Websites

Earlier this week Fiona wrote a post about who you are writing for and I thought I would follow up with a post about what you’re writing.

The point she was making was whether you should be writing blog posts for search engines or to engage with your active readers.

And there’s a relatively straight forward alternative question to this: Are you writing blog posts or news articles?

To begin with I’ll state my interpretations of each

Blog posts

Based on ideas around your business (or life for personal users) and your thoughts and comments on what’s happening in the news.

News articles

Based on factual information designed to engage and inform the reader about current or ongoing information (whether about the business directly or articles in the news that relate to your business).

Audience connections – blog posts

On a blog you will generally be posting to an active reader list – people who read what you have to say time and time again. You might get referrals by word or mouth (in this decade: social media) and them sometimes a post you write will perform really well on a particular topic in search engines (See how just one blog post by Flowerona about the UK Royal wedding bouquet received tens of thousands of hits, and resulted in the offer of a column for a floral magazine)

Though search engines are important to gain new subscribers (though the age old ‘word of mouth’ tactic is pretty good – i.e. ‘Share’ buttons) you are making connections with human beings and writing copy that is riveting and compelling. If your blog post is good people should want to share it and it’ll spread across social media platforms such as Twitter.

Audience connections - news articles

You may read or are linked to news articles by the BBC, the Telegraph and other news sites. Look at their tone and how they write. They’re connecting with the reader to inform them of what has/is happening.

It’s a good idea to keep factual information relating to your business where you are informing rather giving opinion in a separate news feed (generally integrated with your website). And this is where you can start putting your Search Engine hat on.

The tone of voice used for writing news articles that inform a reader is exactly the tone that is suitable to writing good search engine copy. They make use of repeating key note information and quotes to reiterate their point (see the correlation?).  By still making a readable piece of copy you can entice searchers on to the news article that you have written and then link them off to a) more information, b) your contact details and c) (if you have one) your own comments on a separate blog. Please feel free to rearrange this order as you see fit.

Expanding the example – the Telegraph

As an illustrative example The Telegraph has news articles for informing their readers of current news and blogs for their editors so that they can give their own comments. There are separated to keep fact from opinion.

The cost of upkeep

Whether you are writing a blog post or a news article the same problem arises: you need to write frequently. To engage with your active readers of a blog then they’ll be wanting new content to come back to. To engage with search engines exactly the same applies. If there’s nothing new they’ll got bored and stop coming back.

Tagged as in Blogging, Search Engine Optimisation, Uncategorized, Websites

There are generally two approaches to blogging. The voice of search engine optimists: use your blog to drive traffic to your website and haul your business higher up the search engines. And then there is the voice of reason: build your blog organically to create meaningful relationships with your visitors, position yourself as an expert and create powerful leads for your business.

I’d like to say that the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but the fact is that you need to decide which of those stances you’re going to take, because I would argue it’s nigh on impossible to do both of those equally well.

Building relationships is more sustainable

You probably won’t be surprised from my introduction to know that at Flourish, we advocate the latter approach. Why? Because we believe that building brands, engaging with your current and prospective customers and gaining traction is the most sustainable approach to business. Because we believe that quality over quantity is more effective, and because we know that writing a blog for real people is more fun and inspirational (and we all need a bit of fun in our lives) than writing for a spider (of the search engine variety).

I realise that using your blog to drive traffic sounds a lot more attractive than the slow burn approach I advocate. After all, who wants to wait 6 months for a relationship to build? Anyone in a service industry actually! Anyone with a product or service that they want to make irresistible to their ideal clients. Building relationships with your reader over a longer period of time (and in my experience it takes around 6 months) means that when that reader is ready to buy, you are the only choice. And as long as you don’t have three heads, you’ve generally got the work.

Quality over quantity

Do you really think you’re going to get that same level of commitment from your blog readers if you’re writing for the search engines? I’d suggest not. Ultimately it’s about quality over quantity. Writing your blog for the search engines may, if you do it well, bring you in legions of visitors, but if you’ve pumped every post full of key phrases like Image Consultant, Image Consultancy, Image Consultant Surrey and entitled your post Image Consultant Surrey: A Makeover for Sue (don’t laugh – I see it all the time!) do you really think that those visitors are going to want to do business with you?

As I say, you have to decide which approach takes priority. And for me, building a brand wins every time.

