Have you thought of creating a blog for your craft business but aren’t sure when and where to start?
You have a voice, an idea, and skills for your crafts — that is really all you need to start a blog for your craft business. However, you felt something’s stopping you, but really, you are just scared to start.
When I first checked blogs of some known craft makers, I was instantly intimidated. These craft bloggers had subscribers, people commenting, fans, newsletters, and even, dare I say it, advertisers! Maybe you’re intimidated as well. If so, here’s my advice: Get over it!
They are normal people, just like you and me, with their own fears and insecurities. In fact, the point of many popular blogs is to share what they know, and equip others to accomplish those same goals.
At some point, these popular bloggers chose to leave their fears behind do their own thing they’re passionate about. So I decided to do the same.
If you want to do the same, I have good news for you. Here are some ideas for participating in the blog-world for your craft business. I’ll kick this off with five tips:
Choosing A Blog Host
There are so many great and free blogging platforms and might give you a hard time on which to choose. Here is a brief list of options.
- WordPress.com
- Blogger.com
- posterous.com
- tumblr.com
So which one is the best???
One platform might work for other bloggers but not for you, so I recommend that you set up test accounts on each or read more about them. After you do this you will develop a natural affinity for one of these…go with your gut.
Here are few articles that might you in your decision:
- Choosing a Blog Platform on ProBlogger
- Which Blogging Platform Should You Use? on wpbeginner
- Choosing a Blogging Platform on bloggingbasics101
Domain Name
Your domain name will help your readers find you so make your domain name obvious. The things you should consider when deciding your domain name are easy to spell names, and avoid pointless additions at all costs. These add-ons include “z” instead of “s”, hyphens (craft-materials -look-here.com is terrible!), numbers instead of letters (especially the letter 0, which is easily confused with ‘o’), and slang or purposely misspelled words.
Design Elements
A dark background and light font is not pleasing to the eyes. Start off with basic colors at first, and then branch out. A good rule of thumb is that your blog should have no more than three colors, and they should blend well together. A white background, black text, and a bright color for headlines, titles, etc will look very nice to blogs in general.
Candy-themed or colourful themes might work for you to match your handicrafts but be careful. Make sure that the text is easy to read and the color is not too flashy. Using Times New Roman or Arial might seem so boring but those fonts are universal for a reason – they are easy to read. If your font is so unique that it is distracting, your content is not what people will remember. However, some templates have customized fonts that are good for reading.
Also, make sure that there is a decent amount of space between posts, or add a divider between posts so that readers won’t get confused.
Start Blogging
Wait… “start blogging”? That was only 3 steps so far… that is too soon!
Yes but it doesn’t matter. You will never know what you’re doing. Try it yourself and start blogging and just get going. You will learn as you go I promise. It’s true that there is more you need to know but you will learn them as you go and learn “on the job”. So, go for it!
Blogging can be a s simple as expanding your ideas from your short posts on Facebook into longer blog posts or posting the videos you make on Youtube into your blog.
If you’re looking to find some kind of value and impact in your blog as a communication tool, it might be useful to know what makes a post share-able, versus those posts that people read and forget.
Here are some tips on how to write a successful craft blog by crafterminds.
Build Trust From Your Target Audience
Another thing that you should think about is building your target audience’s trust to get noticed. A blog is a blog where you share your ideas and others would read it to learn and be empowered. It is not just writing down your experiences without readers or it will just become an online diary.
To do so, find other blogs in your niche and follow them. Soon, you will start developing a following that is interested in the same stuff as you. Find LinkedIn and Facebook groups pertaining to your blog-topic and start participating in the discussions.
And how do you participate in a discussion?
By leaving a comment.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If you publish an article and no one is there to read it, did you really write it? The point is you need to build connections before someone cares enough to come and visit your blog, reads your post and hopefully… leaves a comment.
Comment on the blogs of people that you follow, and get on their radar. Whenever you leave a comment, share it with your friends on Twitter and Facebook. Let them know about this awesome post you’ve discovered and decided to leave a comment on. Yes…what I’m saying is this. Promote the blog which you just visited. Promote it like it’s your own. Share it with the world.
Your comments will be seen by other visitors and if you are insightful, interesting, unique, etc., people will notice and they will come to see your craft business’ blog.
And finally don’t forget to track your progress using Google Analytics. The whole purpose of blogging is to help attract more visitors to your site so track what’s happening, see what content is popular and what people are doing on your site.
That’s it! So what are you waiting for? Start blogging and share your ideas to the world, WE NEED IT!
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