If you're a maker trying sell your handmade
products online you've probably looked
into opening up a blog alongside
your handmade shop.
Now is this something for you?
Is it something that's valuable?
Is blogging dead?
Today we're looking at the pros
and cons of blogging for
your handmade business.
So why is blogging so
great? Well the first thing that comes
to mind is blogging actually gives
you something to talk about.
I know that sounds a little bit weird
but think about it.
When's the last time you've asked yourself: what
am I going to share on my Facebook
page this week?
Or thought to yourself,
you know, "what I'm gonna talk about in my Instagram
caption this weekend?
Or why would I
start an e-mail newsletter - I have
no idea what I would be sending
out to people, I have nothing to tell them
and I'm not just constantly going to tell them
come and visit my shop!
Come and visit my shop!"
Well, blog fixes those
issues for you because it gives
you a content plan,
meaning that every week you have something new
to share to your audience that's a valuable
- that's key! - that's valuable to
them to really
get them to visit your shop again
and come back to your
website or to your blog.
So blogging is
great for that because it actually makes
your marketing much easier
because you have content to share
and something to talk about
on social media
or in your email newsletter.
Another reason blogging is great
is because it gives you an opportunity
to talk about your work,
talk about your product,
talk about the quality of your material,
build trust
with your followers,
your e-mail subscribers
or your blog readers.
Build engagement
with them as well
and tell your brand story
so that when they're ready to buy
they're going to remember you
and not the competition.
Blogging also helps you rank
in search engines
and who doesn't want that?
It's important because every time you put
a new article up on your blog
you put keywords into it that
Google or Yahoo
or Bing or any other search
engine is going to pick
up which means that when someone -
your ideal customer - is looking
for that particular product on Google,
Google is much more likely to say: hey you
check this blog,
they talk about this,
are you interested in reading this page?
And boom! that's traffic that you
wouldn't get if you weren't blogging.
Finally blogging is also a great
tool to help you build
and grow that e-mail list
that I'm always telling
you you should be working on.
Blogging is key to that because
if you give value
to people through your blog articles
by giving them tips
or advice or tutorials
or whatever it is that you decide to blog about
people are going to want more
of that. And how do they do
that? They give you their e-mail address
to go on to your e-mail
list so that they get your newsletter.
So in every single
blog post you should be promoting that
newsletter so that you're sure to grab
that information
and you can keep in touch
with them even more easily
and bring them back to your store
the next time you put a new article on
or next time you've got a sale
or promotion.
So blogging is great for all these reasons.
It helps you build an email list,
it makes your marketing easier because
you actually have something to talk about
to the people you want to reach,
which in turns helps you share
your message across all sorts of platforms
and direct traffic to your store.
And it also helps you rank in search engines
and it can boost your sales because
people connect
with you, you're building trust,
you're taking them behind the scenes
and they start to really connect
with your brand and your product
and eventually buy from you.
So there's a mountain
of reasons why you should be starting a blog
but there's also a few
cons and that's what we're going to look into
now. The first one is it's
very time consuming.
The second one is people
are saying blogging is dead which
we definitely need to talk about.
And the third one is "I'm
already engaging
with my audience on Instagram,
on Facebook
or on YouTube.
Why would I bother?
I mean you blog on top of that."
These are all very valid points
but let's talk about it a little bit more.
The first one was blogging is time-consuming,
and I agree: it's true.
Blogging takes time.
It will require a bit of time commitment
to put that content every week
or every couple weeks
or even every month.
But is it worth it?
That's the question you need to ask
yourself.
I personally believe it is
because of all the reasons
I gave you in the first part of this video.
I do think blogging is an incredible
tool that's going to actually simplify
your marketing strategy
and just for that it's worth the time
that it takes to write a blog
article or shoot a video that
you're going to share.
So when
you see something as being time consuming
really ask yourself: is it worth
the rewards?
In the days of blogging I think it is.
And then the other thing that I feel I have
to tell you is that
is the difference between what the
average shop owner does
and what the shop owner
that's really making it happen
does. That extra mile?
Blogging is part of it.
The second issue
with blogging was that blogging
is dead and that's something that we've been
hearing a lot last year
and so we need to talk about that.
Blogging is not dead
let me tell you.
If you check out
any successful business on
the Internet they
have a blog.
It's because it works
and it's not that blogging
is dead - it's the old way
of blogging that's dead.
But blogging has changed
and evolved
and now it's not all about writing
just long blog articles like we've used to
back in the days.
It's about really creating
different type of content.
You could have videos show
and call that a blog.
You could have a podcast
and put it into your blog on your website.
You could just put pictures
every week and that's your blog.
Blogging just means putting
content out there regularly.
But it doesn't mean that you actually have to write
a book every time you want to send
an article to your followers.
So blogging isn't
dead but the old way of blogging is
which means that you need to adapt
and it's also actually great because
that means that you have more options.
You don't have to write if you hate writing,
you can again have the video show,
you can send
pictures, drawings,
tutorials - whatever it is that
you feel more comfortable doing
and sharing regularly
with your audience,
you can do.
That's what blogging is.
And finally why should
you blog if you're already
engaging with your audience on Facebook
or on Instagram
or any other platform.
The reason for that is that
it's great that you're doing that work,
but the moment YouTube
or Instagram or Facebook
or Twitter or whatever platform you're using,
the moment that platform
changes its algorithm
and you lose your reach
or for some reason you're not ranking the
same way or your post
aren't being shown to as many
followers as they used to,
that's the moment you're going to lose traffic
and sales that you can't control.
So the best way to
do that is to actually have the blog on your
own website,
put your content there
and then share it across your
own platform to bring people back
to your store and to your blog.
But you have to start
with your own domain,
your own URL, so that you're really growing
the audience on that platform
that's yours before you
spread it across social media.
In my opinion you should
start 2018
by opening up a blog if you
don't have one yet.
Now, how often should you
blog? That's a question a lot of people ask me
and I know you guys
have a lot of work already,
lot of marketing work to do,
a lot of product creation to do
and everything is time consuming,
some of you still have another job
and adding a blog
and saying that you're gonna blog twice a week is
really just not going to happen.
So don't set the bar too high,
especially if you're just starting out.
It's not an issue that you're not blogging every
week at all.
You can blog once a month
really and that's enough as long
as you commit to
a deadline and you really do it.
So don't go and say to your followers:"hey,
I'm blogging every week"
and then they don't hear from you for months.
Just do it consistently so that
they expect to get
news from you
and they know when they're going to
get those news.
So that's my advice.
Consistency here is more important
than doing it often.
I hope this video helped you understand
why blogging is so important.
I would love to take the conversation down
in the comments so if you disagree,
if you think that blogging is not relevant
or if you actually want to start a
blog after you've watched this let me
know. I would love to interact
with you below
and I read every single comment
and if you like this video subscribe to
my channel every Tuesday I come
up with a new video to help you start,
grow and profit from your
handmade shop. I'll also put a link just
below this video to my free
resource library for
makers and handmade shop owners.
It is full of practical worksheets
and books and guides
and all sorts of really
great, valuable content that's free
to help you grow your handmade shop.
So go and check it out
and I'll put the link just below.
The link is www.tizzit.co/free Have
a great week guys
and I'll talk to you soon!
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