that little “seen by x” figure below each post. A very simple concept – but also a very important one.

What has changed?

Prior to July 2012, reach was calculated based on the number of views your post had received by people logging in through a normal web browser (i.e. on a desktop or laptop).

Now your post counts as having reached someone when it is shown in the person’s news feed and loaded – on any platform. This include mobiles and tablets.

On a quick read through of the changes, it just sounds like they've tweaked the tracking so that your reach is more accurate. Fantastic, right? But that's not all that's going on.

What also changed was a little thing called the EdgeRank Algorithm. This algorithm determines what posts are relevant to you as a Facebook user, based on your past activity. This means that while previously you could be assured that the majority of your followers on Facebook would see your status updates, now Facebook decides who gets to see them and when.

In conjunction with this change, Facebook have also rolled out a function called Promoted Posts. Want to reach all of your followers again? You're going to have to pay for it.

This is an incredibly smart business move from Facebook, but that doesn't mean it's a positive one for it's users!

What can I do?

This is a tough one. If you were a business I would recommend allocating a budget for Facebook marketing and exploring whether paying for promoted posts is worth it for you. However, most bloggers run with little to no budget. So now what?

1. Keep engaging with your audience.

You might be seeing less of them, but it's important not to abandon them because you don't feel that you're getting the same results! Remember, Facebook decides what's relevant to each user: so the more you engage and the more relevant you are to your audience, the more your posts will pop up in their News Feeds!

2. Promote your Facebook link.

Sure, you don't have control over the News Feed, but you know what you do have control of? Your blog! Encourage people to engage with you over on Facebook. Include links at the end of your posts inviting readers to chat with you further about the topic over there (but don't neglect your comments section either!). Provide your audience with the reminders that Facebook used to provide for you.

3. Post at an optimal time for your audience.

Find out what time best suits your audience. Are they mothers, who are online early in the morning? Perhaps they're professionals, jumping online after work in an evening. Know what time suits your audience and use it. (Hint: do some posts over the next week at different times and see when your best reach is.)

4. Post interesting content.

Okay, this one is a little obvious, but sometimes we all need a reminder. Don't just post boring old text updates. Use images, videos and sound to draw the reader in. Look at your own News Feed – where do your eyes focus? I'm willing to bet you skip over the text and land on the images.

Do you have any tips and tricks for dealing with the new Facebook changes? Let us know in the comments section below!

Bio

Liz Pulo has been a blogger for over 9 years in various forms. She loves social media, blogging and lolcats. She can be found in Hobart, Australia where she lives with her husband Jarod and cat Train. Liz blogs infrequently at lizosaurus.comhttp://www.lizosaurus.com.