A real example: Lisa Cox

Let’s explore an example. Lisa Cox, Garden Designer extraordinare is a cracking example of how to use your blog to position yourself as an expert, build relationships and generate business from her blog. Lisa does this by sharing what’s going on in her world, making her blog look beautiful and writing from the heart. In return she has a healthy readership, enjoys the couple of hours a week she invests in blogging and has generated some exciting business: including clients in Leeds and France. She didn’t set out to gain business outside of Surrey, but isn’t it exciting that it’s happened?

Do you honestly think that if she’d prefaced every post with Garden Designer Leatherhead or Garden Designer Surrey that these readers would have been as interested. If she kept linking back to her own website sales page every time she mentioned the word Garden Designer do you think people would have responded? How about if she’d added a paragraph like this at the bottom of every post?

Lisa Cox creates beautiful spaces that inspire you to get outside and enjoy your garden, if you’d like to talk to me about a consultation then please get in touch.

The point is that if you’re building relationships, you don’t need to add all these trappings. People know, love and respect you, and when they’re ready to buy they’ll move heaven and earth to do business with you because they like you. I’m not sure you can say that of the SEO approach to blogging, but maybe I’m wrong. What do you think?

Tagged as in Blogging

The Griffin Glasshouses rebrand and website went live last week and I’m so pleased to share it with you on the blog. Thanks to a fabulous copywriter and marketer (Louisa Winter of My Marketing Person) who worked with us and the Griffin team to pull everything together, this website has been pretty quick to launch: just three months from start to finish, which given the size of the site and the number of templates to be created, is pretty blooming quick. I guess it just goes to show what you can achieve with a bit of gumption and a bucket full of enthusiasm?

I think I showed you the original website back in December - remember that? I always love it when we create a look that reflects where a business is right now. Griffin Glasshouses have a great business; long established, great reputation and excellent at what they do. They’ve also recently launched a collection with the NGS which I think just cements their status as experts. But their last site was doing them no favours in terms of positioning their business as a quality and aspirational brand.

I hope you’ll agree that the rebrand does just that. And isn’t it amazing what you can achieve with the right colours, elegant brand patterns and some cute illustrations?

The photographs are exactly the same as Griffin had on their old site, but by being more discerning about the ones we choose, and by using them in a different way, they have a totally different feel don’t they?

You can see the website in all it’s glory over here, and if you are thinking about ordering your dream glasshouse, maybe you’ll consider Griffin Glasshouses?

Tagged as in Case Studies, From The Studio, Rebranding, Web Design

Liezl Croft is an utterly lovely wedding and family portrait photographer. A force of South African fabulousness, creative, warm, friendly and with an eye for fun she asked us to create a brand refresh and blogsite that would reflect where her business is today as well as (of course) attracting and retaining lots of new clients. [...]

Tagged as in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio, Web Design, Websites

If you’ve been following the news recently major websites such as Wikipedia and WordPress.org are running a 24 hour blackout today in response to the two bills SOPA and PIPA that are making their way through congress. I won’t go over the full details here. A search for “SOPA Blackout”, “WordPress Blackout” etc should suffice [...]

Tagged as in Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, web development, Websites

I know it’s oh-so-tempting to go into lockdown mode come early December. Those marketing projects you have at the back of your mind can wait until after Christmas whilst you deal with the general madness of the festive season. And I do understand that thinking, but it doesn’t make good business sense. Why? Because that [...]

Tagged as in Branding, Case Studies, From The Studio, Graphic Design, Web Design, Websites

I class myself as one of life’s impatient. Once I’ve made a decision to do something, I want to get on with it right away. I struggled heavily with the concept of waiting six months for the right builder to be available to work on our house (especially as I’d been super organised and waited [...]

Tagged as in Flourish Stuff, Marketing, Websites

These posts are a bit like busses aren’t they? You wait for one In The Studio This Week and then two come along at once! Harriet Tipping is a very lovely nutritional therapist who has just about to launch her business, Nutribeing. She already had a logo but no brand identity to speak of, so [...]

Tagged as , blog design in Blogging, Case Studies, From The Studio

It seems like forever since I’ve shared a snapshot of some of our work from the studio doesn’t it? We’ve been incredibly busy over the last month or so working on some really exciting projects and I’m delighted to share a couple of them with you this week. First up… A stunning website design for [...]

Tagged as , website design in Case Studies, From The Studio, Web Design, Websites

The jury is still out on whether sales promotions can work for a service based business. I’m the first to admit that they can look desperate and potentially damaging to your brand. But at the same time, I do believe that if planned and communicated sensitively, they can even out the natural peaks and troughs [...]

Tagged as in Business Strategy, Marketing, Powerful Ecommerce