One of my favorite web designers, Emily Thompson, asked me to participate in her blog tour on how my website has affected/grown my business.
Well, that’s easy. I wouldn’t have a business without a website.
Seriously.
It’s how I’ve launched all of my products and courses. It’s how I’ve “met” the majority of my customers. It’s how I’ve shown people that I know what I’m talking about.
Without my website, I can’t tell you where I’d be. It’s unimaginable to me.
Starting my blog changed everything for me.
Within a few months, I had hundreds of readers. People who otherwise wouldn’t know anything about me or what I offer.
I connected with my business partner, Mayi Carles, through my blog.
Etsy “found me” through my blog and featured many of my blog posts and asked me to speak at the first Etsy Success Symposium.
Kimberly Palmer, author and journalist, read my blog and loved it. She interviewed me for U.S. News and World Report and featured my business in her book, The Economy of You.
One of the executive producers of creativeLIVE, Elizabeth, checked out my blog when thinking about asking me to lead a workshop for them. Obviously, she liked what she read, right?
My blog is my place to be me, share my ideas with the world and connect with other creative minds. It’s my online home. It’s my brand.
Now, here’s the thing you’ve got to realize: I started waaaay before I was ready. I started with a shoddy web design and hired that out six months later.
I didn’t know exactly what topics I was going to cover or what my blog posts would look like. I didn’t know much about my target market or what I’d sell. I just started with one blog post and grew from there.
If you’re waiting until everything is perfect, you’ll be waiting forever. It’s much better to learn as you go. You’ll figure it out. But, you’ve got to start somewhere.
What’s the next step you need to take to establish your online home? Or, what’s the next step you need to take to use your website to grow your business?
This blog post was part of a blog tour that has ended.
Oof! My online home needs some serious juice. I like the design, basically, but need *way* more images on there. I have a loose agreement with a photographer, so I have to make that a little less loose and get those pictures up.
I also have to get my products/services detailed and online, so that my potential clients can actually see how to become clients…and I need to create a page to put all of my favourite posts up for new readers too…and and and and!!
I could go on for a while here, BUT I’m learning to manage my goals a little bit more…patiently 😉
xo
K
Yay!!! These are some great goals! Especially getting your products and services detailed so that people know how to give you money. That one should go to the top of the list. 🙂
I attended your workshop on CreativeLive and what immediately impressed me was your photos. You do a wonderful job of infusing personality into your website with those creatively shot photographs of still life and the photos of yourself sprinkled throughout. I also think the fact that your design is simpler than a lot of those websites that are so ADD with all of the links and ads everywhere really helps too. 🙂
Thanks Mary! That’s so sweet. I hate websites that have waaaaay too much going on. Simple is better. Much better in my opinion. 🙂
Every day is a work in progress. I have a never-ending list of little things I want to do to improve my website, and I do bits and pieces of it here and there. I think my blogging has evolved immensely in the past couple years (and especially since i took BFYCB!), but I think I’m still a little unfocussed at times, and I definitely still worry too much about the numbers!
I think we’ve all got those never-ending lists. I’m not sure if that ever goes away. 😉
Building your blog is fantastic. I have worked on mine a lot and I have got jobs from it, so that is a definitely bonus. Not really sure where I need to go from here, but I am letting it all develop. The course sounds interesting, though I live in Australia and I often find things that work in the US don’t work here, different culture and people.
It is good hearing others talking about how good blogging has been for them, I have found it to be an incredibly rewarding experience. Thanks April.
That’s interesting! I’ve worked with lots of people who live in Australia and they’ve never mentioned that to me. I have a world-wide readership so I think it works for a lot of different cultures. So glad you’ve found blogging to be a rewarding experience!
Hi
Thanks for the inspiration, thanks to which I have already my on-line home.
Milena
Awesome!
Thanks for the article, April, since I am full of doubt today.
I was just wondering recently if blogging regularly actually worked (other than for self fulfillment).
What I wonder about is how in the heck do people FIND you? Meaning, how do people even know you exist if the internet is so vast?
Ok, say you blog everyday but if you aren’t on Facebook, Instagram, twitter, do people still find you anyway? I also wonder if being found has to do with a person’s age group (18-30ish), since they seem to read blogs the most. (Or am I wrong?)
My target audience is older (about 35ish-40ish & up). Do they even read/subscribe to blogs???
