One of the most common complaints I hear from small business owners who are trying to get onboard with the internet age is that blogging just takes up too much of their time!
Believe me when I say, I can certainly understand where they are coming from, but I also know that for almost every business, there is usually a viable shortcut. This week I’d like to talk about one of those viable shortcuts that can be incredibly useful for craftsmen and trades people.
If you are running a painting or interior decorating business, or you have a building company, or even if you are an artist; in fact, if you have any business that consists of transforming physical reality, you can easily boost your online presence with photo blogging.
Taking a few pictures at various stages of the project can give you a great way to tell a visually engaging story of transformation and evolution. When you add the photo to a new post you simply write a short paragraph about that particular stage of the project. In your writing make sure to give yourself a nice pat on the back which will reinforce your desired brand identity and dont forget to include some of your more important keywords.
This simple task can be completed in as little as 5 or 10 minutes and it kills three or four birds with one stone if your blog is set up correctly.
Now I know that is not too much time to spend on building your online presence, but I can already hear my favorite clients saying, “Sure, that’s just great! One more thing to remember on the job! I’m busy enough already!” Well fear not! I have a solution for even the least motivated online marketers (which is most of the small business owners I know).
I’m willing to bet you have a cell phone with an alarm and it probably has a camera too! This magical device that connects you to the world and pesters you at all hours of the day while you are trying to focus on accomplishing your daily tasks, is actually the perfect ally in your online marketing adventure!
Just set a couple of daily alarms. One to go off at some point during your regular working hours as a reminder to take a picture and a second for later in the day to remind you to post it on your blog.
Now when that first alarm goes off, you have to grab your phone to silence it, so just take the next step and switch to camera mode and look around. Take a moment to find the interesting aspects of your current project. What makes it unique. Are there any unusual challenges? If you were trying to pass on your knowledge of the trade to an apprentice, what would you want them to know? Take a couple pictures of things that might allow you to share some of the finer points of your craft and then put your phone away.
Later, when you’re second alarm goes off, you have to grab the phone to silence it again! While you are at it, simply open your picture and use your phone to email it to yourself. Then go to your computer or open your laptop and post the picture. You’ve had a while to think about this project and you have the benefit of hindsight since you took the picture earlier in the day, so a short paragraph should almost jump out of you.
Simply publish the post and you are done. You have updated your blog, increased your online presence, offered your clients added value, increased your brand’s association with expertise and benefited your SEO. Your blog might even post to your various social media platforms!
Eventually it will become second nature and you will be posting so regularly you wont need an alarm any more, but by that point you may need to hire more people!
Blogging is one of the most important things you can do for your SEO, and photo blogging is a great option for tradesmen, craftsmen, designers, architects and artists.
If you’d like help setting up your business’ blog to make sure that your photo blogging is both easy and effective, contact me here!
