Today, I received a “fabulous” question and thought I’d answer it for you, here in the blog…

“I’m a single proprietor of my design business. I am the sole senior designer with another assistant designer working with me. I’m completely busy with my projects and running my business.

 Recently I considered design Sherpa to run a blog for me. Are you familiar with them? What do you think of them? They tell me I will have to invest very little time and they will post something for me every week in fact twice a week for $475 per month.

 At first I was enthusiastic about working with them but after viewing several sample entries that they said they would post under my name it was clear to me I would have to supervise most if not all entries to have it reflect who I am and my unique style as a designer. I also don’t want to get random questions that I have to answer as has been my experience on Houz.

 What do you suggest to designers? Is there a way to have a blog and spend a minimum amount of time (what is the recommended posting each month?) without making life as a designer more clogged up with “must do’s” that may or may not bring the kind of selective clients (high end) that I target?

 I respect what I’ve read of your postings and would look forward to hearing from you.”

~ Eileen

Hi Eileen,

Such a great question!

Here’s my philosophy when it comes to blogging – I teach how to use your blog as a selling tool that helps you pre-qualify and pre-sell your services, so you get that next job much more easily. A blog is a great way for your prospects to ‘get to know you’ in a non-threatening way.

Your website (and your blog) reveal a lot about you. More than you probably know. Your personality – expressed in the colors you use, the type of work you do, if you have a specialty or a style. If you have video on your site they’ll even get to see your mannerisms, how you talk, if you’re pleasant or funny or personable or uber professional. Different clients want different things.

With that being said, if you yourself are not writing and providing the content for your own blog, I’m guessing it would have to be pretty ‘generic’ so as to work with ‘any’ designer. And it certainly would not reflect who YOU are and what you provide for your clients.

I think that Sherpa does a fabulous job at helping interior designers get their name out there and improve their rankings in the search engines. That is important.

However my blogging philosophy is in providing a more ‘personal touch… when it comes to working with me, my business, what I recommend, etc. My readers get to know me first and foremost through my blog, my ezine and through my videos. If they like what they read and it resonates with them, they get in touch. The same will work for you and your business.

I’ve listed below a few other ways people use their blog for business –

1. SEO – When you blog for SEO purposes, consistent blogging helps you to ‘gain ground’ and boost your ranking in search engines. Google just loves WordPress blogs. The more you provide new content on your blog = the more Google likes you = and they reward you by moving you up in the search engines.

2. Personality – When you blog as a way to reveal your personality and what you do for your clients, your readers get to know you. Ideally, the content you put on your blog is more about you, your business, your ‘take’ on things, your personality, what you recommend, what you don’t like, what happened to you the other day on a project, etc. You see how ‘personal’ that is? When people go on your website to review your services, they want to get to know you, to see what it’s like working with you, how you handled a dilemma, etc.

Finally… one last tidbit of advice… before making your final decision, be sure you spend some time ‘identifying who your IDEAL reader is’. Who do you want to work with? That is your target market. Is it commercial? High end residential? New home buyers? Bargain shoppers? Whatever it is, you’ll want to make sure the content on your blog is exactly what your ideal target market will want to read. If the content is generic or something that would be good for ‘any’ interior designer… you won’t get the kind of results you are hoping for and investing in.

It all depends on your own personal strategy. If you’d like help with your blog, get in touch with me and we’ll talk about how you can get your blog to work for you 24 / 7 in pre-qualifying and pre-selling your next prospect!