It absolutely works! You have to market you blog just like you would an online shop. Yes, social media is a part of that, but also guest posting, interviews and features work really well. Creating such great content that it spreads via social sharing and word of mouth.
The majority of my readership is late 20s to early 40s. And, I’ve worked with lots of clients with an older target audience. More people are moving to online shopping and reading blogs. You can definitely reach your audience online.
Have you checked out my course on creativeLIVE? I detail how to ensure that the right people find and read your blog. (They’re doing a free rebroadcast on July 16th) https://www.creativelive.com/courses/write-successful-creative-blog-april-bowles
Oh, thanks for the info, April! You are right! I kind of knew that answer. already, even after hitting Submit Comment…This morning was one of my *doubt everything* days, that’s all………
I’ll definitely re-watch your creative live course (I saw only bits&pieces the 1st time). Plus I am curious to see what you were wearing the last day. You got lots of compliments for that dress 😉
Having my blog/website “perfect” has been the thing holding me back. I have felt this need to just have EVERYTHING out there all at once, even though I know it will take a lot of time to get there. I’m also not 100% thrilled with my design, and have been exploring ways that I can change it. It gives me a nice boost to know that my expectations are quite unrealistic, and that it’s ok to get it all done at my own pace. Eventually, I think I’ll figure out the direction I want to go as well…right now, it all seems like I’m throwing paint on the wall and hoping it will stick. 🙂
I’ve been getting tons of inspiration from you and your older posts lately, and I cannot thank you enough for the wealth of information that you’ve shared!
Thanks Christy! I think “perfection” holds a lot of us back. It stopped me from creating Blacksburg Belle for about six months. I didn’t have thousands of dollars to hire a web designer so I thought “what’s the point?” and “I should wait until I can afford exactly what I want.” Finally, I just started and I wish I would’ve done it waaaaay sooner. You’ll get there!
Okay April, you really gotta stop reading my mind girl!
I’ve just spent the morning updating and tweaking my website, the content etc to make it more true to me. I’m no web designer (the main design was done by one though) but I’m learning to do more of the little tweaks myself everyday.
My website really has become my home. It’s my online presence, it gets you to my portfolio, blog, shop, about me, social media and more! It needs to reflect me.
I’m still working my way through alot of the content from your CreativeLive (because holy crap batman, there’s alot of it!) but i know that this will make a HUGE difference to both how I feel about my blog and online home but also that it will be huge in presenting my self to and connecting with my amazingly awesome target market.
I still have a long way to go to get things to where I want them to be on the blog but I’m working on it a little more everyday. I also have some serious work to do on my shop, social media strategy (like have one), and my newsletter/opt-in but every day I’m putting one foot in front of the other.
It’s really nice to be able to do some of those small tweaks by yourself. I don’t like having to wait on web designer every time I want to change something, so I’ve learned to do some of that stuff, too.
I love that you’re putting one foot in front of the other each day. That’s the best strategy to have cause those small changes really add up over time.
There’s no such thing as a perfect blog/site. As you mentioned, you improve it as you go. A great thing with optimizing blogs, especially if you want your blog to rank high on organic search, is to use SEO plugin if you’re using WordPress. SEO plugins help with keywords, make sure the title is relevant to the topic, if you wrote enough content, etc. It’s great, I highly recommend improving the content of any site, high quality content will bring in an interested audience. Thanks for sharing!
Definitely! I think we’ve always got improvements we want to make as we learn and grow.
Hi April,
I’m new to your site and just wanted to say thanks for this article. I started a blog a few months ago to complement my online etsy store and expand my reach. Well I had grand ideas, but right now I feel like I’m not sharing much and just a few “canned” posts that I do weekly on Wednesday and Friday with an occasional share. I need MORE IDEAS! I’m having a hard time allowing my personal stuff to get out there (I’m a rather private person) or trying to find ways to engage the few followers I have.
You noted the creativelive class in an earlier post and I’ve just gone and registered there. Will the class you mentioned being a “free replay” be free for anyone or just those who already purchased the class?
Thanks again for your posts…I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read and look forward to more good info! 🙂
WELCOME Nalana! So very happy you’re here.
The creativeLIVE team is doing a free rebroadcast of the class on July 16th for anyone, but if you purchased then you have anytime access and can watch it whenever and wherever. 🙂 Plus, you get access to the workbook and done for you resource book which you don’t get when watching it for free.
Once The world and pictures of animals wage war
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