Getting started
Choosing a blogging platform is your first challenge. There are lots of free options out there, including WordPress, Tumblr, TypePad, and Blogger. All of them offer free design themes so that you can customize your own blog, so it’s straightforward to get started. And if you’re not sure how to use them? There’s plenty of online video tutorials to be found on the web – for example, WordPress has its very own lesson list to help get you started.
Consider integration
From an SEO point of view, it’s worth getting your blog integrated with your existing website to build content and make the search engines love you even more. After all, SEO (search engine optimization) is all about content. But if you’re not able to do this or can’t afford to hire a web developer to sort, then start a free blog and make sure you include links to your main website or other links, for example, to your artistic portfolio.
Find a niche
When choosing a creative topic to blog about, try to find a niche. Make your blog about something particular, and you’ll please both the search engines and your readers. Try not to be too general and really focus on one specialist topic and stick to it. Find your own niche and go for it – remember to stay on topic.
Write about what you love.
Write about something you love. Otherwise, you’ll show no passion in your writing. And if there’s no passion, your content will suffer, so find a topic you are comfortable with and only write about that. For example, if you’re a museum curator, talk about the industry, emerging trends, and other museums or exhibitions you love. And if you’re a theatre director, you could write about industry folk you admire or share your working day with your followers.
Offer value
It goes without saying, but if you don’t provide something the public wants, your creative blog will never succeed. Give people what they’re after and offer real value to their web browsing experience. What do I mean by this? Well, value is demonstrated in the content you publish. If your content isn’t, valuable people won’t read it or return to read more. Really think about what you’re putting out there and give the people what they want.
Focus on marketing
If you launch a blog, you won’t get anywhere and hope that people will come without any marketing effort. You have to market your blog actively, and you can do that in a variety of ways. You can start chatting with other bloggers by leaving valuable comments on other people’s blog posts – this will help draw people back to your own site. Or you can make use of the search engines and write about topics that are popular in the searches, like this very feature. Or you could even offer to contribute to influential e-zines or blogs to help raise your profile. Whatever you choose to do, get out there and market yourself like mad. There’s really no excuse not to.
Encourage interaction
Get people talking on your blog. Ask them to add their comments on various articles, as I’ve done with this post. Encourage interaction wherever possible. Ask for feedback, respond to people’s contributions, build a community and be nice. People love to interact, so make sure you’re friendly and welcoming.
Make commenting easy
Just be aware that there are many reasons why people might not comment on your blog posts. It could be anything from not providing easy access to log a comment to writing about negative things people don’t want to be a part of. Bottom line? Make commenting easily accessible and write about stuff that gets people talking positively. If people can interact on your blog, they’ll keep coming back for more The Haze.
