Monday 5 March 2012

Reasons to Blog

If you're new to the world of online crafting and wondering whether you should blog or not, I'm going to give you some reasons why you should.


I'm not saying blogging is for everyone - it's not.  But if you like chatting and writing, you might just find carving out your own place in the blogging community isn't that difficult.  Here's why you might like to get involved:

1. It's pretty easy to get your blog up on the first pages of Google for key words (really.  I'll show you in another post soon!) - it's easier for a blog than for a website.

2. Once you've got people popping in from Google, you can send them over to your online shop, just like this. Of course, it makes more sense to link to a place when you're talking about a particular item for sale, or a new one you've just made.  So do keep your links relevant (Google loves relevant links).

3. You can become part of a vibrant online community, just by commenting on people's blogs, joining in their giveaways and/or mentioning them on your blog.

4. Your blog can be the hub of your social networking - you can tweet and facebook about your blog posts and invite people round (just like inviting them round for tea and cake!).  You can talk about your latest blog post on forums and gain more readers.


5. It's yours.  You can be yourself, play it your way and just enjoy it.

6. It's a lot of fun.

7. Commit to it and it becomes a motivator.  You need to do or make something to have something to blog about!

8. You can run giveaways and competitions from your blog, and promote them on Twitter, Facebook, by email, etc., which is a great way to bring attention to your shop.


9. It's really satisfying and a big confidence booster to see something you created from scratch become something that people actually want to read!

10. You'll make friends through blogging, some of whom you'll go on to meet in person.

I'm a big fan of blogging (can you tell?) and whether you're about to embark on a blogging journey or you're a seasoned blogger, I hope you found at least one thing that's a little bit motivational in my list reasons to blog.

I think one of the important things to realise about blogging is that it increases awareness of you and your products.  It shows there's a real person behind the shop front - and people buy from people they like.  Your customers will get to feel like they know you by reading your blog.

Do you have any more reasons to blog?  Let me know by leaving a comment.

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Wendy,
I love your ideas for this new blog. I will be following you closely as I hope to get back to blogging myself.

Wendy said...

Thanks Maria - I hope to see you back in blogland before too long xx

Jan said...

Gosh Wendy, you are keeping so busy, it's always good to hear about business ideas and seo's and all manner of new fangled techie type thingies so I'll certainly be following too.
Good luck with it all :o)

Jan x

Fiddly Fingers said...

Definitely be following. I don't know how you do it but you've given me something to aspire to! Good luck. Oh and sorry for the late link to Handmade Monday but I've been away for the weekend and my husband was supposed to post it and he forgot!! Typical!

Polly Polkadot said...

Good luck with your new venture, I'm looking forward to following it.

Adaliza said...

Great news Wendy - I love the way everyone's developing and exploring new ideas. It's really good to have something interesting to read too.

Pickle Lily said...

What a great idea (yet another one) Wendy. I'm following.
Jo x

Penny said...

Yes, my blog changed my life, for all the reasons above...

Wendy said...

It's great to have you on board, ladies. Blogs do change lives, don't they Penny?

jo silver stuff said...

How fab! Well I'm deffo following and I'm going to give the world of blogging ago on my new website Jo x

Wendy said...

Jo, that's excellent news. It's a fab way to drive traffic to a new website. I'll look forward to reading it x

dorota poreba said...

I agree :) I've just started blogging and I've already noticed that I'm much more motivated to sew as I want to show something new. And since then I also discovered many other fantastic blogs. The Internet is full of creative people!

Lynne said...

Hi Wendy, I arrived at your blog via Planet Penny, and am finding lots of good ideas already.

My blog is relativley new, but already I'm totally enjoying the experienced, and am amazed at where my readers are coming from!

I certainly am more motivated to get down to it stitching-wise, as I want to have fresh ideas and visual goodies to blog about. At the moment I'm concentrating on craft fairs so have no online business to market. Regardless, your blog is still inspring me!